The Best of British Music at the Proms

In this programme we're going to delve into it treasure trove

filled with some of the best loved pieces of music

by British composers.

Works performed at London's Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms.

To start, the most famous work by George Frideric Handel.

Though German by birth,

he took up permanent residence in London in 1712.

His anthem Zadok The Priest was first heard in Westminster Abbey

at the coronation of George II in 1727

and has been performed at every coronation since

at the moment of the sovereign's anointing.

# Zadok the priest

# And Nathan the Prophet

# Anointed Solomon King

# And all the people rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# And all the people rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# And all the people rejoiced

# Rejoiced

# Rejoiced and said

# God save the King!

# Long Live the King!

# God Save the King

# May the King live for ever

# Amen, Amen, Alleluia

# Alleluia, Amen

# Amen

# Amen, Amen, Alleluia, Amen

# God save the King

# Long live the King

# May the King live for ever

# Amen, Amen, Alleluia

# Alleluia, Amen

# Amen

# May the King live

# May the King live

# For ever, for ever

# For ever, Amen, Amen

# Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen

# Amen

# Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen

# Amen, Amen

# Amen, Amen

# Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen

# Long live the King

# God save the King

# Long live the King

# May the King live

# May the King live

# For ever

# For ever, for ever

# Amen, Amen

# Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen

# Amen

# Amen, Amen

# Amen

# Amen, Alleluia, Amen

# Alleluia, Amen, Alleluia

# Alleluia. #

APPLAUSE

Harry Christophers conducting The Sixteen

and The Orchestra of The Sixteen

and the Coronation anthem Zadok The Priest by Handel.

The best-known aria from Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas

is sung by Dido Queen of Carthage.

When she's abandoned by her lover, the Trojan hero Aeneas,

Dido prepares the death and sings When I Am Laid In Earth.

Sarah Connolly, at the Last Night of The Proms in 2009,

sings Dido's Lament.

# Thy hand Belinda

# Darkness shades me

# On thy bosom let me rest

# More I would but Death invades me

# Death is now a welcome guest

# When I am laid

# Am laid in earth

# May my wrongs create

# No trouble

# No trouble in thy breast

# When I am laid

# Am laid in earth

# May my wrongs create

# No trouble

# No trouble in thy breast

# Remember me

# Remember me

# But ah! Forget my fate

# Remember me

# But ah! Forget my fate

# Remember me

# Remember me

# But ah! Forget my fate

# Remember me

# But ah! Forget my fate. #

APPLAUSE

Sarah Connolly and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

conducted by David Robertson.

Dido's Lament by Henry Purcell.

Benjamin Britten,

the greatest home-grown composer of the 20th century,

used a theme by Purcell in his Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra,

which he was commissioned to write for an education film.

As the work progresses,

the various sections of the orchestra demonstrate the sound they produce

and then, at the end, they come together as one musical unit.

Here's Purcell's opening theme and then the dramatic finale.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The climax of Britten's Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra

played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra,

conducted by Edward Gardner.

We look to the heavens next in Gustav Holst's Planets suite,

by far his best known work.

This is Jupiter the Bringer of Jollity,

which, at its heart, has the melody Holst also used

for the patriotic song I Vow To Thee My Country.

APPLAUSE

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin,

playing Jupiter from The Planets, by Holst.

In Victorian times, WS Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan

were masters at uniting words and music

in a comic and often highly entertaining way.

Their skill brought them enormous success.

This is a number from their Japanese inspired operetta Mikado

with contemporary words for the Last Night of the Proms in 2004.

Sir Thomas Allen has a "little list".

# As someday it may happen That a victim must be found

# I've got a little list I've got a little list

# Of society offenders Who may well be underground

# And who never would be missed They never would be missed

# There's pestilential nuisances Who write for autographs

# Or people who have flabby hands And irritating laughs

# Or children who won't speak Without a Walkman on their head

# But can e-mail, text and download Without getting out of bed

LAUGHTER

# And violinists who on wearing wet T-shirts insist

LAUGHTER

# They'd none of them be missed They'd none of them been missed

# He's got them on a list He's got them on a list

# And they'll none of them be missed They'll none of them be missed

# For purists who insist that Piano music stops that Brahms

# I've got a little list I'll make them sit through Liszt

LAUGHTER

# Butlers who up sticks For the American selling her charms

# Who never will be missed He'll certainly be missed

AUDIENCE: Ahh!

Ah!

# And pianists who retire from playing long before they're due

# And merely for the reason that their bus pass has come through

LAUGHTER

# And the mad men whose subject us to the whole of Wagner's Ring

# Scored for rattle, sackbut, viol, kazoo and all that kind of thing

LAUGHTER

# And the Prommers who can't stand up straight

# Because there are always p...

CHEERING, LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

# ..partying!

LAUGHTER

# Who have a little list I've got you on the list

# He's got them on the list He's got them on the list

# And they'll none of them be missed They'll none of them be missed

# And that nisi prius nuisance Who just now is rather rife

# The judicial humorist Lord Hutton's on the list

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# All funny fellows, comic men And clowns of private life

# They'd none of them he missed They'd none of them been missed

# And apologetic statesman Of a compromising kind

# Such as what d'you call him, thing-a-me-bob

# And likewise, never mind

# And sl... What's-his-name And also you-know-who

# The task of filling out the blanks I'd rather leave to you

Where do you begin?

