Pop goes the weasel

[Nick Armstrong]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4141205.ece

I can't read this defence of pop proms as I don't subscribe... but I don't think I particularly want to - the usual weasel words, presumably.

The Radio Times insert blazoned "The Proms goes Pop" says it all.



So farewell then, Roger Wright.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Roger is right. It will draw a new audience - for one night only.

[ahinton]

Pop at the Proms. Roger goes. Is the weasel intended to define the kinds of words used in its defence?

Pop music, for me, is a piece of that title for player-piano by Marc-André Hamelin based upon Pop Goes the Weasel.

Ahem...

[french frank]

The Radio Times insert blazoned "The Proms goes Pop" says it all.

The pop gets the publicity, the pop crowds pour in. QED. The result is that the 'new audiences' then become proprietorial and want more of the same, at the Proms, on Radio 3 - 'why should there be so much classical stuff'? 'The Proms/R3 aren't just for classical music' &c. &c. &c.

[gurnemanz]

The only time I ever set eyes on RW in the flesh was at the folk prom a few years ago. He was wearing jeans down in the arena with the punters. Quite a good evening with some classy performers Bellowhead, Bella Hardy and Martin Simpson fighting the unhelpful RAH ambience.

[DublinJimbo]

A paywall prevented my reading the article, but the gist is pretty obvious. 'Real musical quality' they may be, but there's a time and place for such music, and including it at the Proms is sheer desecration. The 'draw new audiences' argument is a very leaky one indeed, since the only contact attendees will have with the Proms as a whole is whatever notices or advertising they see at the RFH for other events. That's hardly going to be enough to persuade even the tiniest percentage of Pet Shop/Rufus/Paloma fans dipping a toe or two into the classical water.

[jayne lee wilson]

Despite all we already know, I was appalled at the RT Guide cover. There is nothing new or "modern" or subversive about any of the pop performers featured; they are all wellknown or even mainstream, have sold 1000s of discs and downloads, are widely promoted, and the only effect is to put a feather of specious "Classical Approval" in their designer-styled caps (Image is at least as important as music here.).

The effect on the Proms concerts themselves is simply to offer a superficial image of "modernisation" (as if "Classical" is all "old music"..) and restrict time even further, time that might once have been given to music of great beauty and value that gets little or no exposure, except on record, anything from Petrassi to Zelenka to Dusapin to David Matthews, Robin Holloway or John Casken and so on... Any of those 5 Hours could have been better used - to play 5 Symphonies by CPE Bach**, or Petrassi Concertos, or... the many forgotten things that R3 once valued, before, above and beyond any consideration of profit, image, or audience type or number.

And of course many of us HAVE already seen some or all of these performers, on Jools Holland or YouTube or elsewhere. Many people here have enjoyed much Rock and Pop and Jazz, grown up with it, loved it, bought it. Yes, of course they have musical value. They are very palpably NOT an adventure, or new experience. Pop rules the world - it has long since become an easy, often devalued, commodity.

The oldest objection remains: if The R3 Proms have Paloma, why doesn't 6 Music or R1 have a Bartok or a Birtwistle evening? Because, it would be said, those stations would lose their identity (not to mention their listeners.... ). No further comment necessary.

The net result - the present situation - is to exclude vast amounts of beautiful, very valuable and little-known 20th, 21st century and earlier music, the Classical represented by the overfamiliar and overplayed, with Pop supposedly the modern input. And the increasing tendency to place Proms Premieres, or any new and unfamiliar music, alongside those (wrongly but woefully) hackneyed classical masterpieces does no favours to any of them.

**The single CPE Bach Symphony shoehorned in alongside PMD and Birtwistle etc (Cadogan, 09/08) is listed in the Online guide as "Symphony in B Minor, "Hamburg"" ... where it is described as "spiky and brooding"... which qualifies for at least 3 x . Trades Descriptions, anyone?
(Actually Wq.182/5, my favourite of the set).

