End of Proms Service

End of Proms Service

Holy Sepulchre London

It's the morning after the night before [The Last Night of the Proms]. My National Express bus to Liverpool is due to depart London Victoria coach station at 10:30am, and my alarm is set to 9am, so that I can get there on time. This afternoon there is to be a 'End of Proms' church service. Traditionally, I read, this is when Henry Wood's bust is removed from its temporary summer home at the Royal Albert Hall, and placed back at his graveside - his ashes are interred in the Musicians’ Memorial Chapel, so I believe.

This service is to be held at 3-4pm. My initial thoughts were that I would like to retrieve a ticket. However, before this Proms run came about I had booked to see Eric Idle's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life Live! show, at the Liverpool Empire, and this starts at 8pm. No matter, because the service is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and, in a way, it will be nice to tune in that way, because this is how I have done it for most of the run.

When the time comes, I am sitting on the coach and I place my cans on my ears, ready to listen to Radio 3 on my phone. However, there is someone in the seat next to me, Facetiming someone at an inanely loud volume. I can't hear a bloody word of this service. Sod this, I thought, I'll listen back on BBC Sounds when I get back to Liverpool, because there'll be a couple hours of dead time between getting back and the show starting.

After a pint of tank Pilsner Urquell at Albert's Schloss in Liverpool (and a burger at Archie's on Ranelagh Street), I head back to my car which is parked at the Mount Pleasant multi-story. I sit here and press play on BBC Sounds. I have to say, the ambience of the place does not quite live up to the Royal Albert Hall and the like, but nonetheless it's the best I've got - Cinderella's coach thus reverts to pumpkin.

The service plays out for a few minutes, and I am wondering what is going on. The announcer soon butts in to tell us that we are now going across to the choral evening song at the Holy Sepulchre London (I thought we were already there?!). This plays out for a couple of minutes before the broadcast goes silent. After about a minute the announcer says that 'due to ongoing technical issues,' BBC Radio 3 is not continuing with this broadcast, and will instead play something that was recorded the other year.

That's no good for me. To be loyal to the Proms, I am in need of a pointless ritual to mark an end of the season, and thus get closure from what has been eight weeks [nine, to be precise], of Proms listening and blogging. What should I do??

Before attending Eric Idle's show I nip over to a newsagents and buy myself a packet of five Hamlet cigars. Incidentally, I do not smoke. [Toyed with the idea in 2011 when a girl rejected me and I wanted to do something 'rebellious', but nothing since then.]

    I get home about 11pm [Eric Idle was cracker, by the way]. I am still a bit flustered from the proceedings of a long day of travelling and suchlike; but, once I've put the bin out, I sit back down in the living room and kick off my shoes. I play Bach's Air on the G String on my HiFi, lighting a Hamlet cigar with the strike of a single match. For anyone wondering, the level of relaxation was everything the advertising campaign told us it would be. I won't lie to you, I enjoyed it immensely - and for that reason I cut the rest of the cigars in half and put them in the bin.

So, to quote Eric Idle with regard to the anti-climactic finale of the End of Proms service: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life [at least I heard a couple of minutes of it!]

And to quote the Lord's Prayer in regard to Andy's 2025 BBC Proms Marathon: Thy Will Be Done.

Pekka Kuusisto and Katarina Barruk

Pekka Kuusisto and Katarina Barruk
Royal Albert Hall

A fairly regular Sunday routine. The food shop and laundry for the week ahead has been done. I have been trying to clean the house up, and it now looks like a pigsty. 'A Place for Everything, and Everything in its Place' - well, that is the opposite of my current situation. One of those where it will need to look worse, before it looks better.

Otherwise, it is the last day of August, and I cannot help but feel melancholic at the thought of the summer slipping away from us. I have seen and heard a few flocks of Canadian geese flying away over the last week or two, and every time it puts me in a blue mood.

This evening's Prom I play on the kitchen radio, although for tea I'm only having a ready-made butty. [nice than it sounds - M&S deli range]. This afternoon I picked up a craft stout from the Bow-Legged Beagle on Telegraph Road in Heswall, and a Pistachio and Caramel Bar from the M&S there. [Yes, I have succumbed to the pistachio/Dubai chocolate craze this year, being a chocolate lover.]

