London’s Proms Finale to Be Somber

The jolly tunes that normally close the Last Night of the Proms concert have been canceled this year in respect to the dead in terrorist attacks in the United States, the British Broadcast Corp. said Thursday.

The concert, which attracts a large audience outside Britain, will be held Saturday at the Royal Albert Hall, concluding the popular summer series of Promenade Concerts.

The Last Night performance is normally a high-spirited affair ending with mass singing of “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Rule Britannia!” Those will be dropped on Saturday. Instead, the closing music will include Samuel Barber’s solemn “Adagio for Strings,” spirituals from Michael Tippett’s “A Child of Our Time” and the choral finale from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

“What we are doing is in the spirit of this tragic time,” said Leonard Slatkin, the American conductor who will lead Saturday’s performance. “Unity through music is now the message and we can use our sounds to help underscore the long healing process that must take place.”

Slatkin, who is also conductor and musical director of the National Symphony in Washington, became principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra last year. He’s the first American to conduct the Last Night concert.