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Battle Proms 2006
Well the weather gods took pity on me and didn't rain for the whole duration of the Proms! Yay!!
And it was FANTABULOUS! Wow, what a show! I say this as someone who isn't a huge fan of classical music but being at the venue, in a big crowd, on a perfect summer night (not too hot, dry), on the field where Elizabeth 1st heard she was Queen - goosebumps, I'm telling ya! Goosebumps!
I hadn't been able to get a ticket but TooShy at work knew I wanted to go and when her sister had to pull out because one of her kids had caught chicken pox, TooShy offered me the ticket on her sister's behalf. (Incidentally, the sick nephew is a very poorly bunny indeed, having been taken to hospital once. He's got the very severe version of chicken pox, poor blighter, and it's affected his brain, so he doesn't have much control of his limbs. *shakes head* As of last night, he was still poorly but on the mend so fingers crossed he's over the worst of it). The sister had said she didn't want any money for the ticket, either, and at £24 quid a pop for adults, that was a more than generous thing to say. I had to do some severe conscience kicking to get it to smite me sufficiently to cough up as I'm a bit broke. *hangs head* I'm a mean mousey sometimes. But I did give £20 to TooShy for her sister and I have to say it was worth every penny! Yay!
So I got there about 5.45, got parked after about 15 minutes, took careful and meticulous bearings so I stood a fighting chance of finding my car later and headed into the arena. The field is called Queen Elizabeth's Field and in it is the oak tree under which legend has it she was standing when she received the news that she was Queen. The field slopes a bit and then levels out and the stage was at the bottom of the levelled out bit, with the bulk of the crowd settling in around it. Flags marked the perimeter inside of which you would get the best sound, a useful service. At the back of the field, on top of the slight ridge, were the service tents (programmes, chairs, tables, lantern kits etc), the lavatories (three rows of Portaloos, looked like an army of oblong Daleks), several food stalls, a bar and a "fairground".
My first stop was to buy a collapsible chair. At £10, it proved to be a bargain. It's a canvas chair that unfolds and folds up again very easily - no catches or bars that have to be clicked in place - and it comes with its own container sleeve with a shoulder strap so it's very easy to carry around. I didn't own anything I could take to sit on and the rain meant the ground would be too damp so it was a necessary purchase and it also turned out to be really comfy :) Bonus! (Oh and one last comment on the rain: it really chucked it down all afternoon, it was torrential but it tells you just how dry it's been when I say that nowhere at the event was the ground boggy or muddy. Not even after it had been trampled by a few thousand people and had a few thousand cars driving over it. This was good from the events PoV but not so good from an environmental one, as clearly we need more rain!)
Around the edges of the arena were gazebos, the sort you buy at garden centres to put up on your patio. These can be hired or simply bagged if you get there early enough, I think, I'm not sure. TooShy had told me they were going to get there early enough to bag one, so I started walked around the gazebos looking for TooShy. Found her almost instantly and said hi, and was introduced to immediate family that had arrived up to that point. We had a short natter and then I took myself off to have a prowl round and see what was what.
