The 2012 Proms season

[EnemyoftheStoat]

reduced ... the amount of specially recorded material for Hear and Now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/2011/10/controller-roger-wright-on-the.shtml

Still, as long as Roger can afford to get famous European orchestras to perform famous European orchestra repertoire at the Proms that's OK.

"To protect the BBC Proms".... Would it be too cynical to wonder what new cutbacks will pay for the glamour bands?

[rauschwerk]

First response, looks a typical underwhelming mish-mash.

My heart sank when I browsed the composer list. What Stravinsky is there? Firebird and Le Sacre, as if they weren't broadcast on 3 with monotonous regularity. What Ginastera? Estancia. What Copland? Fanfare for you-know who. The twentieth century classics on which I cut my teeth in the 60s have all but disappeared from the Proms and indeed London concert programmes generally. I suppose it's to do with dosh but it's very sad indeed.

[John Skelton]

"To protect the BBC Proms".... Would it be too cynical to wonder what new cutbacks will pay for the glamour bands?

I fear that it wouldn't. I'd say the Proms has become a (semi-?) detached, (quasi-?) autonomous Thing all by itself: whereas in the past it was an element of what Radio 3 and the BBC did now it seems to be its own justification and its own PR machine. I know it sounds fantastically sour of me, but I don't see that the BBC's public service remit includes promoting an 'international music festival' along the lines of other international music festivals (and I completely accept that the ticket prices for promenading are a wonderful thing). It's not that there aren't concerts I don't very much want to listen to. It's that the purpose of the thing as part of any distinct public service Radio 3 seems obscure to me.

(Completely agree with rauschwerk # 47).

[Simon B]

"To protect the BBC Proms".... Would it be too cynical to wonder what new cutbacks will pay for the glamour bands?

Are the glamour bands really that expensive to put on? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely wonder. With 4500 seats priced from £13-£55, 1000 standing places at £2.60/£5 (season/day) and a guaranteed sellout I'd guess £140k in ticket sales per concert. That probably still doesn't actually cover the (extreme, presumably) cost but is the deficit really that much bigger than for less glamorous bands for which less ticket revenue can be raised?

Really costly undertakings are probably those such as last year's Gothic - figures (unverifiable, by me anyway and unclear what it does/doesn't include) of £300k have been bandied about for this. That's not an argument against doing them though...

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I also note that the blurb for that RVW fest says:

Over the next few seasons Andrew Manze directs all nine Vaughan Williams symphonies with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, of which he is Associate Guest Conductor

And we can hear Manze conducting the BBCSSO in Nos. 4 and 5 on Radio 3 this very evening.

[Resurrection Man]

Why can't they list the performers as well as the repertoire on the weekly view? So infuriating...

Hear, hear. Also same old 'scroll down, scroll down, scroll down' as last year How many of us have monitors that are 2 ft wide by 6 foot tall?

Hello, BBC weblets, there is a word called 'horizontal' in the dictionary. Please look it up and use it for next year.

[Resurrection Man]

I just can't believe it.
Eine Alpensinfonie with the VPO!
I've just got to be there.

And Elgar's Apostles.

.....

Hits the spot for me. As does Gurrelieder.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I just can't believe it.
Eine Alpensinfonie with the VPO!

? They didn't tell you, you were conducting, Alpie?!

[Suffolkcoastal]

My heart sank when I browsed the composer list. What Stravinsky is there? Firebird and Le Sacre, as if they weren't broadcast on 3 with monotonous regularity. What Ginastera? Estancia. What Copland? Fanfare for you-know who. The twentieth century classics on which I cut my teeth in the 60s have all but disappeared from the Proms and indeed London concert programmes generally. I suppose it's to do with dosh but it's very sad indeed.

Exactly rauschwerk, its actually a very typical woger proms. There is a nod to the olympics in that in celebration of the eyes of the world being on London we do the Great Exhibition style big choral works (actually I was half expecting this to happen). There are the usual carrots to try to keep the British music fans off his back, whilst carefully continuing to avoid certain British composers or certain categories of works by British composers. Baroque, Classical and Early Romantic fare is totally dominiated by the big names with standard repetoire and there is a heavy concentration as usual on the period 1870-1920. The period 1920-80 is largely kept to a minimum except in relation to the odd popular classic or work by one of Woger's favoured composers of the period, composers he does not favour are largely kept out, there is the collection of more avant-garde compositions to keep these enthusiasts off his back and the usual collection of Proms commissions which are normally forgettable and will rarely be heard again.
Anniversary composers are normally the obvious ones, there is the occasional 'lip-service' piece to the less obvious ones or they snubbed altogether. Scadinavian music is normally almost exclusively confined to the 'big three' with the occasional more recent work, the same is true of Russian music post 1920, and American music is of the same period is kept to popular classics a bit of avant-garde or a favoured composer (normally John Adams). The continual virtual ignoral of a group of 20th century composers like Hindemith, Martinu, Honegger, Milhaud, Roussel for example.
The proms should be an opportunity to experiment with a whole range of composers contrasting well known works and composers of all periods with the lesser known ones.

[french frank]

"To protect the BBC Proms".... Would it be too cynical to wonder what new cutbacks will pay for the glamour bands?

When it was announced recently where, roughly, the BBC cuts would be made, both Radio 4 and the Proms were spared. I'm not entirely sure, as a certain amount of the vaunted 'transparency and openness' is absent, but I think that R4's budget is not being cut, whereas there will be any 'reinvestment' (what dat?) in the Proms necessary to 'preserve quality'. We queried in our response to the Trust's consultation where the reinvestment would come from, whether extra funds would be made available or whether it would come - like most of the Proms shortfall - from R3's budget, which would have implications for the rest of the station output, since the overall budget is being cut.

We also said that there would be absolutely no reduction in quality if the Proms did not expand each year, and that a cut in the number of events would be perfectly allowable in hard times. (The submissions will be up on the Trust's website soon, but haven't yet appeared)

[EdgeleyRob]

There are the usual carrots to try to keep the British music fans off his back, whilst carefully continuing to avoid certain British composers or certain categories of works by British composers.

This is true, but WHY?

[rubbernecker]

a very typical woger proms

Ouch! Let's highlight the poor man's speech defect, as if it weren't enough that he shares his name with a gay safe-sex manual

[John Skelton]

there is the collection of more avant-garde compositions to keep these enthusiasts off his back

Hmm. There have been three - three - works by Luigi Nono performed at the Proms, the most recent being in 1986. There hasn't been a single work by Helmut Lachenmann performed at the Proms. There has been one work by Salvatore Sciarrino performed at the Proms (1989). Which would suggest, among other things, an over-reliance on this year's featured 'avant-garde' great, Pierre Boulez, to do the BBC's thinking for them in such matters. That's just three very important composers (to put it as neutrally as possible. I'd say great composers, but hey ho); the iceberg is, as it were, sizable in its non-presence.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, I'm happy!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

? They didn't tell you, you were conducting, Alpie?!

That would be nice, though Haitink will do a better job.