Prom 37 - 10.08.13: Urban Classic Prom

[mercia]

Mosolov 1st in 1st half - surprised you could miss this one (gets a fairly regular outing) - what sounded like Henze (I think) at start of 2nd half but I missed the start of each due to the more than iritating presenters -

ah yes, my mistake, I was looking at the BBC3 iPlayer version which I think omits them

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b038m8zz/BBC_Proms_2013_Season_The_Urban_Prom_2013/

[french frank]

ah yes, my mistake, I was looking at the BBC3 iPlayer version which I think omits them

Is that certain? I thought the whole idea of these concerts was to bring new audiences to classical music. Not just to sell Proms tickets to new audiences.

[PJPJ]

I liked the close-up of Sir Henry's bust at the end - I couldn't quite tell what expression he had

Was it stony-faced?

[Anna]

Is that certain? I thought the whole idea of these concerts was to bring new audiences to classical music. Not just to sell Proms tickets to new audiences.

The R3 broadcast was two and a half hours (inc. internval talk) The BBC3 broadcast was one and a half hours (start delayed until 9pm) so therefore, taking out the 20min talk, a fair chunk wasn't televised.
Yet another edited Prom ....

[mercia]

the Mosolov and Henze, approximately four minutes each - a token classical music element to this prom I would tentatively suggest - hardly worth including them

[Anna]

the Mosolov and Henze, approximately four minutes each - a token classical music element to this prom I would tentatively suggest - hardly worth including them

And at only 14 minutes long it was hardly worth including the James MacMillan when Prom 28 was broadcast?

[mercia]

sorry, when I said "hardly worth including them" I meant in the actual original prom, not just the edited BBC3 programme - they [the Mosolov and Henze] felt out of place (IMO) - token inclusion

what did we think of the interval?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0386mkx

[PJPJ]

ah yes, my mistake, I was looking at the BBC3 iPlayer version which I think omits them
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ban_Prom_2013/

How many iPlayer versions of the Urban Prom are there?

There was a good deal of discussion about the Mosolov and Henze, and the excellent reasons for their inclusion in the mix. First we have any new music, BBC commissions, premieres, removed from TV broadcasts of Proms concerts (for broadcasting later), now these don't appear.

Why not?

If the whole idea of including Mosolov and Henze was to give an experience of classical orchestral music to those who'd never had one, why excise them from iPlayer? Not one, but both. It's as though they had never been on the programme, like a photograph or two in Stalin's collection.

I did listen to the first half, the interval chat and a quarter hour of the second half, on R3 and did enjoy some of that, the piece after the Mosolov, for instance. [I'll even own up to buying several volumes of the LSO's Classic Rock series years ago.] There seemed to me to be an awful lot of talking and presenting compared to the amount of music. Actually, I'm not sure if I've put "awful" in the right place in that sentence, as some of the presenting seemed so bad I was embarrassed for them. Not AMcG, of course.

The evening in hindsight seems a little contrived and dishonest at the moment due to this iPlayer programming; perhaps I've got part of the wrong end of the stick.

[Resurrection Man]

And just when I thought R3 could not possibly sink any lower.

In a word ....BANAL.

If the idea was to introduce classical music to a wider audience then this was not the way to do it. Listening to the opening minutes and the adolescent hormonal screaming of the girls as some of the acts were announced...(N-dubz ?? Is that some sort of new-fangled audio editing software? ) I doubt that they even realised that it was a classical orchestra playing.

Turning Radio 3 on this morning I thought there might be a problem with the tuner as all I could hear was pop....then it turned out to have been an extract from last night and predictably the presenters were all a-gush ...pathetic.

[french frank]

I didn't listen to a huge lot of the music - just 'sampled' as RW says that he hopes new listeners will be tempted to do with Radio 3.

