Frank Zappa will sweeten the sorrowful pill that is year's Proms

Roger Wright, the BBC Proms director, admits elements of the new season are gloomy. “We’ve got Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a new orchestration of Vaughan Williams’s Four Last Songs and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique. We’ll need to offer happy pills.”

However, he is delighted to present the first Prom featuring Frank Zappa’s music.

A “far-out, late-night happening” is promised when the rocker’s satire, The Adventures of Greggery Peccary, is aired.

Wright says: “Frank once asked me if I’d like to hear his wind quintet. The answer, frankly, was ‘no’. Some of his classical works are not strong but this is amazing. It’s so cartoonish.”