The Not-the-Proms Digression

[Barbirollians]

Of course it was. I am sure the comparison with a big gallery , and the scope of the exhibits,is not lost on you.

Yes but sounds more like a big gallery with a few Renoirs and a Titian or two thrown in .

[Beef Oven!]

Too busy trying to stop them being evicted , deprived of their benefits , social care , or their human rights being respected to bother them with such trivia .

U need Laibach.

[ahinton]

U need Laibach.

Or maybe Dai bach?...

[Beef Oven!]

Or maybe Dai bach?...

Behave, hinty.

[Richard Barrett]

i recently attended a concert at a sold out concert at the RFH where Lachenmann was on the programme. And it went down really well.

Which reminds me, the last time I saw a performance of orchestral music by Lachenmann the hall was also sold out. And it wasn't Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. And the rest of the programme consisted of Ferneyhough and the little-known but highly interesting Jean-Pierre Guézec.

I thought William Glock might be mentioned sooner or later. Would that be the same Glock who during his time at the BBC and the Proms promoted the music of people like Malcolm Williamson, William Walton, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Leenox Berkeley, William Alwyn, Richard Rodney Bennett, Edmund Rubbra, Malcolm Arnold, Arthur Bliss and other such monsters of the British avant-garde?

[ahinton]

Which reminds me, the last time I saw a performance of orchestral music by Lachenmann the hall was also sold out. And it wasn't Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. And the rest of the programme consisted of Ferneyhough and the little-known but highly interesting Jean-Pierre Guézec.

I thought William Glock might be mentioned sooner or later. Would that be the same Glock who during his time at the BBC and the Proms promoted the music of people like Malcolm Williamson, William Walton, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Leenox Berkeley, William Alwyn, Richard Rodney Bennett, Edmund Rubbra, Malcolm Arnold, Arthur Bliss and other such monsters of the British avant-garde?

Good point. The dismissal in some quarters of Glock (who certainly did have and see through something of a mission to drag Britain into the mid-20th century during his time at BBC - and a vitally necessary one at that) has sadly never quite gone away and it has largely been predicated upon the assumption that he habitually sidelined composers such as those whom you mention in favour of others of quite different persuasions, whereas in fact he rarely did any such thing; I suppose that, like certain other tales, if they're told often and loudly enough, sufficient people will believe them. Rubbra did once tell me that there was at least a grain of truth in such assertions and that he didn't fare as well as some during that régime (which I think is true although he was certainly not ignored), but I never heard him express such generally negative views along those lines. Probably one of the few British composers whose works were largely sidelined during that time was George Lloyd; perhaps there may have been other reasons tfor that...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Good point. The dismissal in some quarters of Glock (who certainly did have and see through something of a mission to drag Britain into the mid-20th century during his time at BBC - and a vitally necessary one at that) has sadly never quite gone away and it has largely been predicated upon the assumption that he habitually sidelined composers such as those whom you mention in favour of others of quite different persuasions, whereas in fact he rarely did any such thing; I suppose that, like certain other tales, if they're told often and loudly enough, sufficient people will believe them. Rubbra did once tell me that there was at least a grain of truth in such assertions and that he didn't fare as well as some during that régime (which I think is true although he was certainly not ignored), but I never heard him express such generally negative views along those lines. Probably one of the few British composers whose works were largely sidelined during that time was George Lloyd; perhaps there may have been other reasons tfor that...

Glock may have pushed out the boat too far and too fast, but Wright virtually sank it.

[pastoralguy]

. Probably one of the few British composers whose works were largely sidelined during that time was George Lloyd; perhaps there may have been other reasons for that...

And that's a real shame. However, I do believe that, like Gustav Mahler, George Lloyd's time will come.

[ahinton]

And that's a real shame. However, I do believe that, like Gustav Mahler, George Lloyd's time will come.

He's had his Indian summer already, no especial thanks to BBC during or post-Glock; he certainly has his devotees and he did himself ample favours by conducting his work and making those Albany recordings but, having listened to a fair amount of his music, I've come away with the feeling that much of it's about immense early promise never properly fulfilled, for reasons at least partly beyond his control; to me, he's almost a one-work composer, that work being the seventh of his twelve symphonies which stands out almost embarrassingly. Along with Brian (although his early symphonies weren't getting performances in the 1930s), Lloyd seemed almost to usher in a revitalised British symphonic tradition which had largely languished in the doldrums for some years between RVW's 3rd and 4th symphonies with only Bax somehow contriving to keep that particular flame alive, but his symphonic work at that time simply doesn't seem to me to have the substance of Rubbra's roughly contemporary forays into the medium or Simpson's and Arnold's somewhat later ones.

[Richard Barrett]

Glock may have pushed out the boat too far and too fast, but Wright virtually sank it.

I'm not sure what you mean to imply by that, but many people (including myself) who had known Roger for many years were expecting some more radical boat-pushing when he took over, instead of the somewhat staid and safe (and sometimes startlingly populistic) programming that has continued into this year. There's surely space in a programme as extensive as the Proms for more variety and real innovation than there has been, I mean for suggesting possibilities rather than following trends. Very 20th century of me I know.