The actual Proms programme 12 July - 7 September

[Flosshilde]

So; you get Daniel Barenboim on the 'phone and he says "Hey, Rodgy, baby; I'm doing a Ring Cycle next year round about the time of the Proms. Waddya reckon we include it for the first time ever in the history of the Proms? Are you in?"

You really want RW to reply "Thanks, but no thanks, Danny boy. We're putting on Les Mammelles du Tiresias"?

Are they? That would be fun. I saw it at ENO years ago - hilarious. (perhaps, if time was short, it could be done with the Ring in a mash-up, a la Ariadne auf Naxos.)

[gurnemanz]

No, I don't but have listened to snippets on the Classical Shop website. From what I've heard, it's worth investigating further. As I'll be in Gloucester that day I hope to attend. I believe that the songs will be sung in English, which will help a non-linguist such as me!

I got to know this work with Roxolana Roslak and Glenn Gould, who thought "Das Marienleben" the greatest song-cycle ever written. I've played it once and found it well worth the effort. It's on this recent great value 4CD box for £7.99.. (Amaze your friends and play them the Hindemith Tuba Sonata.)

[Suffolkcoastal]

Must dig Das Marienleben out for another listen, as haven't listened to it for a while, have both versions on a twin CD set. Lets hope that some amends are made and Hindemith at least gets a COTW.

There's three concerts I think I can try for, but will probably only take two. The Henze, Stravinsky, Tippett one and a choice between the Gergiev LSO and the Warsaw one, I rather like the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra. The rest apart from some dipping in for certain works on the radio, I don't think I'll bother with.

[aeolium]

So; you get Daniel Barenboim on the 'phone and he says "Hey, Rodgy, baby; I'm doing a Ring Cycle next year round about the time of the Proms. Waddya reckon we include it for the first time ever in the history of the Proms? Are you in?"

You really want RW to reply "Thanks, but no thanks, Danny boy. We're putting on Les Mammelles du Tiresias"?

So you think it's right that they should have The Ring cycle plus Tannhäuser plus Tristan und Isolde plus Parsifal (and other works including the Wesendonck Lieder) while other anniversary composers get nothing?

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks Andrew I'm glad I'm not alone. The attitude to Hindemith you described was also passed on to me when I was younger, and I was told that Hindemith wasn't worth bothering about, he was just dry, dull and academic. Gladly as always I came to make my own mind up about Hindemith and though not everything he wrote is of interest, there are quite a fair number of works that I come to love and admire greatly. Snubbing a composer of Hindemith's importance, at a great musical festival in one of his anniversary years I'm afraid reflects very poorly on the Director and denies a wide audience the chance to hear his music live and judge for themselves, isn't that what the Proms really are all about? Sadly personal preferences, the fascination with CFM Hall of Fame pieces and an attempt to be 'cool and trendy' are starting to eat into this once great Festival.

Speaking to post-grad music students a few years ago, I found such attitudes towards Hindemith still extant, and was told that they had been presented with his music as one aspect of 20th century formal developments of little continuing relevance to where music is going. Some of the female students told me they found his music "unbearably masculine"!!!
All this surprised me, given how much usefulness Hindemith's harmonic approaches could offer the reversion to tonality mainstream among many composers of today. Probably Hindemith's influence was strongest in the 1940s and 1950s - one thinks of Vincent Perschetti and David Diamond in particular in America, and Arnold Cooke, Franz Reizenstein, Alan Rawsthorne and Walton in this country; though Hindemith was among those, including Bartok and Schoenberg, whose methods were taught at the time by Matyas Seiber. Today, however, that influence is still audibly at work in much jazz, particularly in big band settings.

[Nick Armstrong]

So; you get Daniel Barenboim on the 'phone and he says "Hey, Rodgy, baby; I'm doing a Ring Cycle next year round about the time of the Proms. Waddya reckon we include it for the first time ever in the history of the Proms? Are you in?"

You really want RW to reply "Thanks, but no thanks, Danny boy. We're putting on Les Mammelles du Tiresias"?

I'll tell you one thing - when it's Caly baby running the show, it'll be "On yer bike, Dan, I'm going with the Mammelles"

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought I'd read someone (mercia?) asking what Les Siècles would be like in "Rite of Spring"... This gives a taste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cw_D0VHcYk&feature=share

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So you think it's right that they should have The Ring cycle plus Tannhäuser plus Tristan und Isolde plus Parsifal (and other works including the Wesendonck Lieder) while other anniversary composers get nothing?

