The pianist behind a Mary Poppins performance at the Last Night of the Proms has said that classical music doesn’t have to be serious.Sir Stephen Hough, 63, praised the change that has come about in contemporary classical music, saying that the genre has “so much freedom” now.Speaking to Radio Times, the British composer said: “In the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, people knew a contemporary piece would be extremely ugly, loud and they weren’t going to like it.“In the late ‘70s, you couldn’t get into music college or get recorded or a BBC commission if you didn’t write atonal music.”He added: “Now we have a far more diverse world. You don’t have to be serious all the time.”His comments come after he performed a playful fantasia on Mary Poppins’s Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious during the Last Night of the Proms in 2024.

The surprise encore performance delighted the audience and resulted in a member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus telling Sir Stephen: “You are naughty, aren’t you!”It also follows the rise in popularity of classical covers of pop songs in recent years, such as those featured in the hit Netflix show Bridgerton.The show spearheaded a dramatic increase in the number of people streaming the classical cover versions of famous pop songs, such as the Vitamin String Quartet’s cover of Robyn’s electropop tune Dancing On My Own and Kiris Houston’s cover of Calvin Harris’s electronic hit How Deep Is Your Love.Now, Sir Stephen has created a nocturne – one he claims would have been “thrown out of the window” in another decade – for BBC Radio 3’s new landmark series 25 for 25: Sounds of the Century.The series features 25 new commissions, written by a select group of the most influential composers, who are inspired by 25 significant events which defined the first quarter of the 2000s.Sir Stephen chose to theme the music around 9/11, specifically focusing on the night before the terror attack happened.The composer said the song, titled September 10th 2001, captures “a time of innocence, but there is an undertow, a little bit of premonition”.BBC’s Radio 3 description of the series stated that the songs would include tributes to where “the nation came together in celebration or mourning, to innovations in science and technology and themes of nature and climate”.The series will also include Thea Musgrave’s In memoriam 2022, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which commemorates the death of Queen Elizabeth II.Sir Stephen said that Radio 3 remains “an incredibly important platform for music,” adding: “Music is eclectic and Radio 3 is part of that.”