What became immediately obvious to me was this was actually a far, far bigger event than I'd realised. It's the sixth year it's been performed at Hatfield House and clearly the regulars take it seriously. Everywhere I looked, there were family groups clustered around picnic hampers, well supplied with drinks for all, having clearly brought their own chairs/tables etc and all of them having a blast. The level of their organisation told me more than anything that this was going to be a good event. You just wouldn't get this kind of devotion at something that didn't live up to the billing :)
I checked out the bar and was thrilled to notice they sold cider! Woo hoo! So I bought a pint (£3! Sheesh!) and went to sit at one of the tables to enjoy it. Put my pint down on the table, put the collapsible chair down, turned back to the table and....started in horror at the empty plastic pint glass now lying on its side, empty of cider! Wah!! Bloody table tilted, apparently *snarl*. So I trudged back to the bar. Now it wasn't busy and the boys serving us thirsty folks had seen the whole thing and commiserated with me, asking me what it was so they could pull me a new pint. I was fumbling for cash when the guy serving me shook his head and said it was on the house! Awww!! That made my night :) So I carefully retreated with my pint to a more stable table and sat there for about 45 minutes, happily people watching and slurping my pint. I'd have loved to have more but I was driving and the food was far too expensive to buy to soak up any of the booze, so I had to be good. Next year, I will a) take my own booze and b) the bus :P
Having slurped my pint, I went and checked out the "fairground". This was the most disappointing thing of the whole event, frankly. It consisted of five booths - a shoot the corks at crappy targets stall, throw balls into the metal bucket stall, throw darts at something stall, and a ring the bell (for kids) stall and something else I'm blanking on. Crappiest fairground I've ever seen. The kids adored the ring the bell stall though, because it was relatively easy, and the prizes were large inflatable hammers, footballs, baseball bats etc. Dear lords preserve us :) I had a go at the "throw balls into the bucket" game. The buckets were fixed horizontally so that you were looking straight down to the base of the bucket and the balls were small, wooden ones, about the size of a ping pong ball. With the buckets being iron, most balls would bounce straight back out again. However, I am sneaky and devious and wise to the ways of this particular game and after four range/power judging throws, my fifth hit the target in the perfect spot, rolled down to the base and stayed there! Hee! I won! I got to choose a small soft toy and came away with a cute dalmatian pup, which I naturally christened Spot :D
I wandered back to TooShy's gazebo and was introduced to the rest of the family. Along with TooShy's husband and son, there was her sister and husband, and their daughter, her other sister's eldest son (I think, I need to check this), her parents and another chap who was a neighbour. Whether he was TooShy's neighbour or the sister/parent's neighbour wasn't clear. They were all good people and made me very welcome and pressed some food on me, bless 'em. I set up my comfy chair in a clear spot and settled in for the duration. We were right at the back of the arena, but still within optimum sound range and we had a clear view of the stage thanks to that slight slope, so it was a good place to enjoy the show.
Prior to the music, there was a cavalry display off to one side of the arena. We couldn't really see much and although getting closer was possible, I decided not to bother and just sat and listened to the funny Hussar who was providing the commentary for the event. He was very insulting to the cavalry riders if they missed their targets and stuff :)
Then the show started. It was wonderful to sit and listen to the music and indeed, I leaned back and closed my eyes and just soaked it up. The vocal soloist, Denise Leigh, was excellent, bell like voice and somehow, I thought she was better than Lesley Garratt, though I can't quite put my finger on why. Less showy, maybe? Anyway, she was good. The trumpet soloist, who's a young chap of 19, was outstandingly good and I really like the trumpet piece he did (see below for the actual musical pieces). The first half of the show ended with the 1812 overture and TooShy provided much hilarity by being caught totally unaware by the cannons and levitating off her seat several times in quick succession :) It was FANTASTIC to have the cannons and the music and the fireworks and I was a happy mousey.
There was a thirty minute interval, during which there was mini-clear out of the gazebo and some of the men lugged away the bulk of the bags and stuff back to the cars so that there would be less to faff around with later, when it would be rather dark :) I helped wrestle their picnic table into submission. They'd put it up but somehow none of them knew how it collapsed again but I managed to figure out a couple of the secrets and we got it stowed away. The guys came back about fifteen minutes into the second half, and they brought jumpers and blankets for those that would feel the night's chill.
I have to say at this point that I'm not a small child fan but TooShy's niece was adorable! Well behaved, not a shrieker (not surprising, really, because TooShy is quiet as a mouse and having met the family, I can see the parents are the same :)), quite happy to sit and colour or run around with TooShy's son. She loved the military music and there's some great photos of her marching up and down like a good little soldier in time with the music. Her mother bought her a sword/wand thing that lit up in the most hideous colours ever - seriously, we all agreed too much of it would make our eyeballs bleed - and the kid loved it but didn't fuss when it was turned off. She used to "conduct" the orchestra and, at one point, I'm convinced she was pretending to *make the cannons go bang on her command" :) Cute. :)
Anyway, the second half was even better than the first because we got all the big numbers at the end :) The Beethoven Victory thingy was jaw droppingly good. 193 cannons blasts, in perfect synch with the music, a gorgeous fireworks display which, again, perfectly complemented the music and wasn't too OTT, and the orchestra playing their socks off. Fantabulous! I was glad it was dark because, being the big sap I am, I got quite dewy eyed with the passion and emotion of it, which is, I guess, as it should be :)
And there was the singing - think Last Night of the Proms but in a really big field *grins happily* Fab!!
