Today's the day... What do we think of Proms season 2011?

[Roehre]

I am afraid I am going to earn the enmity of many posters here. I think you all listen to far too much classical music. You are bored with it. Brahms, Beethoven - pah. Britten, Shostakovich, Mahler - pish. Why can't the BBC be exciting? Oh, they would have to put on unknown and contemporary composers. Can't have that either - too revolutionary.

One example: the Brahms symphonies are programmed as well as the concertos. I am sure that we will hear them more than once broadcast within the coming twelve months (The same applies to many shostakovich as certainly the Mahlers.) We will be able to hear them live performed in this country somewhere too. So: why not programmed he two serenades. Lovely music, only rarely heard these days, hardly broadcast. The Proms is not only a classical music festival in London. It is in its entirety broadcast too, and with an IMO unimaginitive programming like this year's therefore most of the time doubling pieces which are broadcast anyway. What's the point of this?

As Suffolkcoastal writes:

I would also love to hear 100's of my favourite works 'live' but have to accept than in 90-95% of cases, I will never have that opportunity. ... If you endlessly concentrate on you 'beginners' what is there for your more experienced listeners, don't they have a right to be catered for sometimes too???

[french frank]

There are quite a lot of works whose existence is familiar to me without me necessarily having heard them (often). Among the never heard (thanks to Thespian for the alphabetical list):

Braunfels Fantastic Appearances of a Theme of Hector Berlioz (47 mins)
Brian Symphony No 1 - The Gothic (3,047,006 minutes)
Castiglioni Inverno in-ver (22 mins)
Colin Matthews No Man’s Land (c20 mins)
Elliott Carter Flute Concerto (13 mins)
Gabriel Prokofiev Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra (21 mins)
Glière Concerto for Coloratura Soprano (14 mins)
Graham Fitkin Cello Concerto (c27 mins)
Henri Dutilleux L'arbre des songes (25 mins)
Henri Dutilleux 'Tout un monde lointain...' (27 mins)
Liszt A Faust Symphony (62 mins)
Liszt Dante Symphony (41 mins)
Marc-André Dalbavie Flute Concerto (18 mins)
Pascal Dusapin String Quartet No. 6, 'Hinterland' (23 mins)
Robin Holloway Fifth Concerto for Orchestra (c25 mins)
Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor (39 mins)
Thomas Larcher Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (c25 mins)
Victoria Officium defunctorum (Requiem) (42 mins)
Wolfgang Rihm Gesungene Zeit (24 mins)

I could probably double that list with other people's 'familiar repertoire', and for someone who has to make a journey and overnight stay that would be plenty to be going on with (plus the works I do know and would be glad to hear live). I can quite see that season ticket holders who expect to go to at least half the concerts they may run out of interesting programmes.

[Flosshilde]

Search for Mahler works...you don't just get a simple list of Mahler Symphonies..you get Prom 32 Brahms and Mahler....if I wanted Brahms I would have asked for Brahms.

Amongst an awfull lot of moaning about the Proms this seems particularly perverse - I mean, if you search for Mahler, & the result tells you that Mahler will be performed in Prom 32, then you've got the information you've asked for, haven't you?

I really am vexed about this. Like a long lost dear friend turning up having had a sex change.

I would hope that you'd have the grace to greet him or her with a lot more enthusiasm, pleasure & support than you are showing here. Otherwise you don't deserve to have them as a friend.

[doversoul1]

Only JS and no other Bach. No Vivaldi and NO HAYDN.

[Flosshilde]

Only JS and no other Bach. No Vivaldi and NO HAYDN.

Doversoul, you might like to know that there is a Haydn opera at the Edinburgh Festival - Orlando Paladino (concert perf.) If you can't make it, it will be broadcast on 17th Sept. (the Programme helpfully indicates which performances will be broadcast).

It clashes with Rossini's Semiramide in a staged performance - as this isn't going to be broadcast I might go to it & wait to hear the Haydn.

[amateur51]

Excellent.

Btw, has anyone noticed? The first half of the First Night is Weir Brahms and Liszt. Is that someone's idea of a joke?

I do hope so - it's a good one in my book. Can't wait to hear Petroc cracking up as he announces it

Btw is Chas Hazlewood going to be one of our television hosts this year? If so is the BBC planning to treat his chest to a heavy waxing or do we have to put up with The Mighty Merkin for another year?

