Televised Proms

[ardcarp]

Surely The Rite played from memory is a must for a televised repeat? But as far as I can see it ain't happening. (Forgive me if I'm wrong.)

[smittims]

I don't know how they select which Proms to televise. One year it was anything on a Friday or Saturday, regardless of whether or not it was a concert that benefitted from TV, while those that did (e.g. a semistaged opera where one could hear the audience laughing but couldn't see what they were laughing at) were missed.

[LHC]

I don't know how they select which Proms to televise. One year it was anything on a Friday or Saturday, regardless of whether or not it was a concert that benefitted from TV, while those that did (e.g. a semistaged opera where one could hear the audience laughing but couldn't see what they were laughing at) were missed.

I suspect the selection process is pretty straightforward and that considering which concerts have a visual element and might benefit from being seen as well as heard is not a priority. For the TV people, the priorities would appear to be:

First and Last Night

Anything involving Chineke Orchestra (who appear to have taken over from the East Western Divan Orchestra as the top priority)

Anything involving one or all of the Kanneh-Masons

John Wilson (although I bet they wish he would go back to doing film music and musicals rather than more mainstream classical music)

Simon Rattle

National Youth Orchestra of GB

After their popular success last year, Yuja Wang and Klaus Makela

One or two prestigious visiting orchestras (as long as they're not too expensive or have their own streaming service)

As many non-classical concerts as they think they can get away with (this year: Northern Soul, Horrible Histories, Bollywood, NYO Jazz, Fantasy, Myths & Legends)

Concerts that promote 'diversity' and/or have a woman conductor or an interesting soloist or a gimmick that they can promote (eg First and Last Night, Anja Bihlmaier and Bomsori, Felix Kleiser, Pekka Kuusisto playing folk music alongside the 4 seasons)

Nothing over 2 hours long as that would mess up the schedules and get in the way of repeats of Top of the Pops (so definitely no opera)

Once they've ticked all those boxes, there won't be much space left for any other concerts to be broadcast on TV.

[Serial_Apologist]

I suspect the selection process is pretty straightforward and that considering which concerts have a visual element and might benefit from being seen as well as heard is not a priority. For the TV people, the priorities would appear to be:

First and Last Night

Anything involving Chineke Orchestra (who appear to have taken over from the East Western Divan Orchestra as the top priority)

Anything involving one or all of the Kanneh-Masons

John Wilson (although I bet they wish he would go back to doing film music and musicals rather than more mainstream classical music)

Simon Rattle

National Youth Orchestra of GB

After their popular success last year, Yuja Wang and Klaus Makela

One or two prestigious visiting orchestras (as long as they're not too expensive or have their own streaming service)

As many non-classical concerts as they think they can get away with (this year: Northern Soul, Horrible Histories, Bollywood, NYO Jazz, Fantasy, Myths & Legends)

Concerts that promote 'diversity' and/or have a woman conductor or an interesting soloist or a gimmick that they can promote (eg First and Last Night, Anja Bihlmaier and Bomsori, Felix Kleiser, Pekka Kuusisto playing folk music alongside the 4 seasons)

Nothing over 2 hours long as that would mess up the schedules and get in the way of repeats of Top of the Pops (so definitely no opera)

Once they've ticked all those boxes, there won't be much space left for any other concerts to be broadcast on TV.

In other words this increasing proportion of the Proms should be available for televisation?

