Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast, anyone? Photograph: Getty/Andy Williams
Ever since 1749, when Handel's immense success with his Music for the Royal Fireworks upstaged the display it was designed to accompany, the combination of music and fireworks has proved problematic.
In Handel's day, the fireworks were the risk. George II's display commissioned to celebrate the end of the War of Austrian Succession yielded a literal damp squib, after a brief but intense rain shower decimated the display minutely planned by Giovanni Servandoni, an Italian opera stage designer also renowned for his pyrotechnic abilities. More recently, though, as fireworks have become more and more elaborate, sophisticated and reliable, it has usually been the music that fizzles out ingloriously.
On Saturday, the Battersea Park fireworks - consistently London's best Guy Fawkes event - were among the most spectacular ever. But then with budget of over £100K (mostly covered by ticket sales, incidentally), you'd expect to be dazzled at the very least. More surprising was the fact that the display was for once carefully and successfully tied in with the music. From the shower of purple explosions which announced the first chorus of Prince's Purple Rain, to the puffs, fizzes and pops synchronised immaculately with undulations of Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, the organisers provided a soundscape in which the dazzling flecks of multicoloured light really could dance to a beat.
The only problem with this increase in the sophistication of firework choreography is that as the music becomes more relevant, the spectators become more attuned to what they are hearing.
In the old days - when displays such as those at Highbury Fields would plough their pyrotechnic furrow, apparently unconcerned with the piped Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev swirling haphazardly over the heads of the crick-necked spectators - the incidental soundtrack could be written off as some kind of kitsch accessory. But now, in cases at least where the skill matches that evident in Battersea on Saturday night, the music constitutes an essential part of the spectacle.
Which makes the organiser's choice of music all the more important. The general feeling about the Battersea playlist was that - apart from an appalling lapse in choosing to give further credence to the pointless whining of Mika - the lineup was a stylish, thoughtful one, with appearances by Björk and the Gossip adding substance to the pizzazz of Prince and Shirley Bassey's version of Get the Party Started, by P!nk.
But what guidelines might there be for events organisers to follow in putting together a playlist? Should they stick with simple, easily-recognisable tunes, or should they experiment with more off-beat fare of a kind that tests the synchronicity?
Perhaps the soundtrack should be more integrated, with extended tracks from the like of the Cinematic Orchestra employed as the score for a kind of pyrotechnical ballet? Or what about a retro attack of the laserlight-friendly Jean-Michel Jarre - a cool blast of Oxygene to spice up the saltpeter?
Here is the playlist for Battersea's fireworks display. What would you change (apart from ditching Mika, obviously)?
1. Get the Party Started - Shirley Bassey
2. Grace Kelly - Mika
3. Purple Rain - Prince
4. Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
5. Standing in the Way of Control - Gossip
6. All So Quiet - Bjork
7. I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs
