For many, the banner waving at classical music’s annual jamboree evokes pride and a celebration of shared heritage. The discomfort felt by others may have been sharper this year as Promenaders heading to South Kensington shared the streets with the flag-draped hordes who had come to town in support of far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Inside the Royal Albert Hall, however, all was good-natured inclusivity, with pennants from around the globe dotting a sea of bunting from the UK and EU. Perhaps that was the diversity organisers were hoping to capture in a hodgepodge programme where 20-or-so disparate composers battled for attention.
Inevitably there was good and bad. A definite plus was Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan making an auspicious Last Night debut. A firecracker on the podium, she piloted her forces through a series of orchestral and choral showcases. There was Mussorgsky’s first attempt at A Night on the Bare Mountain, a riot of imaginative ticks and quirks for those familiar with Rimsky-Korsakov’s interventionist rearrangement. Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice worked his magic, and there was a rip-roaring account of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture whose Soviet Technicolor brilliance felt like John Williams on steroids.
Another asset was British soprano Louise Alder who, with limber tone, exquisite top notes and a relaxed, communicative manner, delivered a sparkling Jewel Aria from Faust and a deeply felt Vilja from The Merry Widow. In Rule, Britannia!, the vocal line was more richly decorated than her stylishly restrained Union Jack dress. She even turned in a creditable Eliza Doolittle in a medley from My Fair Lady.
There was a poignant farewell from trumpeter Alison Balsom who, at just 46, has put her retirement down in part to lack of repertoire. Hummel’s amiable concerto showed her at her best in the galloping finale. There were finds too, including Arthur Benjamin’s Elgarian Storm Clouds’ Cantata, composed for Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much with a climactic cymbal crash designed to mask the sound of an assassin’s bullet.
On the minus side, new music felt somewhat marginalised. At six minutes, Camille Pépin’s Fireworks did what it said on the tin, but while Rachel Portman’s The Gathering Tree boasted a catchy faux folk tune, it was dogged by some clumsy word setting. A souped-up classical arrangement of Queen’s 50-year-old Bohemian Rhapsody raised more laughs than goosebumps despite featuring Brian May on guitar and Roger Taylor banging Britain’s largest gong.
For celebrity turns, it was left to comedian and Strictly winner Bill Bailey to save the day, playing a mean typewriter in Leroy Anderson’s eponymous bonbon. “This is in A, right?” he joked, before popping up later for Auld Lang Syne on the Albert Hall organ. Is there anything the man can’t do?
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