Tributes to Queen Elizabeth II

[Balletfanp]

I work at a university and we have been asked to ensure that any lectures we might do over the next couple of weeks do not include any ‘party’ or ‘frivolous’ aspects - fair enough, but I’m not sure what they imagine usually goes on in our teaching sessions! Those party poppers I bought will be completely wasted….🙄🙂

 

In any case, the Queen was not a killjoy at all, and as others have said, I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted two weeks of unrelieved gloom across the country. Respect doesn’t have to be miserable.

[Suffolkgal]

It is weird. Personally I think it all links to the current fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and bring castigated or cancelled! The media is casting about for people to criticise which really hacks me off (pun intended) when there is such a united mood of love and respect. If Fleet Street was still a thing I’d stand there going Stop it!!! No one cares for your opinions just cover the facts! And I speak as a journalist (though not in the media for years) and child of two old Fleet Street hands now in the great composing room above. 

[Ian Macmillan]

Regarding the Last Night decision, I recall that the programme was substantially reset in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks early in the week.  It may well have been the case that Her Majesty's death occurred too close to the Saturday for that to happen this year.

 

Edit:  Mea maxima culpa.  9/11 was, of course, in 2001.  Thanks to Emeralds for picking up on this. 

[alison]

That's what I suspected (9/11 happened on a Tuesday, I think, and certainly in the early afternoon).  The suddenness and timing of the news, the need to make an almost-immediate decision, possibly without the relevant protocols to hand, and the lack of awareness that the term "national period of mourning" nowadays apparently means "carry on more or less as usual", at least as regards the general public, may all have been factors.

[Emeralds]

1 hour ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Regarding the Last Night decision, I recall that the programme was substantially reset in 2002 after the 9/11 attacks early in the week.  It may well have been the case that Her Majesty's death occurred too close to the Saturday for that to happen this year.

It was 2001- and I remember it as clear as yesterday (probably clearer!) as we knew people at Bear Stearns and acquaintances with family working at the World Trade Center. 

 

It happened on a Tuesday lunchtime and we begged a colleague who was the only person with a Blackberry then (smartphones not being available yet) to try to get hold of some news until we could leave our Tuesday meeting (at a different venue from our workplace)and find a room with a tv. The LNOTP is a Saturday so Ian’s right- they did have more time in 2001, compared to Thursday late afternoon this year.

 

The need for more time is likely to be down to the organisers and tv broadcasting demands (eg camera rehearsals and sound checks) rather than the musicians, as the Philadelphia Orchestra managed to perform the Nimrod variation from Enigma Variations and the British National Anthem with just 30 minutes’ notice - two pieces they won’t have brought copies of the score with them in cargo. (I accept that the British National Anthem tune is actually the same as “My Country Tis of Thee”, an American national song, so won’t be unfamiliar! - nor indeed Nimrod- but they won’t have travelled with the orchestral version.).  Mind you, laser printers and iPads (that have software for displaying music scores and turning pages) are very quick at procuring scores nowadays- and there’s also the Royal College of Music across the road with resources to help.

 

Actually, I would have accepted the reason for cancelling as being due to “we will not have sufficient camera,  technical facilities and broadcasting preparations to be able to present an altered programme” or if they had to use their Proms crews to cover news broadcasts and the accession ceremonies at St James’s Palace, the City and the Friday St Paul’s service- it’s logical that people can only be in one place at a time. (But I suspect the BBC have different personnel working on arts programmes and news programmes with their own equipment.)

 

Either way this wouldn’t have prevented the Philadelphia Orchestra (not on the tv schedule)  from going ahead with only a slightly altered programme or the LNOTP taking place without cameras, or being recorded as a non-live national and international telecast.

 

Essentially the entire Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the most big name orchestras in the world  (after an absence of more than 2 decades) travelled here with all their instruments and kit at great expense just to play several minutes of Nimrod and the National Anthem instead of two full concerts.....and the licence payers will have to reimburse contracted fees and costs for both concerts.

 

It would be like the equivalent of the full company of New York City Ballet being invited here after a long absence for two different mixed bills of rarely seen (in the U.K.) Balanchine and Robbins ballets and being sent home after performing the After the Rain pas de deux only and not being able to show their two programmes. 

 

Not something that I think Her Majesty, who is well known for not wasting things, would approve of. Think of the wasted carbon footprint! 

[bangorballetboy]

51 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Essentially the entire Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the most big name orchestras in the world  (after an absence of more than 2 decades) travelled here with all their instruments and kit at great expense just to play several minutes of Nimrod and the National Anthem instead of two full concerts.....and the licence payers will have to reimburse contracted fees and costs for both concerts.

 

It would be like the equivalent of the full company of New York City Ballet being invited here after a long absence for two different mixed bills of rarely seen (in the U.K.) Balanchine and Robbins ballets and being sent home after performing the After the Rain pas de deux only and not being able to show their two programmes. 