[french frank]

As far as I can see, this week the RT focus is on Gareth Malone's Military Wives Choir (War Horse Prom 22). Since this is a Sunday afternoon Prom (a recent innovation), it doesn't necessarily deprive anyone of anything else. And the Wives may sing very well. But it's the fact that it draws the publicity away from the classical music and focuses very firmly on the people who already get all the publicity that makes the populist programme such an unwelcome interloper. It reminds one of the technique in the Art of Coarse Acting, where the spear-carrier's performance distracts the attention from the celebrated actors.

[Mary Chambers]

'Dumbing down' may be a clumsy term, but that is what's happening. I too am shocked by the covers of Radio Times, and particularly of the Proms supplement ('essential pull-out guide') inside it, with its picture of Paloma Faith.

[Roslynmuse]

'Dumbing down' may be a clumsy term, but that is what's happening. I too am shocked by the covers of Radio Times, and particularly of the Proms supplement ('essential pull-out guide') inside it, with its picture of Paloma Faith.

I've just had to Google Paloma Faith - had never heard of her.

[Mary Chambers]

I've just had to Google Paloma Faith - had never heard of her.

Neither had I, but I knew the photo wasn't of a 'classical' musician.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As far as I can see, this week the RT focus is on Gareth Malone's Military Wives Choir (War Horse Prom 22). Since this is a Sunday afternoon Prom (a recent innovation), it doesn't necessarily deprive anyone of anything else. And the Wives may sing very well. But it's the fact that it draws the publicity away from the classical music and focuses very firmly on the people who already get all the publicity that makes the populist programme such an unwelcome interloper. It reminds one of the technique in the Art of Coarse Acting, where the spear-carrier's performance distracts the attention from the celebrated actors.

I note the following from the above article:

"What about Military Husbands? Aren’t there any chaps out there with girlfriends or wives serving in the armed forces who would like to be up there, singing their hearts out on the podium? What with Malone being such a fair-minded, reasonable, decent chap…"

The idea of "military wives" is inherently sexist, and I'm surprised more hasn't been made of this. Could it just be that even Gareth Malone would be pushed to persuade enough men to join in? In our culture it might not be easy.

[MrGongGong]

Neither had I, but I knew the photo wasn't of a 'classical' musician.

Sadly I think comments like this (with all due respect to Mary) don't do anyone any favours at all.
What on earth does a "Classical" musician look like anyway ?

Yesterday I was at a rehearsal at the Wigmore hall, many of the people there didn't look like "classical musicians" either.
Sitting in the green room with a group of students they were asking WHO were all the people in the photographs on the walls ?

You can't criticise "pop" music for being image obsessed then make out that "Classical Musicians" somehow don't have images created for them.


Neither do comments like this

I've just had to Google Paloma Faith - had never heard of her.

I'm assuming that you must have the other sort of internet to me then? You know, the one that doesn't tell you about things you don't already know about !

I'm not a fan (nor of most of the music in this years proms, particularly the cynical piece of theatre that is the Military Wives nonsense) but the "some kind of beat combo" type of comments just go to reinforce the idea that somehow there is a huge musical divide between genres.

Music is very wide
I'm disappointed by this years Proms programme, some really exciting opportunities are being missed IMV


Jayne is spot on here

There is nothing new or "modern" or subversive about any of the pop performers featured; they are all wellknown or even mainstream, have sold 1000s of discs and downloads, are widely promoted, and the only effect is to put a feather of specious "Classical Approval" in their designer-styled caps (Image is at least as important as music here.).

[Stanley Stewart]

I've just had to Google Paloma Faith - had never heard of her.

Indeed, a new name to me, too! Instantly reverted to my years of adolesence in WW2 and burst into a verse of "I'm Appola, (?) my pretty little poppy..."

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Classical musicians nowadays try not to stand out (if you don't count Nigel K.).

Looking back over time, Strauss and Elgar looked decidedly unmusical in the way we might view Bach or Brahms, and Wagner and Liszt were only distinctive because of their lavish lifestyles.