TV Proms

[Sir Velo]

Why did Tom Service and Paul Kildea have so little time to say anything? I was glad to see the performance, but I still feel rather cheated.

That surely is something to celebrate.

[Mary Chambers]

That surely is something to celebrate.

Well yes, I see your point, but if they are going to introduce works at all they should have a reasonable amount of time to say something constructive. The introduction to the Britten said virtually nothing about the poetry, and didn't even name the soloist. It was all so rushed.

[BBMmk2]

I heard that performance today and I think IB is an absolute stonker of a Britten interpreter!!! Don't let anyone else say anything less!!!

[Boilk]

...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)

BBC policy may "stink", but common sense policy need not. I link the laptop to the TV (via an HDMI cable) and watch it all on the big (well 37") screen in great clarity visually and in stereo. I also do the same for documentaries on YouTube, because frankly they can't be as enjoyable sitting at a desk vis-a-vis in an armchair.

Of course, 5-or-so years from now internet-enabled TVs won't be so hit-and-miss and may behave as we'd like them too...and be priced as we'd like them to be.

[Nick Armstrong]

I heard that performance today and I think IB is an absolute stonker of a Britten interpreter!!! Don't let anyone else say anything less!!!

Agreed but I couldn't watch him. The facial contortions make Dame Mitsuko seem stony-faced...

I'll be tuning in this afternoon on the radio...

[Mary Chambers]

Agreed but I couldn't watch him. The facial contortions make Dame Mitsuko seem stony-faced...

I'll be tuning in this afternoon on the radio...

It's not really possible for a singer to be right for a massive hall like the RAH and also for the intimate audience of television, though, is it? Neither he nor Uchida would have seemed quite so exaggerated in the hall, though I must admit she always irritates me. I've always found Bostridge convincing when I've seen him live, but I can take or leave his recordings. I felt on this occasion he was working very hard to project to and include the whole RAH audience, not easy in a place like that.

[Nick Armstrong]

It's not really possible for a singer to be right for a massive hall like the RAH and also for the intimate audience of television, though, is it? Neither he nor Uchida would have seemed quite so exaggerated in the hall, though I must admit she always irritates me. I've always found Bostridge convincing when I've seen him live, but I can take or leave his recordings. I felt on this occasion he was working very hard to project to and include the whole RAH audience, not easy in a place like that.

Exactly, Mary - hence the TV 'version' is not for me... and pretty unfair on a performer like IB. The same can be said for some of the conductors, like Nott or Nezet-Séguin: the fact that I find them unwatchable in TV close-up isn't really a criticism of them, but of 'up the nostril' HD television coverage. I'll be interested to see how Jordan and Thibaudet come across on TV on Thursday evening - in the hall, they were fine but Jordan's manner (that of a rather expressive swordsman) may well look absurd on screen

[Stanley Stewart]

I'm quite convinced that pitching a performance for the cavernous RAH or TV is fundamentally a matter of technique and persistent practice. I'm certainly not a singer although my professional experience as an actor in Shakespeare or Shaw taught me how to use rib reserve support/ diaphragm control, gan schnell. Alas, I've never spoken at the RAH but have paced the stage there to sense the vast space, using my adapted method of Laban notation which i gradually developed when rehearsing at, say, the tiny Criterion Theatre before opening at the spacious Alhambra Theatre, Bradford. Quite simply, there is truth in circling my little finger to the circumference of a 50p piece, or extending the circumference to indicate the size of a merry-go-round. The principle would be the same for TV or the RAH! The placement of an eye-line is also essential, taking care to use neck rotation quite slowly to avoid looking stiff/ staid. I seem to recall settling for the first circle while relaxing into the need for flexibility and gentle rotation.