But all good things end and at last it was done and there was nothing left but to say our goodbyes and head off. I got back to my car easily, which was a relief, but it took nearly 50 minutes for me to get out of the park. However, it must be true that music soothes the savage breast because normally such faffing around triggers my road rage but I was calm and mellow and waited quite patiently :) See! Music can perform miracles!
For those wot are interested in these things, the full programme was as follows:-
Giuseppe Verdi Overture: The Force of Destiny
Joseph Haydn Trumpet Concerto in E Flat (First Movement - Allegro)
Trumpet soloist: William Russell
Franz Von Suppé Light Cavalry Overture (with musical ride)
Three Operatic Arias. Soloist: Denise Leigh
Georges Bizet Je dis que rien ne m'épouvate (from Carmen)
(I said nothing should frighten me here)
Giuseppe Verdi Caro nome che il mio cor (From Rigoletto)
(Dear name, my heart enshrines)
Charles Gounod Air des bijoux (The Jewel song from Faust
Pytor Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture - with cannons and fireworks
Interval
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozard Overture: The Marriage of Figaro
George Frederic Handel Let the Bright Seraphim (from Samson
Soloists: William Russell and Denise Leigh
Adam Slough The Battle Proms Waltz
Ludwig Van Beethoven "Battle Symphony" (Wellington's Victory)
with 193 live cannons, muskets and fireworks
Sir Hubert Perry Jerusalem
Traditional Sailor's Hornpipe
Thomas Arne Rule Britannia!
Sir Edward Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March No.1
Land of Hope and Glory
I am SO going to badger you next year, flist, to get some of you to join me at the event. It's the perfect Saturday night out for a large group of people and if it's a bit pricey, I can assure you that for once, you really get your money's worth :) Especially if you take your own food and drink *grins*
And it was FANTABULOUS! Wow, what a show! I say this as someone who isn't a huge fan of classical music but being at the venue, in a big crowd, on a perfect summer night (not too hot, dry), on the field where Elizabeth 1st heard she was Queen - goosebumps, I'm telling ya! Goosebumps!
I hadn't been able to get a ticket but TooShy at work knew I wanted to go and when her sister had to pull out because one of her kids had caught chicken pox, TooShy offered me the ticket on her sister's behalf. (Incidentally, the sick nephew is a very poorly bunny indeed, having been taken to hospital once. He's got the very severe version of chicken pox, poor blighter, and it's affected his brain, so he doesn't have much control of his limbs. *shakes head* As of last night, he was still poorly but on the mend so fingers crossed he's over the worst of it). The sister had said she didn't want any money for the ticket, either, and at £24 quid a pop for adults, that was a more than generous thing to say. I had to do some severe conscience kicking to get it to smite me sufficiently to cough up as I'm a bit broke. *hangs head* I'm a mean mousey sometimes. But I did give £20 to TooShy for her sister and I have to say it was worth every penny! Yay!
So I got there about 5.45, got parked after about 15 minutes, took careful and meticulous bearings so I stood a fighting chance of finding my car later and headed into the arena. The field is called Queen Elizabeth's Field and in it is the oak tree under which legend has it she was standing when she received the news that she was Queen. The field slopes a bit and then levels out and the stage was at the bottom of the levelled out bit, with the bulk of the crowd settling in around it. Flags marked the perimeter inside of which you would get the best sound, a useful service. At the back of the field, on top of the slight ridge, were the service tents (programmes, chairs, tables, lantern kits etc), the lavatories (three rows of Portaloos, looked like an army of oblong Daleks), several food stalls, a bar and a "fairground".
My first stop was to buy a collapsible chair. At £10, it proved to be a bargain. It's a canvas chair that unfolds and folds up again very easily - no catches or bars that have to be clicked in place - and it comes with its own container sleeve with a shoulder strap so it's very easy to carry around. I didn't own anything I could take to sit on and the rain meant the ground would be too damp so it was a necessary purchase and it also turned out to be really comfy :) Bonus! (Oh and one last comment on the rain: it really chucked it down all afternoon, it was torrential but it tells you just how dry it's been when I say that nowhere at the event was the ground boggy or muddy. Not even after it had been trampled by a few thousand people and had a few thousand cars driving over it. This was good from the events PoV but not so good from an environmental one, as clearly we need more rain!)
