Proms 2012ReviewRoyal Albert Hall, LondonWhat have been your proms highlights? Talk about the season here
This was Jiří Bělohlávek's last Last Night of the Proms, and his final date as the BBC Symphony Orchestra's chief conductor – a post he has held with distinction for six years. His rapport with his players was clear not only in their easy responsiveness to his beat over what was an endurance test of a programme, but also in the depth of tone they brought to Dvořák's Carnival overture, and their engaged accompaniments to violinist Nicola Benedetti's performances of Bruch's First Concerto and Shostakovich's Tchaikovsky tribute, the Romance from The Gadfly.
Equally apt was Bělohlávek's gently humorous speech and his encouragement of the audience participation – both easy to misjudge, but on this occasion registering as charmingly benign; this was a lively Last Night that never threatened to become too raucous.
With more than 15 items to get through, it was – as usual – a patchwork, yet with highlights along the way, not least some particularly graceful playing from Benedetti and Joseph Calleja's sensitively voiced performances of tenor arias by Verdi, Puccini and Massenet. Their duet – a slightly mad arrangement of Leoncavallo's Mattinata in which Benedetti scarcely had anything interesting to do – didn't really come off; nor did Delius's drowsy Songs of Farewell, which seemed a fairly dutiful nod towards a composer anniversary. But Sparks, Mark Simpson's short new opener, lived up to its title in its brief, breezy way.
A stroke of genius was the evening's emotional and visual climax – bringing on to the platform gold- and silver-medal-winning members of Team GB and ParalympicsGB as part of the patriotic bonanza that forms the traditional grand finale; all that was missing was for the Queen to abseil down from the gallery and lead the singing of Rule, Britannia! herself. Maybe next year.
Available on iPlayer until Saturday.
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