6 October 2002
The Ninth Prommers' Prom - after the Last Night
The Proms Programme this year didn't provide us with enough consecutive weekend afternoons without concerts. Obviously we don't complain about having too much of a good thing, but it also meant we couldn't put a concert together during the Season itself.
Instead, we gathered in Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road (Albert's Parish Church where the Prommers' Thanksgiving Service was held on the morning after the earlier Last Night. We have rehearsed in this church on many previous occasions, so it was nice to use the excellent acoustics for a performance.
The programme centred round the third stage of our journey through the year with Haydn, so a date in the Autumn turned out to be more appropriate. We were not to know when we this project that between our Summer and Autumn, one of the major activities that Haydn and the Scottish poet Johnson celebrated would have been made virtually illegal.
We began and ended with a work to celebrate the Jubilee. The first performance of the the last work (in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953) was considered so important that the Queen attended. It was suggested that she walked out during it but that was not true, she waited until she had been crowned first.
Before a work almost celebrating its own jubilee, we started with one which was written for the year - and performed by its composer's village choir. He then orchestrated it for us so we had a world premier.
For many, the highlight of the evening was the performance by Oliver Manning, a steward in the Albert Hall, of Shostakovich's 2nd Piano Concerto.