Around the edges of the arena were gazebos, the sort you buy at garden centres to put up on your patio. These can be hired or simply bagged if you get there early enough, I think, I'm not sure. TooShy had told me they were going to get there early enough to bag one, so I started walked around the gazebos looking for TooShy. Found her almost instantly and said hi, and was introduced to immediate family that had arrived up to that point. We had a short natter and then I took myself off to have a prowl round and see what was what.
What became immediately obvious to me was this was actually a far, far bigger event than I'd realised. It's the sixth year it's been performed at Hatfield House and clearly the regulars take it seriously. Everywhere I looked, there were family groups clustered around picnic hampers, well supplied with drinks for all, having clearly brought their own chairs/tables etc and all of them having a blast. The level of their organisation told me more than anything that this was going to be a good event. You just wouldn't get this kind of devotion at something that didn't live up to the billing :)
I checked out the bar and was thrilled to notice they sold cider! Woo hoo! So I bought a pint (£3! Sheesh!) and went to sit at one of the tables to enjoy it. Put my pint down on the table, put the collapsible chair down, turned back to the table and....started in horror at the empty plastic pint glass now lying on its side, empty of cider! Wah!! Bloody table tilted, apparently *snarl*. So I trudged back to the bar. Now it wasn't busy and the boys serving us thirsty folks had seen the whole thing and commiserated with me, asking me what it was so they could pull me a new pint. I was fumbling for cash when the guy serving me shook his head and said it was on the house! Awww!! That made my night :) So I carefully retreated with my pint to a more stable table and sat there for about 45 minutes, happily people watching and slurping my pint. I'd have loved to have more but I was driving and the food was far too expensive to buy to soak up any of the booze, so I had to be good. Next year, I will a) take my own booze and b) the bus :P
Having slurped my pint, I went and checked out the "fairground". This was the most disappointing thing of the whole event, frankly. It consisted of five booths - a shoot the corks at crappy targets stall, throw balls into the metal bucket stall, throw darts at something stall, and a ring the bell (for kids) stall and something else I'm blanking on. Crappiest fairground I've ever seen. The kids adored the ring the bell stall though, because it was relatively easy, and the prizes were large inflatable hammers, footballs, baseball bats etc. Dear lords preserve us :) I had a go at the "throw balls into the bucket" game. The buckets were fixed horizontally so that you were looking straight down to the base of the bucket and the balls were small, wooden ones, about the size of a ping pong ball. With the buckets being iron, most balls would bounce straight back out again. However, I am sneaky and devious and wise to the ways of this particular game and after four range/power judging throws, my fifth hit the target in the perfect spot, rolled down to the base and stayed there! Hee! I won! I got to choose a small soft toy and came away with a cute dalmatian pup, which I naturally christened Spot :D
I wandered back to TooShy's gazebo and was introduced to the rest of the family. Along with TooShy's husband and son, there was her sister and husband, and their daughter, her other sister's eldest son (I think, I need to check this), her parents and another chap who was a neighbour. Whether he was TooShy's neighbour or the sister/parent's neighbour wasn't clear. They were all good people and made me very welcome and pressed some food on me, bless 'em. I set up my comfy chair in a clear spot and settled in for the duration. We were right at the back of the arena, but still within optimum sound range and we had a clear view of the stage thanks to that slight slope, so it was a good place to enjoy the show.
Prior to the music, there was a cavalry display off to one side of the arena. We couldn't really see much and although getting closer was possible, I decided not to bother and just sat and listened to the funny Hussar who was providing the commentary for the event. He was very insulting to the cavalry riders if they missed their targets and stuff :)
Then the show started. It was wonderful to sit and listen to the music and indeed, I leaned back and closed my eyes and just soaked it up. The vocal soloist, Denise Leigh, was excellent, bell like voice and somehow, I thought she was better than Lesley Garratt, though I can't quite put my finger on why. Less showy, maybe? Anyway, she was good. The trumpet soloist, who's a young chap of 19, was outstandingly good and I really like the trumpet piece he did (see below for the actual musical pieces). The first half of the show ended with the 1812 overture and TooShy provided much hilarity by being caught totally unaware by the cannons and levitating off her seat several times in quick succession :) It was FANTASTIC to have the cannons and the music and the fireworks and I was a happy mousey.
