Last Night of the Proms: musical magic among the blue berets
Roxanna Panufnik takes a bow. Photo: Chris Christodoulou/BBC Well, we needn't have worried. What usually happens at the Last Night of the Proms happened again: differences are put aside, all are welcomed in with flag of whatever hue, and there's one great big jamboree of a musical party, where we get to join in. A few years back (2013, I think, was the last time I was there) it struck me that what actually matters in those audience songs is not the content, but the fact that we're all there and singing together, and singing with the professionals and the orchestra and, in this case, Gerald Finley and Sir Andrew Davis. Nothing brings people together like singing. Goodness knows why, but it's true and you can feel it, palpably. It was a big night. Roxanna Panufnik's beautiful and very atmospheric new Proms commission, Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light, had its world premiere; saxophonist Jess Gillam must surely have shot to superstardom, music poring from every cell;...