As I said in a text to
Sea_Cucumber last night, there's something quintessentially British about sitting in a field with lots of other people, having a picnic (some of them had Pimms and everything), while a Spitfire flew overhead and an orchestra plays a number of classical pieces including Holsts Jupiter, the 1812 overture, Jerusalem, and Land of Hope and Glory.
Last night I went out with my parents, my other half, and her parents to the Hatfield House Battle Prom. This is sort of like the last night of the Proms, only in a field and you bring your own chairs and food. Indeed some people bring tables with nice tablecloths and tea. Oh yeah and it's almost compulsory for you to have a flag (the union flag, or that of one of the countries in the union of course).
And it was awesome. Awesome and mighty.
They played all those pieces that require not just an orchestra, but also field guns... and they have the field guns. For example Beethoven's Wellington's Victory is supposed to have guns in it because it's supposed to tell the story of the Battle of Waterloo, so they had about 10 field guns, a bunch of red-coats with muskets (God bless re-enactors), mortars that flung fireworks into the air, and red flares. You won't get a closer idea of what it was like to be on a 19th century battlefield.
I won't gush about everything, but the beginning of the show was heralded by 3 shots from some big guns, then they lead into Jupiter and as it got to what I, philistine that I am, call the "flowing bit" there was the roar of an engine as a spitfire flies over. I have to say it's very difficult not to feel a twinge of patriotism when you see such things. The evening ends with a couple of thousand people singing Land of Hope and Glory together while red, white and blue fireworks exploded overhead. I utterly approved.
If anyone's interested, more information can be found at
http://www.battleproms.com as there are still a couple of concerts to go at other sites around the country.