If it was down to me, I'd just spend my time in the box with him threatening to flick lighted matches into his manly décolletage in the hope that Hirsute Hazlewood would go up in a flash and just leave a nasty whiff.

[doversoul1]

Doversoul, you might like to know that there is a Haydn opera at the Edinburgh Festival - Orlando Paladino (concert perf.) If you can't make it, it will be broadcast on 17th Sept. (the Programme helpfully indicates which performances will be broadcast).

It clashes with Rossini's Semiramide in a staged performance - as this isn't going to be broadcast I might go to it & wait to hear the Haydn.

Thank you for the invitation but I think a 900-mile return journey might be a little too extravagant. I shall wait for the broadcast. In return, may I invite you to my local music festival (see the Summer Festival thread in Performance)?

I look forward to this Prom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2011/july-18/6
Mahan Esfahani has been playing a lot of less well known works but I suppose this is a reasonable choice for the occasion.

[french frank]

I look forward to this Prom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2011/july-18/6
Mahan Esfahani has been playing a lot of less well known works but I suppose this is a reasonable choice for the occasion.

I agree. It's making a trip to London, starting on Sunday, an enticing prospect.

[pilamenon]

Day after day of affordable top or near-top quality (mainly) classical music for almost two summer months means that any criticisms always take into account the gratitude I feel for this, and in that sense I'm with Eudamonia.

This year, I'm looking forward to getting to know Liszt better, and two unmissables are the French baroque Prom (Les Talens Lyrique and Christophe Rousset) and the Glyndebourne Rinaldo, with Ottavio Dantone, Sonia Prina and Sandrine Piau.

Then, the Stuttgart Mahler 9 and Simón Bolívar 'Resurrection', obviously, though getting tickets for these might be tricky. I'd love to see Lisa Batiashvili play Shostakovich VC1, though the rest of that programme is a bit dreary. For late-nighters, the Steve Reich Prom, and possibly the Nigel Kennedy if tickets are available.

Disappointments - the Liszt piano concertos in the first and last Proms - I want to see these, but they are the worst nights to go. The wrong Mahler - I though we were getting all the works spread over the two anniversary years, but see no performing version of the 10th, for example, and yet the 1st and 5th are in again. The Rite of Spring, Firebird, the Paganini Variations - do we really need these every year?

And yes, the website is a piss-poor imitation of its predecessors. I just searched under baroque and early music Proms, and found no Handel opera.

[Threni]

The Rite of Spring, Firebird, the Paganini Variations - do we really need these every year?

Yes! ;)

Although I want to hear Salonen doing the Rite so I'm going to Edinburgh instead. I believe he's the best at the moment for that score.

[Alison]

The website is a mess and has stopped me browsing through the whole season.

I like buying the Proms Guide.

The First Night doesn't appeal at all. A token new work (4 mins) to prove the Proms are
fresh and forward thinking ? I don't feel the Liszt Concerto belongs to the Opening Night
however remarkable the very young soloist will probably be.

[Barbirollians]

So long as Hazlewood isn't conducting he could appear bare chested for all I care!!!

[Eudaimonia]

The Rite of Spring, Firebird, the Paganini Variations - do we really need these every year?
Yes!

Hear hear! Personally, I wouldn't mind having the Rite and Firebird every week as the Saturday Midnight Prom.

Although I want to hear Salonen doing the Rite so I'm going to Edinburgh instead. I believe he's the best at the moment for that score.

I started hearing him conduct the Rite in Los Angeles in the 90s, and he just keeps getting better and better. You won't be disappointed!

[Flosshilde]

Thank you for the invitation but I think a 900-mile return journey might be a little too extravagant. I shall wait for the broadcast. In return, may I invite you to my local music festival (see the Summer Festival thread in Performance)?

Doversoul, I did it for Parsifal at ENO. You could probably get cheap train tickets if you book now. Accommodation in Edinburgh might be a bit more expensive though!

[BetweenTheStaves]

...... Simón Bolívar 'Resurrection'.......

I can't make up my mind on this. I've heard Mahler 2 on quite a few occasions....all good...some extremely memorable. I associate - perhaps unfairly - the SBO with up-tempo music but maybe I am doing them a disservice and that their Mahler 2 could be exquisite. What do the rest of you think?