Obra: Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles

After a rare treat to hear Tippett's commemoration of King Charles' birth and Alina Ibragimova's Mendelssohn, the crowning achievement of this concert is Edward Gardner's majestic reading of Janáček's Glagolitic Mass.

The first night of the Proms was, in this year of Olympic celebrations and the Diamond Jubilee, a tribute to all things English, featuring an impressive range of singers and a (somewhat appropriate) relay team of stellar English conductors. The programme began with a strange mixture of old and new.