There was a thirty minute interval, during which there was mini-clear out of the gazebo and some of the men lugged away the bulk of the bags and stuff back to the cars so that there would be less to faff around with later, when it would be rather dark :) I helped wrestle their picnic table into submission. They'd put it up but somehow none of them knew how it collapsed again but I managed to figure out a couple of the secrets and we got it stowed away. The guys came back about fifteen minutes into the second half, and they brought jumpers and blankets for those that would feel the night's chill.
I have to say at this point that I'm not a small child fan but TooShy's niece was adorable! Well behaved, not a shrieker (not surprising, really, because TooShy is quiet as a mouse and having met the family, I can see the parents are the same :)), quite happy to sit and colour or run around with TooShy's son. She loved the military music and there's some great photos of her marching up and down like a good little soldier in time with the music. Her mother bought her a sword/wand thing that lit up in the most hideous colours ever - seriously, we all agreed too much of it would make our eyeballs bleed - and the kid loved it but didn't fuss when it was turned off. She used to "conduct" the orchestra and, at one point, I'm convinced she was pretending to *make the cannons go bang on her command" :) Cute. :)
Anyway, the second half was even better than the first because we got all the big numbers at the end :) The Beethoven Victory thingy was jaw droppingly good. 193 cannons blasts, in perfect synch with the music, a gorgeous fireworks display which, again, perfectly complemented the music and wasn't too OTT, and the orchestra playing their socks off. Fantabulous! I was glad it was dark because, being the big sap I am, I got quite dewy eyed with the passion and emotion of it, which is, I guess, as it should be :)
And there was the singing - think Last Night of the Proms but in a really big field *grins happily* Fab!!
But all good things end and at last it was done and there was nothing left but to say our goodbyes and head off. I got back to my car easily, which was a relief, but it took nearly 50 minutes for me to get out of the park. However, it must be true that music soothes the savage breast because normally such faffing around triggers my road rage but I was calm and mellow and waited quite patiently :) See! Music can perform miracles!
For those wot are interested in these things, the full programme was as follows:-
Giuseppe Verdi Overture: The Force of Destiny
Joseph Haydn Trumpet Concerto in E Flat (First Movement - Allegro)
Trumpet soloist: William Russell
Franz Von Suppé Light Cavalry Overture (with musical ride)
Three Operatic Arias. Soloist: Denise Leigh
Georges Bizet Je dis que rien ne m'épouvate (from Carmen)
(I said nothing should frighten me here)
Giuseppe Verdi Caro nome che il mio cor (From Rigoletto)
(Dear name, my heart enshrines)
Charles Gounod Air des bijoux (The Jewel song from Faust
Pytor Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture - with cannons and fireworks
Interval
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozard Overture: The Marriage of Figaro
George Frederic Handel Let the Bright Seraphim (from Samson
Soloists: William Russell and Denise Leigh
Adam Slough The Battle Proms Waltz
Ludwig Van Beethoven "Battle Symphony" (Wellington's Victory)
with 193 live cannons, muskets and fireworks
Sir Hubert Perry Jerusalem
Traditional Sailor's Hornpipe
Thomas Arne Rule Britannia!
Sir Edward Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March No.1
Land of Hope and Glory
I am SO going to badger you next year, flist, to get some of you to join me at the event. It's the perfect Saturday night out for a large group of people and if it's a bit pricey, I can assure you that for once, you really get your money's worth :) Especially if you take your own food and drink *grins*
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Glad you had fun honey!
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*gapes* How can you be caught totally unaware by the cannons in Tchaikowsky's "1812 Overture"? Unless, of course, you'd never heard it before... I adore the cannons! The best recorded version I've heard of it is one by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Charles duToit, with digitally enhanced cannons. *grins*
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She was distracted by the neice at the wrong/right moment (depending on your PoV) :) There was much giggling :)
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Is that legal?
Boston Pops all the way, baby!
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