Sir, My enjoyment of the Last Night of the Proms was marred by the reference the conductor made to barring musical instruments from carry-on luggage in aircraft. He should be disciplined for using the Proms as a platform for expressing his view to a captive worldwide audience. The proximity to 9/11 made his words particularly inappropriate.
COMMANDER P. W. HONEY, RN
Appleton, Cheshire
Sir, Dipping into one of the Proms in the Park concerts on Saturday evening, it struck me why Britain is now just an also-ran in the Eurovision Song Contest. A miscellany of James Bond songs dated from only the first handful of films. What happened? When did we stop producing catchy, memorable popular tunes? If the nation was launched on its obscene, vulgar and aggressive flight through time on November 13, 1965 — the night Kenneth Tynan used the F-word on TV — can anyone pinpoint exactly when we abandoned our musical heritage?
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HUW BEYNON
Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire
Sir, In 1979, when as conductor I introduced Auld Lang Syne as the penultimate item to the Last Night of the Proms, it was included as an appropriate celebration of friendships, new and old, in the hope, as the song says, of meeting “some ither year”.
After me, the planners took it out of the programme, but the audience stayed behind singing it each year while the orchestra waited silently. Last Saturday, they played brilliantly music from Russia and Argentina, but when it came to playing this universal song by a British poet, the orchestra had no music, in spite of the many orchestrations in existence.
The end result was shoddy; instead of placing Auld Lang Syne before the National Anthem to end the festival, it was left without direction and sounded like closing time on a Saturday night.
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JAMES LOUGHRAN
Glasgow
Sir, I was pleased to see that tradition was broken on the Last Night of the Proms when the concert was conducted by a man dressed as a chef. It all adds to the fun and no doubt Sir Henry Wood would have been delighted. Next year, I hope we may look forward to the conductor coming as a fireman, or perhaps even an astronaut.
I can hardly wait.
ROGER LINN
Hurstpierpoint, W Sussex