Last Night of the Welsh Proms

BBC Concert Orchestra
Conductor: Owain Arwel Hughes CBE
Soloist: David Childs
St Davids Hall
Cardiff
Saturday 25th July

Displays of nationalistic jingoism never quite sit easily on Welsh shoulders.

It perhaps explains why it has taken the cultural apparatchiks of the Principality so long in organising a Welsh ‘Last Night of the Proms’.

Hard work

Even though the Welsh Promenade season has now completed its 24th year, its success has been achieved through hard work and an adherence to an eclectic menu of musical tastes. The ‘Last Night’ jamboree of silly hats, inflatable daffodils and subservient adherence to Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ has become a somewhat prescriptive coda to what is becoming an increasingly influential series of concerts. 

The small group of ‘promenaders’ (there is no real Welsh word to describe them) standing at the foot of the St David’s Hall stage, tend to look like a batch of late shoppers waiting for the perishables to be put on sale at Sainsbury’s at the end of the night. 

However, this year, recumbent music lovers got to hear ‘proms’ of Folk and Brazilian, Gamelan, Bollywood, Romantics and Revolutionaries, Choral, Saxophone, Paul Robeson and even James Bond. 

Performers

The performers are an exotic collection too, with the ‘Last Night’ seeing the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of the doyen of Welsh conductors, Owain Arwel Hughes CBE.

Before the musical nonsense began in earnest, there was some excellent music to be heard (much of which with a brass band connection of sorts) and performed – none more so than from David Childs, the featured ‘Concerto’ soloist for the evening.

Flirtatious

The BBC Concert Orchestra delivered a flirtatious ‘Thievish Magpie’, followed by some neat excerpts from ‘Swan Lake’.  Eric Coates’ ‘Elizabeth of Glamis’ seemed a musical exercise though in proletariat forelock tugging meets the ‘Dambusters’ – a weird amalgam portrait of the old Queen Mum in 1950s kitsch.

Star of the night

That was the mere aperitif, as enter the star for the night – resplendent in black tails decorated with swirling silver rococo decoration. By heck, no wonder the ladies took an instant fancy to the lad.

That said, David Childs looked the part, and certainly played the part, with a stunning performance of the world premiere of Karl Jenkins’s ‘Euphonium Concerto’, written, as the composer noted in the programme, in a ‘somewhat quirky and off the wall’ style.

Highly melodic

The four movements of a highly melodic and accessible work certainly drew quirky inspiration – the opening ‘The Juggler’, having a dislocated Iberian feel as if Jenkins was playfully throwing the soloist an additional odd shaped ball to keep in the air every 30 seconds or so.   

The following ‘Romanza’ was a beautifully crafted touch of lyricism, played with understated emotion but with a distinct air of romantic possibilities, whilst the third, ‘It takes two…’, was a lazy tango with a hint of bluesy melancholy, as if Carmen had met Miles Davis in the local boozer on the nearby Caroline Street corner.

The finale was a tour de force bit of Russia meets Cymru in, ‘A Troika? Tidy’ – a playful and witty play on words and music that allowed the performer full rein to showcase his pyrotechnical wizardry with a breathless orchestra in his wake.

At its conclusion the extended applause and cheers were reserved for both the performer (who has an undeniably engaging stage presence) and composer who joined him on stage, in recognition for what was a substantive work that had both surprised and delighted in equal measure.

Good news

The good news is that Karl Jenkins will be scoring the Concerto for brass band in the near future, whilst it will be heard again in this, and wind band format, when David Childs appears in Hawaii and at Carnegie Hall in New York next year.

Witty, and ‘off the wall’ certainly – brilliantly scored and deliciously colourful too; Jenkins is some composer.

Jaw dropping

Before the second half descended into middle class mayhem, there was the chance to hear Gareth Wood’s bubbly ‘Fantasy on Welsh Songs’, as well as David Childs return to produce a delightful cameo on the darkly scored air ‘Tros y Garreg’ (‘Crossing the Stone’) arranged by Tony Small and orchestrated by Rodney Newton.

Not to be outdone by what was to follow though, David Childs put a smile on the faces of an excitable audience with a jaw dropping ‘Hot Canary’, that ensured that the brass band movement’s undisputed star performer had signed up a new legion of fans.

It put the individual seal on a superb performance from a superb performer.

Iwan Fox

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