 

 

The two Proms concerts were the final 2 concerts in the Philadelphia Orchestra's tour.  They had already played 4 concerts in Edinburgh, 2 in Hamburg, 1 in Berlin, 1 in Dresden, 2 in Lucerne and 2 in Paris.  So not a completely wasted trip across the Atlantic.

 

[Ian Macmillan]

Emeralds:  Many thanks for correcting my 9/11 mistake.  I can't think how that slipped through and I've edited accordingly.  Like you, I recall it vividly.  I was then working in the MOD in Whitehall, became aware of the first strike and got to an office with a TV just after the second. 

[Lizbie1]

I've just realised that the Queen must have been the last remaining dedicatee of a work by Elgar (Nursery Suite).

 

It really brings it home how long she was "with us".

[Suffolkgal]

Anyone else remember a tiny gala piece with two little girls in yellow portraying the York princesses as were? I think the composer (Coates?

am checking) and saw them playing in their garden from the top deck of a bus. Maybe the Queen Mother gala that included Rhapsody? Help! Am I totally off kilter? 

[Lizbie1]

1 minute ago, Suffolkgal said:

Anyone else remember a tiny gala piece with two little girls in yellow portraying the York princesses as were? I think the composer (Coates?

am checking) and saw them playing in their garden from the top deck of a bus. Maybe the Queen Mother gala that included Rhapsody? Help! Am I totally off kilter? 

 

That is Ashton's setting of Nursery Suite  - I think made for HMQ's 60th birthday.

[Suffolkgal]

Thankyou!!! 

[alison]

And repeated in, what was it, the 2006 (2007?) gala?  With Olivia Cowley and I can't remember who the other dancer was.

[bridiem]

Am finding the choreography of all these events absolutely thrilling. Like the greatest and most formal classical ballet; except that this is for real. Inexpressibly powerful.

[Sim]

10 hours ago, bridiem said:

Am finding the choreography of all these events absolutely thrilling. Like the greatest and most formal classical ballet; except that this is for real. Inexpressibly powerful.

Totally agree.  No-one, but no-one, anywhere on Earth does pomp, circumstance and ceremony better than the British.  Not only are they perfectly drilled and choreographed, but they look amazing in their various uniforms and have 1000+ years of history that gives depth and meaning to every gesture and every movement.  

 

I hope that those young pallbearers both in Edinburgh and in London get special medals.  With the world watching, they haven't wavered at all, and this is a lead-lined coffin.  So proud of how all four UK countries have given so much dignity and respect to a great lady who deserves both, in spades.

[Ian Macmillan]

Sim:  I'll be very taken aback if the pallbearers and others involved aren't recognised in some way.  And having done it once many years ago at the funeral of a colleague, I've been interested to watch each new party get to the "Rest on arms reversed" position.  We had the afternoon before the Service with the Station Warrant Officer, learning the sword drill for that! 

 

There was a head-on TV moment yesterday, as the procession began to emerge from the courtyard at the Palace, with the guard of honour in front, that I thought absolutely perfect.  And that drumbeat had started, of course.  

[Sim]

8 minutes ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Sim:  I'll be very taken aback if the pallbearers and others involved aren't recognised in some way.  And having done it once many years ago at the funeral of a colleague, I've been interested to watch each new party get to the "Rest on arms reversed" position.  We had the afternoon before the Service with the Station Warrant Officer, learning the sword drill for that! 

 

There was a head-on TV moment yesterday, as the procession began to emerge from the courtyard at the Palace, with the guard of honour in front, that I thought absolutely perfect.  And that drumbeat had started, of course.  

Ah that drumbeat.  It stirred me to the core.  "With muffled drum, let the mourners come."

[Beryl H]

 I was spellbound watching the procession from the Palace to Westminster Hall yesterday on TV, it was perfect and did look  choreographed, those bells growing louder was so dramatic, I believe Princess Anne was the only lady marching, she kept up with the men, bless her 🙂

 

 

[Fonty]

Sadly, I flew away  on holiday the day before the Queen died, and therefore am having to watch events on my mobile phone.  i feel disappointed that I cannot see many of the events, living as I do in London, but I console myself with the fact that I watched the parade and joined the queue for the lying in state for the Queen Mother 20 years ago.  The latter was an intensely moving experience that I have never forgotten. 

 

On that topic, the start of the queue is a short distance from my house.  Neighbours have informed me that there is now a 3 or 4 hour queue to join the back of the official queue, so if anyone was thinking of going, you will need to think very seriously about leaving home now, and not setting off tomorrow or you run the risk of not getting in at all.

[alison]

Even the disabled queue is ridiculously long.  I hope those in it manage to wait it out in not too much discomfort.