I have enormous admiration for Ian Bostridge as a super-sensitive performer but remember his tendency to appear grotesque in unseemly posturing at the Wigmore Hall, in the 90s. Engaged by the comments on this thread, I decided to have a shufti at his performance, purely on technical grounds, of Les Illuminations on an overnight DVD recording. Mere speculation, of course, but his tall, slim physique, is a distinct advantage but he has a repeated tendency to lower his chin, or almost dig his chin into his chest and perhaps the sound factor and energy channeling in his head collide, releasing strange facial contortions which look like an actor mugging - and he isn't. In turn, when he lifts his chin, even marginally, it all seems to come together. Mm Fedro, a feisty movement teacher at RADA used to bark at us if we retreated to a downward look, "DON'T look at your balls!" Look outward." Are you reading this, Mr Bostridge?

Britten's Song Cycle and the surrealist poetry of Les Illuminations is quite exquisite - as was the performance. Following the continuous flow of imagery in the subtitles, I did have a few quiet smiles at the occasional physical indulgence when I read, "And I dance , Graceful son of Pan, or, I alone hold the key to this wild parade, or ...Against a snowfall a beauteous being, tall of stature...make this adored body rise swell and quiver like a spectre!

[mercia]

the Tippett Fanfare, squirreled away

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01flf6f

I don't know anything about voice production, but the way IB sometimes tucks his chin into his chest and sings out of the corner of his mouth, looks to me, well, a little restricting, but I'm sure adds to the drama

oops, I've just noticed SS making the same point

[DublinJimbo]

I must say I find the Proms TV coverage annoying on the whole, and not just because of the 'presenters' and 'experts' (God preserve me from Tom Service!), but also because of the tackiness of the stage setting, the lack of on-screen tempo indications at the start of movements, and the often unsympathetic and irrelevant camera choices.

I watched the inaugural concert of the Berlin Philharmonic's new season on Friday night in the Digital Concert Hall online. A strange programme (Mozart's last three symphonies: just those; nothing else), but superbly well handled visually. It was gloriously obvious throughout that the production team are musically knowledgeable and work from marked-up scores for previously decided camera shots.

BBC coverage used be tasteful and musically sympathetic. It no longer is.

[Nick Armstrong]

Tom Service!

Don't get me started!

The way they cut away from the end of the Bostridge performance abruptly, before the applause, to footage of TS walking (bizarrely, sort of speed-waddling) around Portland Place was laughable.

[Boilk]

Don't get me started!

I truly wish Tom Service would slow down his delivery. An effective commentator/broadcaster sounds both relaxed and authoritative ... neither can happen when you're reading from a script that sounds like it has been marked presto agitato.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I truly wish Tom Service would slow down his delivery. An effective commentator/broadcaster sounds both relaxed and authoritative ... neither can happen when you're reading from a script that sounds like it has been marked presto agitato.

I don't know what's happened to Tom Service - when he first started presenting Music Matters, I thought he was going to become another Michael Oliver: enthusiastic without gushing, perceptive and wearing his considerable knowledge lightly. He curated a superb Huddersfield Festival in 2005, and has given superb interviews with composers (Birtwistle going so far as to respond to his questions: "You should be a composer; these are the sort of questions we ask ourselves all the time!").

BUT he has become a caricature of himself over the past couple of years - asking six-page questions (minim = 96), oversimplifying and just sounding like a self-regarding, if occasionally aimiable idiot whose mouth is on Fast Forward whilst his brain is on Rewind. I could weep!

[Nick Armstrong]

I don't know what's happened to Tom Service - when he first started presenting Music Matters, I thought he was going to become another Michael Oliver: enthusiastic without gushing, perceptive and wearing his considerable knowledge lightly. He curated a superb Huddersfield Festival in 2005, and has given superb interviews with composers (Birtwistle going so far as to respond to his questions: "You should be a composer; these are the sort of questions we ask ourselves all the time!").

BUT he has become a caricature of himself over the past couple of years - asking six-page questions (minim = 96), oversimplifying and just sounding like a self-regarding, if occasionally aimiable idiot whose mouth is on Fast Forward whilst his brain is on Rewind. I could weep!

Precisely my thoughts too

[BBMmk2]

and over enthusiastic!! (;

However, Katie, on Proms Extra(?), is presenting that programme rather well.