TV Proms

[Anna]

Music Matters[/I], I thought he was going to become another Michael Oliver: ..BUT ...

I think he's been 'made-over' and 'marketed' to appeal to a specific audience, and it doesn't suit him. Shame

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think he's been 'made-over' and 'marketed' to appeal to a specific audience, and it doesn't suit him. Shame

[BBMmk2]

I think he's been 'made-over' and 'marketed' to appeal to a specific audience, and it doesn't suit him. Shame

Great minds think alike Anna!

[gurnemanz]

It is with some annoyance that I note that the BBC FOUR Prom broadcasts this week are to be in standard definition only (at least on Freeview). The listing on the transmitted guide claims that the Friday and Sunday broadcasts are also available in HD. However, this appears not to be true. Channel 303 is broadcasting either sport or pop culture at the times of the BBC FOUR broadcasts. If anyone knows better, please advise.

I am out tonight so am recording the John Wilson Hollywood Prom on BBC Four onto hard drive. Freeview gave me the option of HD on channel 303.

[edashtav]

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

I agree entirely with Professor Ferneyhoughgeliebte and Dr Caliban in their reviews of the strange case of Tom Service but wonder about prognosis. Is there any remedy, can we give Tom a right good service and restore him to peak (1995?) performance condition? I miss Tom Good as much as I despair of Tom Bad.

[french frank]

I suspect the BBC thinks there is not much call for the 'old' Tom.

[mlb7171]

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.

I think you will find the BBC production team are the same. The difference though is twofold. First, they are desperate to demonstrate their knowledge, hence no shot lasts more than a second or two. Second, they think us dumbed down Brits will die of boredom if the picture stays the same for more than a few seconds. Contrast this with, as you say, Berlin (and German classical broadcasting generally), old fashioned tv concerts directed by the likes of Humphrey Burton, or modern day Japanese broadcasting by NHK which is positively beautiful, serene and almost reverential. You concentrate on music, enhanced with images, not distracted.

The BBC also assume we are stupid sometimes. Derham's closing piece to camera after Santa Caecelia Rachmaninov 2 was clearly recorded in the interval, with applause dubbed on. You could see almost empty choir stalls over her shoulder (interval sandwich eaters, not the few remaining after the indecent rush to the exits). I know I sound churlish, but it shows a disrespect for the tv audience.

Slightly off Proms topic, if you followed the BBC Starkey Music and Monarchy series you may have seen the final episode finishing with a closing piece to camera and Zadok the Priest with choir and orchestra. Which the BBC then cut, literally half way through a phrase at the end of the credits. A music programme! That's the kind of rubbish the BBC think is ok in classical music tv broadcasting.

I don't want to get too vexed. Give Roger Wright a few more seasons and it will all be cross over and box ticking minority or accessibility rubbish anyway.

[mlb7171]

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

I love listening to Bostridge. On TV though I was most distracted by his tailoring. He really looked like a Downton Abbey tribute act c. 1890. Maybe I'm just too used to the scruffy London musician version of 'white tie' and don't recognise class!

[Nick Armstrong]

I love listening to Bostridge. On TV though I was most distracted by his tailoring. He really looked like a Downton Abbey tribute act c. 1890. Maybe I'm just too used to the scruffy London musician version of 'white tie' and don't recognise class!

[VodkaDilc]

Slightly off Proms topic, if you followed the BBC Starkey Music and Monarchy series you may have seen the final episode finishing with a closing piece to camera and Zadok the Priest with choir and orchestra. Which the BBC then cut, literally half way through a phrase at the end of the credits. A music programme! That's the kind of rubbish the BBC think is ok in classical music tv broadcasting..

I made a similar point on the thread devoted to the Starkey programme (message 52):

I thought that the final programme in the series covered the material well. Several things stood out though:

Did DS really refer to Elgar as a northerner?

Is David Owen Norris turning into Patrick Moore? (The scene where DS and DON were apparently trying to out-camp each other was priceless.)

After all the sensitive treatment of the music, did Zadok have to be snatched off mid-phrase as the credits ended?

[mlb7171]

I apologise VodkaDilc. I was just ranting and had not seen or read the Starkey related thread.

[VodkaDilc]

I apologise VodkaDilc. I was just ranting and had not seen or read the Starkey related thread.

Please don't apologise; it's reassuring to see that others notice these things too.

[VodkaDilc]

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. !

I am reminded of the words addressed to Dan Quayle in the 1988 Presidential election:

"I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Tom Service has his good points - but he's no Michael Oliver.

[DracoM]

Tom Service is now in the same category as the egregious John Wilson on Front Row, who, like James Naughtie, asks at considerable length and THEN answers his own question before the interviewee has drawn breath to answer. I would love someone to say to any of them one day 'look, mate, do I need to be here? Why don't you just do the whole damn programme on your own?'

Back to TV Proms and 'Tristan' on BBC 4 last night [Sept 1st].

Both T and I excellent IMO. Plenty of stamina, Tristan particularly good facial acting, and with the conductor BEHIND them, an interesting test of their musicianship, since in the opera house of course you'd have the beat / entries at least partially signalled in front of you, but not in RAH. VERY fine chorus. Minimal staging worked extremely well. Would that more stage productions a la Wieland Wagner adhered to the philosophy that less is more like that. Kurwenal excellent too, Brangane just a bit overawed, I thought, and sorry, but the jolly Santa Claus Melot and the vibrato-max Mark did not work for me at all.

There were interviews with members of the BBCSO on playing the opera, but they hardly referred to the fact that for the BBCSO, this was a massive call: they do not have an opera pit orchestra's experience of such marathons, and it became clear that in Act 3, there was some flagging in terms of intensity. Nice comment though that this is a score for the strings particularly. Bychkov right on top of things, steady, unflamboyant, intense concentration.

And above all, well-cued sub-titles.