Crowd-pleasing confection delights audience’s taste but its flavours lack complexity

There’s always a danger when it comes to Last Night of the Proms concerts that the entire event will be consumed by pomp, circumstance and flag-waving. On this instance, some hope, albeit bracketed, was offered by the prefix ‘Not’; this was to be a concert of well-tempered patriotism, hosted by the always-entertaining Guy Noble. Conductor Tecwyn Evans, sopranos Lisa Gasteen and Dominique Fegan, and both the Brisbane Concert Choir and the Queensland Choir joined the Queensland Symphony Orchestra for the Sunday concert.

Certainly, the expected traditional Proms melodies were there: Jerusalem, Rule Brittania, Pomp and Circumstance; but in the lead up to the inevitable sing-along were a whole range of pieces, both celebratory and reflective. Fauré’s Requiem: Pie jesu, sung with exquisite delicacy and warmth by Dominique Fegan, was introduced by Noble as ‘happy sad’, rather than ‘sad sad’. Noble justified its inclusion by identifying that the concert was held at the end of the ANZAC Day weekend. Next came Welsh composer Karl Jenkins’ Songs of Sanctuary: Adiemus, a fairly bland offering to sit between the Fauré and Purcell’s ‘When I am laid in earth’, sung by Lisa Gasteen....