Last Wednesday was St. George's day. As George is the patron saint of both London and England (as well as Portugal, Malta, Catalonia/Barcelona, and of course the country of Georgia), there were celebrations planned all over from Catalonian food infusions at Borough Market to a festival in Trafalgar Square. Based on Time Out's guide to the events the week before, I found a Gala for St. George at Royal Albert Hall and jumped on tickets when I found out that Joe was off work that day.
The concert featured both the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the Royal Choral Society performing music by English composers from the eighteenth century to present. The majority of the audience for this Sunday afternoon event had naturally grey hair and knew every word to every song. It was incredibly emotional to be surrounded by such patriotism.
At the very beginning of the performance, without any prompting that I saw, the entire audience stood up to sing "God Save the Queen" together. This song shares a melody with the American version, "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," so Joe and I were primed to get a bit emotional for our own patriotic reasons, but hearing all of these voices raise up together in praise of the queen gave me goosebumps and made me a little teary. (Although, seriously, the lyrics are creepy.)
From there the orchestra played classic English composers like Elgar, Handel, and Holst. One of my dreams is to see Holst's entire Planets suite in concert at some point during my life, but the inclusion of the "Jupiter" movement in this concert inspired some great memories of horn-playing.
Before the concert there were vendors selling paper English flags in the lobby and these went crazy during the patriotic songs like "Rule Britannia!" and "There will always be an England," a popular WWII era song that even Joe admitted to welling up during. It was something to think that not only were many of the people in the audience alive during wartime, but they were likely here in London during the bombings, making these songs even more emotional.
This concert was such an enjoyable experience and truly one of those only-in-London activities that I want to fill our last few months with. (The gala is an annual occurrence, so if anyone is in London at the end of April - look it up!) We both enjoyed the music, the atmosphere, and the overwhelming sense of togetherness we got from being in such a famous venue surrounded by English patriots.
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