[Lordgeous]

I suspect the selection process is pretty straightforward and that considering which concerts have a visual element and might benefit from being seen as well as heard is not a priority. For the TV people, the priorities would appear to be:

First and Last Night

Anything involving Chineke Orchestra (who appear to have taken over from the East Western Divan Orchestra as the top priority)

Anything involving one or all of the Kanneh-Masons

John Wilson (although I bet they wish he would go back to doing film music and musicals rather than more mainstream classical music)

Simon Rattle

National Youth Orchestra of GB

After their popular success last year, Yuja Wang and Klaus Makela

One or two prestigious visiting orchestras (as long as they're not too expensive or have their own streaming service)

As many non-classical concerts as they think they can get away with (this year: Northern Soul, Horrible Histories, Bollywood, NYO Jazz, Fantasy, Myths & Legends)

Concerts that promote 'diversity' and/or have a woman conductor or an interesting soloist or a gimmick that they can promote (eg First and Last Night, Anja Bihlmaier and Bomsori, Felix Kleiser, Pekka Kuusisto playing folk music alongside the 4 seasons)

Nothing over 2 hours long as that would mess up the schedules and get in the way of repeats of Top of the Pops (so definitely no opera)

Once they've ticked all those boxes, there won't be much space left for any other concerts to be broadcast on TV.

Very well summarised. I could have done without ALL the non-classical concerts in favour of more main stream 'classical'. Re John Wilson, BOTH please, classical AND Shows!

[smittims]

In this context, is it not an irony that the BBC call the Proms the world's greatest classical music festival? As Charles Rosen said many years ago, how to mak classical sell. Record pop and call it classical .

[oddoneout]

I don't think TOTP repeats can take all the blame for lack of opera TV broadcasts - proms or otherwise - now that they(TOTP) are contained to a Friday night slot. I do agree that the 2 hour limit seems to be an issue, even on BBC4, where one would suppose extended "highbrow" broadcasts would cause little disturbance, not least as that's probably the common perception of the channel's output anyway.
Chineke! and the K-M family are a gift to the target and tick-box driven agenda that controls broadcast output but such blanket coverage has its drawbacks as far as I'm concerned and is not always advantageous to the performers concerned in my opinion.
A pity that some of the diverse/alternative programming can't be made available to non-BBC broadcasters if the intention is to open up the Proms to new audiences; that would free up space for the core Proms content to be televised.
Televised broadcasts used to be something I looked forward to, but fancy camera games started to take the shine off a good while ago and more recently the need to have the mute button to hand while also checking for when the verbals stop and the music begins, is too tiresome unless the concert is a real "not to be missed" for me.

[Lordgeous]

I also miss that they're no longer transmilled 'live'. That sense of occasion gone, plus the possibility of listening to the audio simultaneously on R3. How exciting those evenings were.

[Jazzrook]

Surely The Rite played from memory is a must for a televised repeat? But as far as I can see it ain't happening. (Forgive me if I'm wrong.)

I'm astonished that 'The Rite From Memory' is not being shown on television. I did make an audio recording but it would have been wonderful to see this extraordinary concert on TV.

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm astonished that 'The Rite From Memory' is not being shown on television. I did make an audio recording but it would have been wonderful to see this extraordinary concert on TV.

JR

Legend has it that those special associates allowed a pre-hearing witnessed Stravinsky raising his hands to great heights above the piano keyboard then letting them descend with force on unsuspecting chord combinations, making one think of the later Thelonious Monk doing likewise. Debussy describing joining the composer to play the lower parts of the piano score reduction later spoke of a "beautiful nightmare".

There's another story, admittedly thought by some to be apocryphal, connected to the premier of The Rite. The audience was divided roughly 30-30 between the welcomers and those violently hostile, with in-betweeners urging moderation in response, including in the former group Maurice Ravel along with a few of his associates, such as Maurice Delage, a gifted (some say genius) young composer who, while blessed with a remarkable aural memory, could not actually read music. Ravel was at the time giving him help and advice on some compositions, among them a group of Hindu poem settings stylistically clearly indebted to the master's influence. After the performance this grouping retired to Ravel's Paris pad to mull over the evening's extraordinary events. Delage sat down at Ravel's piano, and from memory proceeded to play from memory the entire score of The Rite, a work he could not possibly have heard beforehand, in his very own spontaneously realised piano version.

