Well there you have it folks, the full serving of Ferguson for the Proms season. I thought the two pieces were very good, but then it would take a lot to convince me otherwise. There are trademarks to be detected through his output however, although even such a relative monster as Mahler shares this trait.

The Stanford was also worthy of attention. But I could have done without Collins' floaty arms, which frequently travelled high above the keyboard. They reminded me of the Dead Ringers impression of Andrew Marr . It happened especially after soft notes, which was totally unnecessary. The outer movements were fine, with some jealousy-inducingly-fast double octave passages. But the second movement was really bland, and I thought he started it a bit too soon after the long burst of clapping after the first movement.

The Smetana had some really tight woodwind playing, and the Dvorak was good until the last movement, which I'm used to being faster. It felt a bit deflating tonight.

Brass balancing was excellent throughout; a really even, solid type of sound, particularly from the trombones.

I won't mention the shrieker. Having seen Ruth's facebook status, I'd be intrigued to have her views in more detail.

As Eru has already hinted, I really didn't enjoy it very much at all.

The Ferguson overture was pleasant enough, as was the encore (though I can't remember what it was).

I echo Eru's and Lady_DHS's views on Finghin Collins's flamboyant arm movements.  I had to close my eyes and just listen after a while (partly because I was standing next to a terrible fidget  ) but the trouble was, I didn't really enjoy it then either   The Stanford concerto itself is an enjoyable enough piece of music, albeit very derivative of Rachmaninov, but to my ear, Collins somehow didn't manage to make the Steinway "sing" - the first movement was a bit like wading through treacle.  I don't remember anything about the second movement at all!  The third, in energetic triple time, involved a number of occasions where the soloist and orchestra got out of time with one another, and a number of pianistic wrong notes including an upward run a few notes from the end where, at a climactic moment, he hit a note that was obviously the next one up from the one he meant!

The orchestra was not large, and seemed especially lacking in strings; what's more, they didn't move forward on the platform after the piano had been put to one side during the interval, and I'm wondering whether that extra distance (given that I was in the second row) had something to do with the strings sounding so weak and puny.  Vltava never really took off because the first violins sounded so weak, and there was no swell or surge to the main theme.  It was not so much a noble river as a leaking tap, and the scurrying semiquavers (or demisemis, or whatever they are) weren't together.

I agree that there was some good sound from some of the brass.  Hey, it was more audible than usual thanks to the strings being so quiet!  One of these days, though, surely we're going to get a visiting orchestra whose horns sound good   We've really had a lot of very mediocre horn playing these last couple of weeks.

The Dvorak was... OK.  But honestly, that's the first Prom I've been to this season where I've come out wanting the last couple of hours of my life back 

I'd say that was a pretty wise decision, David - though who's to say you wouldn't have enjoyed the second half more than I did?

Did you leave because you weren't enjoying it, or was it just a case of "lots to do this evening but we'd like to hear the Stanford"?

Overture for an occasion?

Tut tut!