Prom Saturday Matinee. August 11th

[Orphical]

I believe programme notes are available for concerts online. Where on the BBC website do i access them? I can't seem to find the link.

[OldTechie]

I believe programme notes are available for concerts online. Where on the BBC website do i access them? I can't seem to find the link.

They don't seem to be doing them for the Saturday Matinee series. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/...ugust-11/14330. That is where the link to the programme notes would be if there was one. They do not make them available until close to the concert (they want concert goers to buy a printed version.)

[Bryn]

They don't seem to be doing them for the Saturday Matinee series. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/...ugust-11/14330. That is where the link to the programme notes would be if there was one. They do not make them available until close to the concert (they want concert goers to buy a printed version.)

About this event

Michael Finnissy’s Piano Concerto No. 2 begins in the lower depths and explodes into transcendentally demanding piano writing before the other players enter.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Gigue Machine, which Nicolas Hodges unveiled in Stuttgart earlier this year, also receives its first UK outing and Brian Elias’s meticulously crafted Sophoclean scena, set in the original ancient Greek, gets its first performance anywhere. Its cor anglais soloist, closely identified with the Britten Sinfonia as oboist and conductor, is a recent recipient of The Queen’s Medal for Music.

That's it? A pathetically brief pair of paragraphs!?

[french frank]

Michael Finnissy’s Piano Concerto No. 2 begins in the lower depths and explodes into transcendentally demanding piano writing before the other players enter.

I think the phone must have rung and distracted them after they'd written that one sentence. They forgot to come back and finish it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is it just me, or wasn't there another composer featured?

[Bryn]

Is it just me, or wasn't there another composer featured?

Can't think who you might be thinking of.

[Orphical]

Thanks for replies. Did anyone attend? And why no printed notes online? Very poor from BBC.

[JohnSkelton]

Thanks for replies. Did anyone attend? And why no printed notes online? Very poor from BBC.

There's a thread happened here http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...itten-Sinfonia .

[JohnSkelton]

I think the phone must have rung and distracted them after they'd written that one sentence. They forgot to come back and finish it.

... before the other players enter, pursuing a bear?

[OldTechie]

Thanks for replies. Did anyone attend? And why no printed notes online? Very poor from BBC.

I note that all the Cadogan Hall concerts have no online version of the concert programme.

Maybe they have some copyright issues. The income from programme sales might stay with the hall and the right to publish them online may only be agreed with the RAH. It that is the case, a few more words on the web page for non-RAH concerts would be justified.

[bluestateprommer]

Having attended several Proms Chamber Music concerts along with the odd Prom Saturday Matinee, a word of explanation is due here. The program booklets for the Cadogan Hall concerts are admittedly quite skimpy when it comes to full historical background, and certainly not on the scale of the program booklets for the RAH Proms. The biographies are brief, and the notes on the works themselves can be even briefer. Vocal recitals and such will include the sung texts, to be sure. However, to give a fuller context of why all this is the case:

1. There are no advertisements in the PCM and PSM program booklets. Thus that source of revenue is absent.

2. The Cadogan Hall program booklets are included in the price of your ticket. In terms of economy of scale, given that Cadogan Hall seats around 900 vs. the potential 6000 capacity of a full RAH, it's not really worth it to print up 900 programs that may not all sell. It's presumably easier to print a program booklet with the minimum of information, but then simply hand them out to patrons, rather than risk printing a relatively expensive thick booklet, not all of whose copies may sell, and the BBC would be stuck with a lot of leftover programs. Please note also that I write this as an American, where some sort of concert program is always included without additional charge.

3. The Cadogan Hall Proms also always feature spoken introductions from the stage. Thus in that sense, there wouldn't be much point for the announcer merely to repeat or even paraphrase what might be in the program booklet.

Overall, then, the nature of the Cadogan Hall Proms wouldn't really justify putting those booklets on line. The alternative would be to compromise and put a pdf of the sung texts, perhaps, but the counterargument to that is that you may as well put the whole booklet on line. There isn't an easy answer, obviously.

[Bryn]

Thanks bsp, that clarifies the matter beautifully.