成人论坛

There was a full moon over London on the night of 10 May 1941. It was this moon which guided hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers as they snaked up the Thames from the east to deliver the last and deadliest air-raid of the Blitz, right in the heart of the capital.

Over 1,400 people died that night. The House of Commons Chamber was destroyed, the House of Lords badly damaged; so was the British Museum and Westminster Abbey. The fires covered more than twice the area of the Great Fire of 1666. The Queen鈥檚 Hall - London鈥檚 greatest music venue and the home of the Proms - took a direct hit and was completely destroyed.

The Queen鈥檚 Hall had stood at the top of Regent Street, its curved exterior matching those of All Souls Church and 成人论坛 Broadcasting House. Its late Victorian opulence wasn't the only thing that audiences had loved about it: it had a fabulous acoustic too. The irony wasn鈥檛 lost on people at the time that the Luftwaffe had destroyed a temple to Austro-German culture: the front of the hall had been adorned with busts of Bach, Brahms, Weber and Beethoven, echoing the music which had been played inside for the 48 years of its existence.

Path茅 News made this point by playing Wagner鈥檚 Die Meistersinger overture to accompany a newsreel film about the bombing. But the soundtrack then switched to Elgar鈥檚 Cockaigne Overture, a loving musical portrait of Edwardian London which took its title from an old nickname for the city (a name that also gave us the word "Cockney"). Elgar said when he wrote the overture in 1901: 鈥淚 call it 鈥楥ockayne鈥� and it is cheerful and Londony, stout and steaky... honest, healthy, humorous, and strong, but not vulgar鈥�.

For the Path茅 newsreader, the music of Cockaigne was "eloquently reminiscent of the London that was, and in spirit still is". "The home of music may be in ruins," he said, "but the music that found expression there is an imperishable thing."

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 成人论坛 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 成人论坛 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This archive recording features the 成人论坛 Philharmonic with conductor Andrew Davis.

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