The Promenaders have excelled themselves this year. I thought initially they were slightly more docile and slightly less dotty than usual, but no. Not only at the Last Night, but also at the Israel Philharmonic Prom on 1 September, they found their voice — so strongly that the BBC actually suspended the broadcast of the latter. One Prommer told me the atmosphere that night was verging on the violent.
The members of the Israel Philharmonic must have wondered what had hit them. With this concert they were concluding a lengthy worldwide tour, which had passed without a murmur. Suddenly, in the Albert Hall, every piece they played was interrupted with raucous singing, the Webern Passacaglia, for example, with the ‘Ode to Joy’. This was nothing more or less than a political statement, akin to shouting slogans at a rally, only broadcast live. Many of those standing near the objectors took against the interruptions, and for a short moment there was the danger of fisticuffs. It is true that the Philharmonic has publicly allied itself with the regime in Jerusalem — unlike the Jerusalem Quartet, for example — but, as Zubin Mehta pointed out, it gets only 8 per cent of its support from the Israeli government and so it is not exactly representing its political masters. The rest of what it needs comes from the US, a situation which rather neatly sums up the mess that is the international standing of Israel more generally; but to point this out during a Prom took something special.
The noisiness of the Promenaders has caused agonies to the BBC for many years now. The trouble started immediately after the second world war in a combination of nationalistic assertiveness, Sir Malcolm Sargent and the arrival of television. The horror that the first postwar Last Nights caused the officers of the Corporation makes good reading. In 1948 the only patriotic item on the menu was Wood’s ‘Fantasia on British Sea Songs’ which, when conducted by Sargent, caused Stanford Robinson to complain: ‘The good humour of previous generations of Prom-goers seems to have degenerated into hooliganism to a marked degree.’ The answer in 1949 was to try to calm everybody down, with a more substantial programme and a very reserved conductor in Sir Adrian Boult. With hindsight we could have told those responsible what would happen. The Promenaders were loud in their disappointment, Boult was described as ‘the wrong man’ and, for the 1950 Last Night, Sargent was reinstated.
The tumult duly got worse. Sargent introduced Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1’, which made everyone more excitable than ever. The BBC officer in charge wrote that he was ‘dismayed by the frightening emotional orgy’ that resulted, and that for the first time he ‘realised the full extent of the dangers that attend the popularising of music’. Nonetheless the same was allowed to happen in 1951. In 1952 another halt was called, and Sargent made to share the platform. In 1953, with the cameras in attendance, the photogenic Sargent was given further rein; and decided to introduce Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’ and Arne’s ‘Rule Britannia’ in celebration of the Queen’s Coronation. In 1954 all these, including Wood’s ‘Sea Songs’, were back in full splendour. From there, with one or two minor hiccups, the Last Night ‘tradition’ has continued unaltered. So, like many other British traditions, the Last Night does not in fact have very deep roots, though it may not always seem like that. An American visitor was recently heard to say, ‘The Proms, they go back to 1400, right?’
The advent of television had changed everything — or, to put it another way, something very modern soon created a tradition. It separated the Last Night from the non-televised nights and required new things: a flash conductor and immediately approachable music. It also looked good on camera that everyone should be singing — this was one of the reasons why the BBC kept the patriotic songs. And although more Proms than the Last Night are now televised, it has long been accepted that the Last Night is not really part of the series proper. It is an event that has a popularity and a following far in excess of any other concert in the canon, reaching people who otherwise would not bother with the Albert Hall, the Proms or classical music.
For this reason recent attempts to make the Last Night less jingoistic have failed as surely as they did in 1949. Instead, in 1996, the decision was taken to expand the formula, by having a related relay of the event in Hyde Park; now with relays all round the country. Vox pop has won, and I am not sure who minds. Certainly not the BBC. Maybe we should ask the members of the Israel Philharmonic.
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