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Discussions of promenade concerts, at least in the United Kingdom, tend to run along one of two lines: either the format is emblematic of attempts to popularize classical music or (in the famous case of the Last Night of the BBC Proms) it is symptomatic of a contested cultural nationalism. An alternative line of inquiry is to consider promenade concerts as part of the built environment. Until 2010 the fountain at the Royal Albert Hall was a mainstay of musical promenading; it had been so for over a century and a half. Such fountains, often accompanied by potted plants and Arcadian décor, were said to cool the concert hall and freshen the air, especially when their sprinkles were supplemented with blocks of imported ice. They occupied a prominent place in a concert architecture that encouraged mobility and informality, drawing on a long tradition of outdoor promenading that had gradually moved indoors. The history of concert hall suggests that the promenade phenomenon constituted not only a site of social and political negotiation (as it has typically been described), but also a staging post in the enclosure of hitherto open spaces and an example of the Victorian desire to control the climate of public assembly.

Traditionally, the program after the intermission starts off with at least semi-serious fare, during which the audience maintains the traditional Proms attentiveness. On Saturday there was the Brahms \"Academic Festival\" Overture in the Malcolm Sargent arrangement, which allows the BBC Chorus to intone the \"Gaudeamus Igitur\" tune that Brahms had set instrumentally; arias by Korngold, Catalani and Puccini for Miss Te Kanawa; Sullivan's youthful and trivial \"Overture di Ballo,\" in honor of the 150th anniversary of his birth, and Peter Maxwell Davies's cute but overlong \"Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise,\" in which the wonderfully named bagpiper George MacIlwham made a grand entrance in full Scottish regalia. Whiskey and Cheers To be sure, the rabble had made its presence felt early on. Coordinated cheers were hurled from the floor to the distant upper balconies and back again: \"Anyone for tennis?\" and \"You're upside down!\" stood out. Everyone hummed along on the orchestra's tuning A. The stagehands timed their raising of the piano lid to the crowd's \"Heave ho!\" Miss Te Kanawa, who is from New Zealand, was greeted in Maori; Miss Nikolayeva, in Russian. Balloons popped, flags waved and, when the music got rhythmic or lilting, the Promenaders bobbed or swayed en masse. Above all, everyone sang along, with fervor, starting with A. C. Benson's versification of the big tune from Elgar's \"Pomp and Circumstance\" March No. 1, \"Land of Hope and Glory.\" In the succeeding \"Fantasia on British Sea-Songs,\" a naive pastiche by the Proms' founding conductor, Henry Wood, the crowd stomped its feet in time to the \"Sailor's Hornpipe,\" hummed \"Home, Sweet Home\" and sang out grandly on the choruses of Arne's \"Rule, Britannia!\" For the florid Handelian verses, Miss Te Kanawa, having exchanged her elegant evening gown in favor of a campy outfit of blue skirt with silver stars, big red bow and off-the-shoulder white blouse, pealed forth pleasingly, and the choruses had all the ruddy vigor of a Victorian \"Messiah\" inflation.

The annual Last Night of the Proms, featuring mainly classical music, takes place at the Royal Albert Hall. This year (2010) it fell on Saturday, September 11-a poignant day of remembrance-so it was fitting that an American, Renée Fleming, was the soprano. The Proms are so-called after the long-held practice of Prommers strolling in the main body of the concert hall. The evening is traditionally rounded off by the audience joining with the massive choir in rousing renditions of 'Rule Britannia!' 'Jerusalem,' and 'Land of Hope and Glory.'

  In 1927, what were then the Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts received a body blow from Chappell and Co, the music publisher and backer of the Proms.