I can confirm that the two three and a half minute classical pieces - Mosolov and Henze - with the introductions by CB-H and AMcG were completely edited from the BBC Three television deferred transmission, both halves of the concert cutting in with the appearance of the Radio 1Xtra presenters. Presumably the reason why they 'kicked off' each half - to make them easier to drop.

Urban classic is understood to mean the 'fusion of urban with classical music', where classical music means the presence of an orchestra playing an arranged backing to the urban pieces - many of which were quite a bit longer in this concert than either of the two classical pieces.

Someone in the interval talk spoke of urban classic as bringing 'new music for classical audiences, for urban audiences'. As a member of a classical audience I can only say thank you very much

In the interval RW talked about some of the artists attending a/the(?) performance of Beethoven 5 and being - did he say 'blown away'? At any rate, he said they were hugely impressed by an orchestra, which many had never heard before (which would prompt another question - why not have the confidence to put it on the TV programmes?).

RW suggested that this was definitely a two-way affair, urban musicians using classical music (i.e. orchestras) and contemporary classical composers using urban/ 'pop' music e.g. Gabriel Prokofiev's concerto for turntables and orchestra (Proms 2011). What I don't see in this 'two-way' movement is very much attempt here to bring young audiences to classical music, as I understand the term. Though there is a widening of exposure to youth musics and musicians.

[Nick Armstrong]

contrived and dishonest

BANAL

Those were three of the words that occurred to me, too...

What I don't see in this 'two-way' movement is very much attempt here to bring young audiences to classical music, as I understand the term. Though there is a widening of exposure to youth musics and musicians.

Quite.

[Bax-of-Delights]

What surprised me is that Martin Handley of all people should get all a-twitter and light-headed about the Urban prom but as Mandy Rice-Davies said: "He would say that wouldn't he" considering he's being paid by the BBC. (And as an aside just WHY does he have to go up to Salford for the weekend when the rest of the week's Breakfast programmes are broadcast from London?)

The "crossover" with R6 this morning was pathetic with R6 wheeling out the kind of symphonic rock that died a death in the mid 70's (Genesis, Yes, ELP) and R3 chucking in some street cred words (MH describing Sibelius as "this Finnish guy" was like hearing your granny swear ) before regaling the R6 listeners with Rautavaara - a pretty safe choice.

Just WHERE has MH been for the last 40 years? I enjoyed rock - still do on occasion - but that was 40 years ago. If I want MOR or jazz I chuck on CD of Sinatra or Eberhard Weber. What I don't want is it nudging into R3 - there's no need.

I look forward to R1, R1xtra, R2, R6 playing Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Berio, Alwyn, Bax, Moeran etc etc etc...but since R2 has now ditched the "light music" do I detect a one-way traffic?

[Nick Armstrong]

I wonder if one day, we'll look back on all this as we do on people in the 50s saying that smoking was good for the throat.

Surely time will expose the fallacy that everything is equally valid, and the fear that unless everything is made "inclusive" and easy then it is impossible to justify its existence (to use some phrases from Stephen Pollard's article about this the other day)? Won't it?

As Pollard says, for the moment it seems like some giant artistic Candid Camera spoof... and yes, saddening to see the Martin Handleys of this world caught up in it

[amcluesent]

Every year we lose another proper prom to garbage. The Dr Who prom, Hollywood film music, Proms in the Park, British light music prom, now 'urban' prom. Personally I'd add the Wagner Ring proms too, but accept that's a subjective area :)

I used to say I didn't mind paying the BBC license tax as at least R3 and the Proms hadn't been traduced and made 'relevant'. Now you can't even say that.

[french frank]

Rumour has it that the compilation of contemporary pieces edited out of the BBC Four transmissions is to be broadcast on BBC Three .

As for the youth-speak - the BBC can no doubt help you out with that. Pity Andrew's reference to Henze as 'boundary-trashing' got cut from BBC Three - they preferred Charlie Sloth as a presenter.

Anyone beginning to feel excluded and unwelcome?