[LHC]

I don't think TOTP repeats can take all the blame for lack of opera TV broadcasts - proms or otherwise - now that they(TOTP) are contained to a Friday night slot. I do agree that the 2 hour limit seems to be an issue, even on BBC4, where one would suppose extended "highbrow" broadcasts would cause little disturbance, not least as that's probably the common perception of the channel's output anyway.
Chineke! and the K-M family are a gift to the target and tick-box driven agenda that controls broadcast output but such blanket coverage has its drawbacks as far as I'm concerned and is not always advantageous to the performers concerned in my opinion.
A pity that some of the diverse/alternative programming can't be made available to non-BBC broadcasters if the intention is to open up the Proms to new audiences; that would free up space for the core Proms content to be televised.
Televised broadcasts used to be something I looked forward to, but fancy camera games started to take the shine off a good while ago and more recently the need to have the mute button to hand while also checking for when the verbals stop and the music begins, is too tiresome unless the concert is a real "not to be missed" for me.

Sadly the 2 hour limit for TV broadcasts of classical music is nothing new. I remember when the BBC broadcast a concert to commemorate the victims of the Beslan massacre in 2004. The concert included a performance of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky, but the BBC in their infinite wisdom cut out one of the songs from the TV broadcast to keep the overall running time within 2 hours.

Similarly, in 2006 a performance of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto was cut from a Proms broadcast to make sure that BBC4 could switch to live coverage of a pop music awards ceremony at the appropriate time. Bizarrely, the broadcast still included the full interval discussion between Charles Hazlewood and his guests (lasting about 20 minutes) as if this section of the programme was more important than the music.

I tend to record the Proms broadcasts and watch them later or on the following day so that I can fast forward through all of the dismal presentation and just watch the music.

[gurnemanz]

Re Lack of classical music on BBC, I'm very glad I have a satellite dish which receives German channels - free to air. There is a good range of choice and something most days. ARD (German BBC) publishes a useful guide:

https://programm.ard.de/TV/Themenschwerpunkte/Musik-und-Kultur/Klassik-Oper--Tanz/Startseite

Eg Nozze di Figaro from Aix 2021 on Sunday on Arte.

Arte also puts classical music videos online. Just checked, eg the inaugural concert with Joanna Mallwitz, with theKonzerthausorchester. She is the first female chief conductor of a Berlin orchestra.

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/115585-000-A/inaugural-concert-for-conductor-joanna-mallwitz/

[Jazzrook]

Surely The Rite played from memory is a must for a televised repeat? But as far as I can see it ain't happening. (Forgive me if I'm wrong.)

A brief taste of what BBC television missed:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=PX6L4mRC-k4

JR

[oddoneout]

I also miss that they're no longer transmilled 'live'. That sense of occasion gone, plus the possibility of listening to the audio simultaneously on R3. How exciting those evenings were.

Indeed. I'm just glad that my children had the opportunity to experience that as family events before the tech got so clever that the two were out of synch.
Mind you it has to be said that how they viewed the experience was quite different between the two of them. My daughter just wanted to watch telly and stay up late, what she was seeing wasn't so important. My son however was transfixed by seeing what he was hearing, although being several years younger it was more likely that sleep would get there before the end of the programme.

[Cockney Sparrow]

On another thread, I was alarmed to find reference to :

.....................It’s pretty rare for digital on demand to be restricted so totally in this way . A recent example of deviation from the a 30 day or one year digital window is the Coronation. In fact on TV the standard on demand window is these days usually a year. I’ve noticed that some TV prom relays are available for a year and others e.g the Rattle / LSO Mahler 2 only 30 days. That’s what makes me think the issue over the Stevie Wonder is likely to be a copyright one. Another explanation might be .......

On looking at the iPlayer, I see that only the Juja Wang/Makela Rachmaninov concert expires soon - this weekend. Not sure what the Mahler 2 above refers to - Rattle's Mahler 9th this year is "Available for 11 months".