A Heavenly Send-off to First Night of the Proms

Photo by Samuel Sianipar on Unsplash

The first night of the Proms, 'the World's greatest classical music festival', at the Royal Albert Hall, had a heavenly send-off last Friday with Finzi's 'ceremonial ode' for St Cecilia, the (albeit legendary) patron saint of music, closing the scheduled works of the evening.

Cecilia is figured as the divine source of musical inspiration and the ode celebrates English composers as diverse as the Catholic Byrd, the Protestant Merbecke, Dowland, Purcell and Handel.

Set to some often portentous Augustan-toned verse by Edmund Blunden, the piece received its premiere on St Cecilia's Day (22nd November) 1947 in the very home of the Proms, the Albert Hall, conducted by Adrian Boult.

Chaucer recounted the legendary life of the Roman martyr St Cecilia in his Second Nun's Tale - a poetic re-inscription of the account in The Golden Legend.

And the great Catholic poet Alexander Pope focused on the musical saint's ability to 'lift the soul to heaven' in his 'Ode on St Cecilia's Day'.

Finzi himself followed in the tradition of previous musical odes dedicated to the saint by Purcell and Handel, the latter's to verse by Dryden.

The BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the dynamic Dalia Staveska, delivered both a full-bodied and discerning interpretation of Finzi's complex, maximally lyrical composition. Bold brass fanfares and strong percussion at times made way for the sensitive and richly expressive tenor solo of Thomas Atkins.

In addition to St Valentine ('for love's adventure'), three English saints are named:

St George … in war's iron gleams,

St Dunstan whose red tongs clipt Satan's powers,

St Swithin with his forty days of showers [would that were the case, complains our arid land]

The piece revels both in 'merrie England' and imperial nostalgia:

But where in all the saintly company

Is one beloved beyond melodious Cecily?

Through the West re-echoing genius vied

In making music where her clear notes guide.

Folksong-inspired melody and lyrical, pastoral soundscapes of rich tonal colour resonated with Elgar and Vaughan Williams and the orchestral ode ended very affectingly indeed. Cecilia's dream 'bears the world along,/Blest in the life of universal song.'

At the start of the evening, Aaron Copland's Second World War Fanfare for the Common Man launched the Proms' season-long celebration of American music, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Next came George Gershwin's jazz-infused streetscape (amusing parping horns and jolly ditties) An American in Paris, famously brought to life by Gene Kelly in the later musical of the same name.

And then the French composer Ravel's similarly jazz-inspired Piano Concerto in G Major was performed with delicacy and elan by the wonderful South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim.

Josephine Stephenson's World premiere That the sunshine leave us not unmoved channelled Emily Dickinson's ecstatic engagement with nature to cope with pain and suffering in the present, realising that 'infinity exists in the smallest things' just as Mother Julian of Norwich did in her insight into the hazelnut ('It is all that is made … All things have their beginning by the love of God'). The work resonated with Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'inscape' too - 'there lies the dearest freshness deep down things' - ending with the words: 'this world/is not conclusion/ /invisible/positive/something stands/beyond.'

Stephenson wrote of 'making space for a moment of reflection and communion, experiencing that true joy of playing and listening to music together in numbers, on a summer evening.'

And joy and communion there came with an unexpected encore. Staveska launched into a hugely stirring orchestral rendition of 'Wonderwall' by Oasis with the whole host of the BBC Singers and the entire auditorium singing in unison, singing the English football team's World Cup anthem, and sharing the love.

This was a delightfully varied First Night characterised by virtuoso playing across the entire orchestra, superb singing, and was a great start to the season.

LINK

BBC Proms 2026: www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2026