LAUGHTER

# But it really doesn't matter Whom you put upon the list

# For they'd none of them be missed They'd NONE of them being missed!

# You may put them on the list You may put them on the list

# And they'll none of them be missed They'll none of them be missed. #

APPLAUSE

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and chorus and Sir Thomas Allen,

conducted by Leonard Slatkin in the Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan.

A complete change of mood now

as we hear from Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Nimrod is often heard as a piece in its own right,

especially on solemn occasions,

perhaps most notably at the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London

on Remembrance Sunday.

Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations,

played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,

conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

In the aftermath of the First World War,

Elgar reflected musically on the changed world in his Cello Concerto,

it was his last major work.

In the 1960s the piece found new audiences

with the a celebrated recording by Jacqueline du Pre.

We hear the second movement scherzo, played by Paul Watkins.

The scherzo from Elgar's cello Concerto.

Paul Watkins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra,

conducted by Jiri Belohlavek

Along with the great hymn Jerusalem, Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory

has become one of England's unofficial national anthems.

The tune came first, The Pomp and Circumstance March Number One.

The words were added later.

Land of Hope and Glory is a regular part of the Last Night of the Proms,

sung by great gusto by thousands of people in the Royal Albert Hall

and across the road at Hyde Park.

# Land of Hope and Glory Mother of the Free

# How shall we extol thee Who are born of thee?

# Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet. #

# Land of Hope and Glory Mother of the Free

# How shall we extol thee Who are born of thee?

# Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, I hope you're having a very nice time, eh?

CHEERING

But, to be honest,

I can't really hear anything above the sound of the two piccolos!

LAUGHTER

You don't, you don't really want to go home

and tell all your friends and family

you mumbled through Land of Hope And Glory, do you?

LAUGHTER

BOOING

# Land of Hope and Glory Mother of the Free

# How shall we extol thee Who are born of thee?

# Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet

# God who made thee mighty Make thee mightier yet. #

CHEERING

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March Number One,

conducted by Edward Gardner at the Last Night of the Proms in 2011.

Eric Coates was a great composer of Light Music.

His score the 1955 film The Dam Busters

conjures up the resolve, daring-do and patriotic pride

of one of the greatest operations of the Second World War.

APPLAUSE

John Wilson conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra

in that performance of The Dam Busters by Eric Coates.

Traditional folk tunes have been hugely influential to English music.

At the Last Night of the Proms in 2005

two of the great artists came together

to perform a famous folksong.

Countertenor Andreas Scholl and guitarist John Williams

had never performed together before.

# Down by the salley gardens

# My love and I did meet

# She passed the salley gardens

# With little snow-white feet

# She bid me take love easy

# As the leaves grow on the tree

# But I being young and foolish

# With her did not agree

# In a field down by the river

# My love and I did stand

# And on my leaning shoulder

# She placed her snow-white hand

# She bid me take life easy

# As the grass grows on the weirs

# But I was young and foolish

# And now I am full of tears

# Down by the salley gardens

# My love and I did meet. #

APPLAUSE

Down By The Sally Garden.

Andreas Scholl and John Williams.

We end this programme of Great British music

with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Often performed on its own,

it's the stirring close of the second part of Handel's oratorio

depicting the coming, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Hallelujah Chorus is probably the most widely performed

and best-known piece of British baroque music.

The English concert is conducted by Trevor Pinnock.

# Hallelujah, hallelujah,

# Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

# Hallelujah, hallelujah,

# Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

# For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

# Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah

# For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

# Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah

# For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

# Hallelujah

# For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

# Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

# For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth

# Hallelujah

# The kingdom of this world

# Is become

# The kingdom of our Lord

# And of His Christ And of His Christ

# And He shall reign for ever and ever

# And He shall reign for ever and ever

# And He shall reign for ever and ever

# And He shall reign for ever and ever

# King of kings for ever and ever Hallelujah, hallelujah

# And Lord of lords for ever and ever Hallelujah, hallelujah

# King of kings

# For ever and ever Hallelujah, hallelujah

# And Lord of lords

# For ever and ever Hallelujah, hallelujah

# King of kings

# For ever and ever Hallelujah, hallelujah

# And Lord of lords

# King of kings and Lord of lords

# And he shall reign And he shall reign

# And he shall reign He shall reign

# And he shall reign And he shall reign

# For ever and ever

# King of kings

# For ever and ever

# And Lord of lords

# Hallelujah, hallelujah

# And he shall reign For ever and ever

# King of kings and Lord of lords

# King of kings and Lord of lords

# And he shall reign For ever and ever

# For ever and ever And ever and ever

# King of kings and Lord of lords

# Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah

# Hallelujah. #

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd