Prom 23 (31.7.12): Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Delius & Walton

[amateur51]

Am: sadly, Kilimanjiro the guinea pig ceased roughly on the midnight with (one hopes) no pain, despite a late-night visit to the vet The funeral was today while I was at work: family only.

The big question now is: Did he successfully pass on his genes before he went? We shall keep the world's media fully updated.

Sad news indeed LMP but thanks for the update.

My bro's guineapig Banjo died after breaking his back after jumping out of his elevated cage - I think it was the brandy & warm water that saw him off frankly, but what a way to go

I wasn't allowed mammals as pets, being the eldest.

No I didn't understand that either but I've stopped fretting about it

[Ferretfancy]

Sad news indeed LMP but thanks for the update.

My bro's guineapig Banjo died after breaking his back after jumping out of his elevated cage - I think it was the brandy & warm water that saw him off frankly, but what a way to go

I wasn't allowed mammals as pets, being the eldest.

No I didn't understand that either but I've stopped fretting about it

Did you have to feed,water and tend all the juniors, including Banjo ? This conjures up a fascinating picture from Dickens ! I grew up in Somerset, and apart from my uncle's dog saw a few newts come and go -- a sort of Gussie fink-Nottle.

[Pabmusic]

...I wasn't allowed mammals as pets, being the eldest.

No I didn't understand that either but I've stopped fretting about it

??!! The trouble with this kind of 'irrational' rule is often that the reason for it is usually lost in the mists of time. My (first) wife (I've been with my second now for 15 years) had a 'family' recipe, handed down generation to generation, that ended something like: "Divide between two medium baking tins and bake at..." I queried why we had to divide the mixture when we could equally well have cooked it all together. My wife didn't know - it was just 'the recipe'. Her mother didn't know, either. We got the answer from the maternal grandmother (whose recipe it apparently was) - she had had a small oven, and it wouldn't accommodate a large baking tin!

[grandchant]

Well pleased with this performance of Belshazzar; too often they just go like the clappers at the end and the detail gets omitted at that speed, but Walton's music deserves due detail. Also, the women's choral lines towards the end were heard intact.

[amateur51]

??!! The trouble with this kind of 'irrational' rule is often that the reason for it is usually lost in the mists of time. My (first) wife (I've been with my second now for 15 years) had a 'family' recipe, handed down generation to generation, that ended something like: "Divide between two medium baking tins and bake at..." I queried why we had to divide the mixture when we could equally well have cooked it all together. My wife didn't know - it was just 'the recipe'. Her mother didn't know, either. We got the answer from the maternal grandmother (whose recipe it apparently was) - she had had a small oven, and it wouldn't accommodate a large baking tin!

Lovely story, Pabs - almost Chekhovian

[Lateralthinking1]

Four works that I heard live a great deal in my long ago youth. I started to record on my TV but that annoying little thingy that floats about on the otherwise blank screen when recording R3 drove me [more] dotty so decided to wait and record the whole concert on BBC4 on the 9th.

I've had a rest from Belshazzar so am looking forward to it. Love the Delius and RVW, when well played but never got to grips with the John Ireland work. I can hear Ernest Chapman tut-tutting in heaven.

I am finding it difficult to see what is on BBC4 and when. Does anyone have a full schedule of the television broadcasts?

This for example has a tiny footnote 'Recorded for broadcast on BBC Four on 9 August' which I wouldn't have seen had it not been for salymap saying that it would be on the 9th -

http://www.test.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2012/july-31/14276

Now that we have got past the wall to wall Beethoven, I want to have the opportunity to watch the things I like.

[Nick Armstrong]

I am finding it difficult to see what is on BBC4 and when. Does anyone have a full schedule of the television broadcasts?

This for example has a tiny footnote 'Recorded for broadcast on BBC Four on 9 August' which I wouldn't have seen had it not been for salymap saying that it would be on the 9th -

http://www.test.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2012/july-31/14276

Now that we have got past the wall to wall Beethoven, I want to have the opportunity to watch the things I like.

It's called "catch as catch can" I think, Lat - that's the phrase that was used in our house when no one could be bothered to cook

[Andrew Slater]

I am finding it difficult to see what is on BBC4 and when. Does anyone have a full schedule of the television broadcasts?

Try this.

Unfortunately, it's ordered by performance date, and still needs clicking and searching for the TV broadcast date!

[Lateralthinking1]

Try this.

Unfortunately, it's ordered by performance date, and still needs clicking and searching for the TV broadcast date!

Thank you to both of you. Perhaps this is a point best raised on a general thread but I find the way the website is structured disappointing. It is designed mainly for those attending and the broadcasts are secondary.

For example, I had decided that I would view performances this year rather than simply listening to them on the radio. Having looked at the schedule several times a month or two ago, I ruled out the early part of the season because of content. I thought that if there were one or two things that were worthwhile, I'd see them anyway because they tend to be on television later and I would ultimately find them.

Now I find that I have missed the Respighi which I have to turn to another page to find was as early as Prom 3 and is not to be televised. Similarly, I am aware from earlier reading that there is a prom featuring Villa-Lobos but you wouldn't know that by looking only at the television page.

I suppose it isn't ludicrous to expect someone to turn a few pages but I would have thought that they could have listed the broadcasting times - radio and television - of all the proms in date order on one page!

[BBMmk2]

This was a very enjoyable indeed I managed to catch this on iplayer today, thankfully.

[Nick Armstrong]

Just catching up with my recording of this evening's BBC4 TV broadcast of this concert. Only heard the VW so far - the performance seems even more beautiful and riveting than it did in the hall What a viola soloist

But marred to some degree by the hacking of the SELFISH IDIOTS who cough openly throughout like bronchitic walruses I think it was picked up particularly due to the necessity of placing some mikes 'out there' to pick up the offstage players... But how can people be so thoughtless ?! It never ceases to amaze me.

[Lateralthinking1]

Absolutely loved the Ireland which I hadn't heard before - particularly musically but also its theme. One reviewer remarked on similarities with the Olympics opening ceremony, both being socialist in vision/sentiment and yet commissioned for a patriotic/royal occasion. In the case of Ireland's work, the occasion was more regal, rather as if Boyle's artistry had been designed for the jubilee, and his work was more red-blooded than "Isles of Wonder" which will always be open to interpretation.

Crucially, it was also written in the lead-up to an embracing of socialism rather than to a backdrop of cut-throat economics. Many might criticise its artistic utopia but I find that easily a far better place to be. Actually, it is where I'd hoped we'd be now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/01/prom-23-bbc-now-otaka

As a fan of Joji Hirota, I have long been aware how the Japanese can bring something refreshing to the quintessentially English. They have an ability to remove any dust from it and replace any lumpen elements with delicacy. I thought that Tadaaki Otaka's treatment of both the RVW and the Delius sympathetic. Each thankfully had clarity, sensitivity and subtlety and were not at all brash. I thought though that there could have been more mystery and colour, perhaps particularly with the Delius.

I am still trying to decide what I made of Walton's Belshazzar and know that I haven't quite "got" it yet. Various thoughts went through my head - Brian's Gothic which is on a different scale, Orff but not with his arrogance, Bernstein even if he was perhaps less erratic, and even Moross's Theme to The Big Country. No doubt to the well-informed all of these are lousy reference points.

The piece seems to make serious points about hubris but I sense that there is a lot of humour there too, given comments by Beecham and Walton's self-deprecating way with it. I can't say that I loved it but it had its moments among all the noise. Certainly it was sufficiently interesting to want to listen to it again another time. Finally, I felt that while the choirs/brass were excellent and the orchestra good, the soloist was less than engaging which, if nothing else, echoes other people's comments.

[salymap]

Wonderfulpost Lat, someof it beyond me I worked with a friend of Ireland's who was also a music critic and he tried hard to get me to appreciate TTSB but it escapes me still. However I love Belshazzar, not to be taken too seriously I feel.My old Sargent LP with the Hudddersfield Choral Society, still sounds good.

[Lateralthinking1]

Wonderfulpost Lat, someof it beyond me I worked with a friend of Ireland's who was also a music critic and he tried hard to get me to appreciate TTSB but it escapes me still. However I love Belshazzar, not to be taken too seriously I feel.My old Sargent LP with the Hudddersfield Choral Society, still sounds good.

Thank you salymap. I will see if I can find that and give it another go. Your contributions are always interesting. Without you and R3, I doubt that I would have started to listen to Bush, Bush, Butterworth, Grainger and Moeran, among others, in the past year. I love RVW and Delius. On Walton, I am a novice and Britten I find difficult so I would always welcome a steer there.

Joji Horota is generally put into the pigeon hole "world music" and is mostly known for Japanese taiko drumming. However, he is also a flautist and composer who having lived in this country has absorbed our culture. He managed in "The Gate" CD (1991) to combine in new compositions delicate Japanese folk tunes with what to my hearing are very English arrangements in the romantic classical tradition. I can't find a YouTube link that does him and that CD justice but when I do, I will let you know.

[Mary Chambers]

I watched on BBC last night. None of this music particularly grabs me, but a concert on TV is too good an opportunity to miss. Enjoyed the RVW the most. The Ireland, which I don't know at all, was lost on me, because I couldn't hear the words and subtitles were intermittent. "These things shall be" came up on the screen rather often, and that was the only bit I could hear anyway. I didn't find it interesting musically, and the soloist wasn't in tune.

I've sung Belshazzar quite often, and found it exciting initially, but it wears thin after a while. It was good to see the archive clips of Walton. The women in the choir were very wavery in the more exposed parts, I thought, and Lemalu not riveting, but I enjoyed the orchestral contribution. There didn't seem to be any subtitles for this, which didn't matter to me because I know it, but must make a big difference to viewers unfamiliar with the piece. Just becuse it's in English doesn't mean the words are audible, and it does help to know what's going on.

Oh dear, none of this sounds very positive, does it? I'm still glad it was on!