TV Proms

[Mr Pee]

On the strength of that wonderful performance of The Blue Danube, I would like to propose Donald Runnicles for the New Year's Day gig in Vienna. He clearly has an affinity with the genre. I'm not sure I've heard it done better for many a year.

And can I just thank the BBC for sticking those pictures of Beethoven up behind the orchestra? Without them I woudn't have had a clue what I was listening to.

[VodkaDilc]

On the strength of that wonderful performance of The Blue Danube, I would like to propose Donald Runnicles for the New Year's Day gig in Vienna. He clearly has an affinity with the genre. I'm not sure I've heard it done better for many a year.

And can I just thank the BBC for sticking those pictures of Beethoven up behind the orchestra? Without them I woudn't have had a clue what I was listening to.

Was it Beethoven's Blue Danube?

[Mr Pee]

Was it Beethoven's Blue Danube?

Now there's a thought.....

[maestro267]

AAAH!!! I cannot vent my frustration enough at the TV broadcasts this year, and their failure to treat these events just like that. Events, rather than just made-for-TV highlights. And what I read above about the concert on Friday being advertised with a MacMillan clip, and then that piece not being shown, shows what a complete mess they've made of it this year.

I hope the BBC learns from its mistakes in the future, and returns to giving these important events in the classical music calendar the prestige they deserve.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The previous formula was fine.

[french frank]

I noted this comment from Radio Times: "You may be getting used to these BBC Four Proms being tidily packaged versions of concerts that took place a few days earlier." Yes. And so?

[teamsaint]

tidy for the schedulers, I guess.

[ucanseetheend]

The BBC have been forever trailing on TV A Prom on TV every Thursday Friday and Sunday throughout the season and guess what Tonight 12th August a SUNDAY, None, once again pathetic TV , incoherent and a shambles, Why they ever bother with coverage , It's almost a token effort to show "something" throughout the season, BBC TV Proms SUCKS

[VodkaDilc]

I noted this comment from Radio Times: "You may be getting used to these BBC Four Proms being tidily packaged versions of concerts that took place a few days earlier." Yes. And so?

So are the live Proms we hear or attend not tidily packaged? Isn't that the job of the concert planners - not some interfering television producer?

[Anna]

Not quite sure what the policy is here. For the concerts themselves you include new pieces with more familiar ones in the hope that the new pieces will reach a wider audience. But for the television showings you cut them out of the concerts and tuck them into a special 'new music' corner all on their own for the aficionados? Or do I misunderstand something (it has happened!)?

Having now purchased the RT I can quote the write up for the New Music Prom to be broadcast tomorrow, 18th August, on BBC4:-

If you've wondered what's happened to some of the more challenging pieces - premieres and new commissions - excluded from the edited TV Proms, here's a neat selection package. And we're eased into them by erudite host Tom Service with Gillian Moore .... Brace yourself for extracts from Mark-Anthony Turnage's Frieze, John McCabe's Joybox, Thomas Ades Totentanz and Lachenmann's Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied. David Matthew's A Vision of the Sea is rather beautiful, while Murray Gold's well-intentioned Song for 50 was the weak spot in his othewise fabulous Dr. Who Prom

So, it's merely some EXTRACTS crammed into 90 minutes - because they are challenging and we have to be 'eased into them' ?? And Colin Matthews is never to be broadcast at all? What sort of musically challenged numpties do the BBC think they are broadcasting to?

[french frank]

'And we're eased into them by erudite host Tom Service with Gillian Moore .... Brace yourself for extracts'

From the BBC's 'gold card' arts channel? Or is that on BBC Two?

[Anna]

From the BBC's 'gold card' arts channel? Or is that on BBC Two?

Well, I don't like this 'topping and tailing and tidying' of Proms. And there was a post that the MacMillan had been deleted from the R3 repeat/iplayer?
They are treating us like children - I guess it's to gain audience figures? But should what they broadcast be anodyne and middle of the road, one size fits all? I do hope FoR3 take up this issue with the powers that be that we are being massively shortchanged. If you lay on a Prom then you broadcast a Prom, in its entireity. Never mind that some of it may cause a fit of the vapours to those of a delicate constitution or frighten the horses, otherwise, why have the damned things in the first place?

Yours, Disgusted of Llandrindod Wells..

[mercia]

I think we're allowed to watch the MacMillan violin concerto for a while

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01cmbzg

oh, and that Ligeti encore from Jansons is available

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01dwqzk

its like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes

[Anna]

I think we're allowed to watch the MacMillan violin concerto for a while
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01cmbzg

Fair point mercia, we can watch the Lachenmann, MacMillan and D. Matthews - if we have a computer and are not worried about bandwidth usage and want to sit in front of a computer with perhaps inadequate speakers. But what about all this stuff about bringing New Music to the Great Unwashed sitting down together in the front parlour - I thought that meant via tv broadcasts? Oh, and cutting out the classical bits from the Urban Prom on tv?
(Sorry to appear bad tempered, but I think this BBC policy stinks)

[Nick Armstrong]

we're eased into them by erudite host Tom Service

That phrase made me feel quite ill.

Tom Service has turned into the prize boob of this televised series, as far as I am concerned

(Sorry to appear bad tempered, but I think this BBC policy stinks)

I couldn't agree more.

[french frank]

I do hope FoR3 take up this issue with the powers that be that we are being massively shortchanged. If you lay on a Prom then you broadcast a Prom, in its entireity. Never mind that some of it may cause a fit of the vapours to those of a delicate constitution or frighten the horses, otherwise, why have the damned things in the first place?

While I'm waiting for the Trust to figure out how the hell they deal with an official complaint against them when they're supposed to be the supreme body when it comes to arbitrating on complaints ... perhaps I'll pen a letter to the chairman of the classical music board which coordinates the broadcasting of classical music across BBC television and radio and ask him who is leading him by the nose?

He's been a service controller far, far longer than any of the other controllers, he has far more experience even than the newly appointed Director of Television, he should have the Director General himself rooting for him ... is he so complaisant than he doesn't want to make a fuss?