Prom 21: 'All-American Prom', Sinfonia of London, Osborne / J. Wilson

[bluestateprommer]

Sunday 4 August 2024
19:00
Royal Albert Hall

Wynton Marsalis: Herald, Holler and Hallelujah! (UK premiere)
Copland: Billy the Kid – Suite
Barber: Adagio for Strings
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
[Encore: Duke Ellington: "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" (arr. Oscar Peterson & Steven Osborne; first performance of this arrangement at The Proms)]

Interval

Ives: The Unanswered Question
John Adams: Harmonielehre
[Encore: Leroy Anderson: Fiddle Faddle]

Steven Osborne, piano
Sinfonia of London
John Wilson, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/e64z3d

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-21/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021jv1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021s7b

[parkepr]

I've got this one booked in... Very much looking forward to this.

[jonfan]

Attending live from Yorkshire at great expense! The Queens Gate Hotel used to be quite reasonable but a mortgage extension required now! Thank goodness for Premier Inns!

[Pulcinella]

Looks good on paper, but I'm not one of JW's greatest fans (I didn't rate his Chandos Copland series that highly, and not all his SoL releases have deserved their adulation, imho), so I'm not holding my breath, though I'll be tuning in!

[Sir Velo]

Unlike some I am a fan of what Wilson has achieved with his band. However, what a desperately unimaginative programme which has precisely the opposite effect on me from that intended.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Unlike some I am a fan of what Wilson has achieved with his band. However, what a desperately unimaginative programme which has precisely the opposite effect on me from that intended.

I haven’t heard RIB on Radio 3 for at least three days.

How about a rarely played Bernstein symphony or Harris symphony or both?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Attending live from Yorkshire at great expense! The Queens Gate Hotel used to be quite reasonable but a mortgage extension required now! Thank goodness for Premier Inns!

Some of their London prices recently have been eye watering as well.

[french frank]

Unlike some I am a fan of what Wilson has achieved with his band. However, what a desperately unimaginative programme which has precisely the opposite effect on me from that intended.

Is that (again) because the intended audience is one not familiar with a wide range of (in this case American) classical music? So go for the tried/tired and tested.

[Pulcinella]

Ives: The Unanswered Question
John Adams: Harmonielehre

Surely not that often programmed/played?

[LMcD]

Ives: The Unanswered Question
John Adams: Harmonielehre

Surely not that often programmed/played?

Certainly not at the Proms - the Ives doesn't seem to have featured before, and the Adams has been included just twice. in 2006 (RAH) and 2017 (Peckham). The Roy Harris 3rd featured in Proms in 1975 and 1997, and I for one would welcome its return..

[french frank]

Ives: The Unanswered Question
John Adams: Harmonielehre

Surely not that often programmed/played?

But the Ives is short and was on R3 six times in six months this year.

[Pulcinella]

But the Ives is short and was on R3 six times in six months this year.

Shows how often I (don't) listen to R3.

[Darkbloom]

Certainly not at the Proms - the Ives doesn't seem to have featured before, and the Adams has been included just twice. in 2006 (RAH) and 2017 (Peckham). The Roy Harris 3rd featured in Proms in 1975 and 1997, and I for one would welcome its return..

I'm pretty sure Gidon Kremer conducted the Ives at the Proms in the '90s, but included it as an encore.

[LMcD]

I'm pretty sure Gidon Kremer conducted the Ives at the Proms in the '90s, but included it as an encore.

Perhaps the 'official' record of BBC Proms programmes doesn't include encores.

[bluestateprommer]

Checked the Proms Performance Archive, on Ives' The Unanswered Question. This work has received 5 previous Proms performances:

1985: Prom 41, London Sinfonietta, Simon Rattle
1994: Prom 58, London Sinfonietta, Markus Stenz
2002: Prom 70, CBSO, Sakari Oramo (this Prom featured the Ives as an encore)
2012: Prom 25, BBC SO, David Robertson
2018: Proms at...The Lighthouse, London Sinfonietta, George Benjamin

I suppose that it says something about this work that 3 of the previous 5 Proms performances featured the London Sinfonietta.

As others have noted, the choice of American repertoire for the more-or-less annual John Wilson Prom is very safe, the new Wynton Marsalis and John Adams works aside, even though it's quite arguable that the choice of anything by Marsalis is "safe" in of itself. In the centenary year of Rhapsody in Blue, its choice was pretty much unavoidable (a bit of contrarian opinion from Ethan Iverson aside). Still, if nothing else, in terms of the amount of music in the concert, it's definitely value for money.