Nicky Spence [Ki Price]

FOR anyone who measures time by music, this is a depressing week – because it marks the end of the Proms season, which has stretched across the summer like a long, hot party. When the Last Night looms you know that summer’s over: not for nothing does it end up with the audience emotionally singing Auld Lang Syne.

Looking back at 2026, it’s been a better season than it looked on paper, with some truly unforgettable experiences. The BBC’s dim-witted broadcast presentation has been unforgettable as well. But then without the Beeb there’d be no Proms – they rank among the Corporation’s greatest gifts to British life – so we should all be grateful.

By tradition the penultimate night used to be a grand performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. But that’s changed, and Sept 11 will instead see a grand performance of Mahler’s 9th by the Mahler Academy Orchestra: an ad hoc gathering of musicians from across Europe playing period instruments. Not that Mahler’s 9th, written 1909, is that much of a period piece.

Then, Sept 12, comes the Last Night itself. It will be on TV. And whatever you think about the flag-waving shenanigans of the second half, you’ll thrill to Yuja Wang – a show in her own right – bringing dazzle to Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto, and the Scottish tenor Nicky Spence singing Dvořák. As well as the inevitable Rule Britannia. What he’ll find to wear for this customarily haute-couture (aka high camp) moment that can match the wardrobe of Ms Wang is a good question. But it will probably involve a kilt.

All Proms are at the Albert Hall and broadcast live. bbc.co.uk/proms

• With the Proms ending, things return to normal elsewhere. The Royal Opera reprises its award-winning production of Handel’s Alcina, with Lisette Oropesa and the fabulous Emily D’Angelo back in star roles. Runs Sept 15-Oct 3. rbo.org.uk

Less starrily, there’s a double-bill of Poulenc’s anguished monodrama about jilted love, La Voix Humaine, with Kurt Weill’s comparably gloomy (although paradoxically quite entertaining) Seven Deadly Sins at Charing Cross Theatre, Sept 11-19. charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

Wigmore Hall has pianist Paul Lewis playing more Poulenc, Sep 14. While the Tetzlaff siblings, violinist Christian and cellist Tanja, join pianist Kiveli Dorken for a night of piano trios (Beethoven, Dvorak, Smetana), Sept 15. wigmore-hall.org.uk

And there’s an interesting audio-visual show combining music by John Dowland (more gloom, of a somehow life-enhancing kind) with video projection at the Barbican’s Pit. Called Anatomy of Melancholy, it features countertenor Iestyn Davies. Sept 16-20. barbican.org.uk

The baroque group Saraband have two concerts at Kenwood House, Sep 13, where they play music by friends of Thomas Gainsborough (who was the most musical of painters) while Gainsborough’s famous Kenwood portraits look down from the walls. saraband.co.uk

Finally, the Carducci Quartet give Shostakovich recitals, Sep 12 & 25, at the Park Theatre N4, in conjunction with a play about the composer, called Holy Fool, running to Oct 10 (see review, right). Shostakovich was known to keep a bag packed by his bed in case the KGB came knocking at his door during the night; and it’s an example of (justified) high-anxiety that feeds into the quartets. Great works, but rarely comfort-listening. parktheatre.co.uk