The Guardian view on the Proms: British artists to the rescue
The BBC Proms, the last night of which is on 11 September, are on their way to achieving the near impossible: an almost complete season, with live audiences, despite the pandemic.
London’s Royal Albert Hall may have been quieter than usual, but it has still welcomed audience members who are double-vaccinated, or have tested negative, by the thousands into its expansive auditorium. In the meantime, millions have listened to the broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, or watched the concerts on iPlayer or on television.
Beneath the smooth surface, there
have been many last-minute programme changes and artist swaps, as conductors and soloists booked to travel from overseas have encountered obstacles. On a number of occasions, UK-based artists have stepped in to fill the breach. In fact, the whole season, if one were so minded, might be seen as a tribute to the excellence of British orchestras, which – with the exception of the Berlin-headquartered Mahler Chamber Orchestra – have been the mainstay of this year’s season. That not only goes for the BBC orchestras, which always provide the concerts’ backbone, but also smaller, younger ensembles, such as Chineke! and the Manchester Collective.
In fact, the 2021 BBC Proms could be seen as a legitimate excuse for a modicum of national pride, though with an acknowledgment that, in “normal” years, it is the festival’s gathering together of the very best musicians from across the world that makes it the substantial event that it is. Even this year, the festival has been immeasurably enriched, indeed made possible, by visiting artists. In 2020, though, when the Proms were much reduced and performed without live audiences, any such potential pride was brushed aside by an ugly attack on the BBC from the right, after it was reported that Land of Hope and Glory and other Last Night of the Proms favourites would probably be performed without words. The BBC said that this was an artistic decision – with no one in the audience, it made no sense to attempt works in a form reliant on a mass singalong. The BBC was, however, suspected of taking the opportunity to suppress – in the summer of Black Lives Matter protests – some of the uglier lyrics of Rule, Britannia! (which would have anyway been an honourable position to take). The prime minister sensed an excellent opportunity to cast the corporation as a “woke” stronghold. Then the new BBC director general commanded a U-turn. The words were sung, a touch awkwardly, by the BBC Singers.
It was an unedifying episode. Looking back on it a year later, it seems even more futile and absurd. The Last Night of the Proms is a cultural flashpoint, despite the fact that its “timeless” traditions were largely invented after the second world war by the conductor Malcolm Sargent, years after the Proms were founded in 1895. What is sad about such episodes is that they leave a long shadow, a kind of stain. No doubt that is exactly what some on the right intend. But at least such attacks can be seen, with some perspective, for what they are: one-sided skirmishes in the Tories’ empty culture wars. And, fundamentally, nothing much to do with the Proms.