Page 363 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

of theirs was Walford Davies’s 1937 work Big Ben Looks On, an orchestral piece that
was arranged for piano duet).

I have it on good authority that these days a bagpiper plays for Her Majesty every
morning (which beats an alarm clock).

She has visited the Royal Albert Hall 124 times in 96 years. True, she was 68 before

she attended her first BBC Prom.

But when you are Patron to over 600 charities and organisations around the world,
everything is a delicate balance…

The Queen does have a long history of attending concerts. In 1938, as Princess
Elizabeth, she joined her sister and mother in attending the catchily-titled National

Festival of the School’s Music Festivals of England, hearing a youth choir of
thousands.

In 1944, she celebrated Sir Henry Wood’s 75th Birthday and 50 years of his Proms
concerts in an event at the Royal Albert Hall.

Then, as Queen, she attended a St Cecilia’s Day concert in 1955, raising money for

the Musician’s Benevolent Fund, with Arthur Bliss guiding her around the Royal
Festival Hall; three years later, she was back there to support a concert given by the

Hallé Orchestra for the same cause.