It has taken just 118 years for a woman to follow in the footsteps of the renowned conductors Sir Henry Wood, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Colin Davis, performing the likes of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory. “You need a woman every 100 years or so, right?” Alsop says wryly. “But,” she adds seriously, “I was surprised there hadn’t been a woman conducting it before.”

According to Roger Wright, the BBC Proms director and Radio 3′s controller, the reason for this is what he calls “the weight of history”.

RTWT