What makes you think that? I'd hoped I'd made clear in #64 that the negligence of Verdi and Ferneyhough was unpardonable.

Which artist(s) would you turn down, aeolie? Barenboim? Runnicles? Elder? Bychkov? They're there, offering their services as Wagnerians; what would you do? Insist that Elder does Hindemith instead? Turn down an appearance at this year's Proms by Elder in order to get, say, Nagano to do a "Carmelites"? Or accept what Elder offers you? Because that is the call the real Proms Controller has to make.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Some of the female students told me they found his music "unbearably masculine"!!!

She might have encountered Murder: the Hope of Womankind?

[Serial_Apologist]

She might have encountered Murder: the Hope of Womankind?

D'you know, ferney, I've never heard that!

[Barbirollians]

No Constant Lambert this year ! What about Lalo's Cello Concerto last heard in 1921 and Dohnanyi's Konzertstuck last heard in 1928 , Saint Saens Havanaise last heard in 1956 etc ///

[Barbirollians]

I find the Wagner Verdi imbalance most appalling - I would swop Parsibore for Traviata any day !

[Charlie]

Who said anything about "absolutes"?

Charlie said something about the impossibility of absolute balance, although ferneyhoughgeliebte introduced "absolutes", as quoted above. So how balanced can a programme be? How unbalanced can a programme be? An example of an absolutely balanced and unbalanced programme, in theory, would be no programme, because there is then absolutely nothing to balance or unbalance. This is a proof of its impossibility! Arguably the most balanced programme would include everything, once, because then nothing would be left out. The most unbalanced programme would consist of just one item, with no external or internal balances. Given the choice, I would probably go for the latter!

And "balance" can be achieved within an endlessly mutating repertoire.

Only by endlessly adjusting the programme, ferneyhoughgeliebte. This is precisely what happens at the Proms, on BBC Radio 3 and across the wider world! The programme changes all the time! Of course, history does tend to repeat itself, but often in subtly different ways. Just as things tend to change far more quickly than one might think, things also tend to change far more slowly than one might think. Innovation and inertia tend to be exemplified in any specific historical situation, I see no reason to think differently about the future, ferneyhoughgeliebte, so for good or ill, we shall always find what happens next somewhat surprising.

Which "Promenaders, concertgoers and viewers"?

All promenaders, concert goers, listeners and viewers! This includes you, ferneyhoughgeliebte, and everyone else who experiences the Proms, or anything else, for that matter! Anyway, Charlie is not really worried by the balance of the Proms (Seasons), individually or collectively. What is more interesting than balance, or the lack of balance, is the development of the programme, at least for me, Barbirollians:

Well having gone through the whole season i think it is appalling. Seven Wagner operas for crying out loud - no doubt the obsessive Wagnerites will be wetting themselves with glee whilst Verdi gets half a programme of arias and one concert of the Four sacred pieces and the odd other bit. Whilst there is endless Lutoslawki and lots of Britten

The Alpine Symphony again ! They get as fine a violinist as Vilde Frang in and give her the Bruch 1 yawn . A last night of lots of little bits and pieces - what a shame Nigel Kennedy wasn't asked to dust off his Britten Concerto rather than Janine jansen . For no obvious reason meanwhile we get all the Tchaikovsky symphonies and not a single piece of Schubert outside the Lewis/Cooper late nght piano duo and scarcely any Mozart at all and no Haydn .

An extremely unbalanced and lousy season.

Personally, I am spoilt for choice! I suppose that we can achieve our own balance by selecting our own programme from the Proms season, Barbirollians, and/or elsewhere! Upon reflection, I do not wish to attempt a grand slam in 2013, although I have been informed that Roger Wright will probably do so this year! As a member of the Radio 3 Forum and the Friends of Radio 3 (FoR3), french frank, I would argue that the Proms have to strike some kind of balance between populism and elitism. Of course, for many people, the Proms are going to be far too populist, particularly on the Last Night.

Telegraph - Proms 2013: First female conductor Marin Alsop is just the ticket

For many other people, the Proms are going to be far too elitist, although whether Glastonbury, for example, is any more or less elitist, or anti-elitist, is an interesting comparison. As it is finally spring, I would recommend the Rite, and the riot, to you all!

Prom 4: Les Siècles – The Rite of Spring

[Nick Armstrong]

whether all the lice can be avoided, I do not know! Perhaps Caliban has a secret supply!

Huh ???

[teamsaint]

Huh ???

c'mon, out with it. Where are you keeping them?