I look at the roster for tonight's Prom and sigh to myself. It's a mixed bag of tunes which, for me, means it's going to be difficult to document it all. Much easier when it's a long symphony or something like that. I fear also that I am going through a bout of mental fatigue - with the Last Night of the Proms just under two weeks away, I can almost taste freedom from the chains of my own project. But the show must go on, and I transport myself once again to South Kensington via Radio 3.

Tonight it's the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and a vocal performance by Katarina Barruk who, according to the BBC website, is one of the few remaining speakers of the Ume Sámi language. 

I once visited Norway. It was around April 2017. I went on a long-weekend expedition to Tromsø (and as far out as Kilpisjarvi in Finland), on what was a fruitless quest to see the Northern Lights. [As it happened, I had slightly greater success in Runcorn last summer.] One thing I did take away from that trip was a love of Norway; it's people and culture [and Smash! (not the mash) - if you know, you know!].

On to the music itself which, for my own coherence, I need to pool together for it to make sense:

The first vocal performance I can only describe as 'abstract,' but it's only because the language deviates so far from my own mother tongue. Haven't been too enamored with Michael Tippett's tunes so far, and this one doesn't break the rule. But I know instantly when the Phillip Glass starts - who could mistake those repeating string whirls?! The Kendall, Bach, and Shaw all blend into one, so it must have been all right. The Avo Part I almost miss, but it blends neatly into the Shostakovich. And the Shostakovich is as dark as my stout. It sustains the feel throughout. If it's about human injustice, he did it justice. If that makes sense?

We are treated to a very unexpected ukelele and whistling encore. It takes me a few moments to catch myself on but, is that John Lennon's Imagine? It is! What a lovely nod to my home county. As it progresses, some of the audience hum along. Words then emerge! May we all live as one.

Tromsø, 2017

My house, 2025

Danish National Vocal Ensemble (Bristol)

Danish National Vocal Ensemble

Bristol

This Saturday afternoon I caught up with an old friend for a cake-and-coffee in Hoylake. We last got together about seven or eight years ago (funnily enough, at the exact same venue and at the same time of year if memory serves) but we picked things up like it was yesterday. [For posterity: the venue was Barbetta's (formerly 'Toast') on Market St, and I had a latte and a slice of carrot cake].

So it is that I'm listening to rest of today's packed Proms schedule a few hours behind, with thanks to BBC Sounds.

This Prom, as the title suggests, is to be largely choral stuff. For me, this is something of a struggle to put into words, because I'm much more at home with instrumentation. It's the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, and I believe these are the same peeps that so successfully contributed to Beethoven's Ninth at the Albert Hall the other night.

This afternoon in Bristol, however, we start with Bach to set us in the mood. The presenter notes that this piece is thought to be something to do with funerals [I'm sure she puts it more eloquently than that, but I can't remember her exact words]. It's Bach, so it certainly sounds heavenly. 

Second piece is by Ethyl Smyth. Apparently she spent a spell in gaol, and that's something she has in common with Bach! Did not know that - must look it up.

Absolutely clueless as to what to comment as the running order contiunues, except to say that most of it is pleasant, and some of it reminds me of a Christmas choral work I've recently come across and enjoyed, namely Lully, Lulla, Lullay.

Images created with ChatGPT.

András Schiff Plays Bach

András Schiff Plays Bach
Royal Albert Hall

The first of four Proms today. It's going to be tough to keep on top of it all, and my brain isn't capable of retaining this volume of material all in one go. Handy, then, that this morning's Prom at the Royal Albert Hall is a single piece of music, and it's by my probably-favourite composer, Bach (though he does face stern competition from Saint-Saens, Vivaldi, and Grieg).

I've just left the Botanic Kitchen at Ness Gardens, which is where I am to be found nearly every Saturday morning, having coffee with my parents, uncle, siblings, and niece. The music starts when I'm in the car. It's a piano solo, I think. Doesn't seem to be any other instruments. [is it a piano duo?]. And my God, it's divine! Bach always comes up with the goods. I could listen to it all day, which is just as well considering the length of the piece.

I transition form the car to the living room at my parents' house, and allow myself to drift into a semi-unconsciousness as the music plays. It's that type of music, but it does seem to end a bit abruptly and this jolts me from my state of rest. Apparently the last part of the manuscript was lost, so the piece is incomplete. Surely a tragedy felt to this day.

According to the BBC website, Sir András Schiff [the bloke playing the piano], has commented: ‘The greatest work by the greatest composer who ever lived.’ He could well be right.