The 2014 Proms Season - what are your thoughts and feelings?

[vinteuil]

... my feelings about the Proms and the Albert Hall were summed up by Ernest Thesiger.

"Oh, my dear, the noise! and the people!"

Admittedly, his words were his reaction to life on the front line in 1914 ...

[Petrushka]

I would strongly object to the description of the RAH as a 'lousy venue'. I've been going there for well over 45 years, but I still gasp as I walk in. We might moan about acoustic problems, but they are now comparatively minor and the ear soon adjusts in most parts of the hall. Visually and emotionally the place is stunning. It also has an impressive and convenient location - with restaurants, park and so in in easy each. I wonder if anyone remembers the Queen's Hall? How did that comapre? I can't see any present-day location which could replace the RAH.

Time and again musicians who appear at the Proms say how much they like performing there. It's not ideal for some pieces and, yes, there are places best avoided but I agree with Vodkadilc.

The Queen's Hall was destroyed in 1941 so would think it unlikely that there is anyone left who remembers it.

[VodkaDilc]

The Queen's Hall was destroyed in 1941 so would think it unlikely that there is anyone left who remembers it.

Someone like Antony Hopkins, who I think was 93 when he died earlier this year, could well have been in the audience for one of the Queen's Hall Proms - or any other concert there. I imagine that there are still people around who went there as a young person - if not actually among the senior Forum members. (someone about 85 or so?)

[VodkaDilc]

It's just a matter of being aware of the few parts of the RAH best avoided.

The only tickets I decline on the mad Saturday mornings of first booking, are the Restricted View Circle Seats. There are others which I don't like, but, if I'm determined to go the concert, I will tolerate.

[Demetrius]

The only candidates in London to replace the hall would be the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall, which in turn would be packed quite often , as their capacity is less then half of the RAH. (and thus reduce the profits from proms that sell out even nowadays)
Is the sound much better in either place? I'm not familiar with them.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is the sound much better in either place? I'm not familiar with them.

It's a matter of opinion. Both the RFH and the Barbican have had their problems and criticisms, the RFH being so acoustically dead when first built, that electronic enhancement had to be installed.

[jayne lee wilson]

I know few people here care much about this, but for those of us for whom home listening is the only option, one can only be dismayed at the variable quality of the webcasts/broadcasts...

Until the 1990s, HiFiChoice magazine, in its listing of FM Tuners, used to say - "a live Prom Concert can be the equal of any other hifi source..." FM was stopped from being that some years ago, by dynamic compression (thus trashing a wonderful tradition of design & sound), but the HDs web stream could still achieve very good SQ and sometimes does... too often this season I felt I'd wasted my time on it, fed up with the mismanaged sound balancing... the Max Davies 4th Strathclyde Concerto was unbearably close and fierce, I felt I was 6 feet from the clarinets, with the SCO not far behind... (Best? Cleveland Orchestra Prom 69).

We had a dream that was Rome once...

[Hornspieler]

It's a matter of opinion. Both the RFH and the Barbican have had their problems and criticisms, the RFH being so acoustically dead when first built, that electronic enhancement had to be installed.

The Royal Academy of Music's 1st orchestra were given the task of playing for the accoustic tests before the Hall's opening. Firing pistols in the air (Should have been aimed at us!), clapping of hands, scraping of seats. Sound was measured and evaluated.

Some good it did!

The next time I played in the RFH was to open a concert with Weber's Oberon Overture. There was a full house and some important looking personages in the Royal Box.

It felt as if I was sitting on my own in the centre of the stage with no trousers on!

So much for accoustic experts.

HS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I know few people here care much about this, but for those of us for whom home listening is the only option, one can only be dismayed at the variable quality of the webcasts/broadcasts...

Until the 1990s, HiFiChoice magazine, in its listing of FM Tuners, used to say - "a live Prom Concert can be the equal of any other hifi source..."

That's so true. People used to try to emulate the BBC quality with their hi-fi. Not so any more. It's either compressed FM sound or thin, low-bit DAB, unless you have a computer link-up for HD sound (HD meaning "probably as good as FM was 30 years ago").

[Blotto]

The only candidates in London to replace the hall would be the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall

There's the Schott shop basement. We could meet in there.

[jayne lee wilson]

That's so true. People used to try to emulate the BBC quality with their hi-fi. Not so any more. It's either compressed FM sound or thin, low-bit DAB, unless you have a computer link-up for HD sound (HD meaning "probably as good as FM was 30 years ago").

Just a quick point about HDs - if you can use a USB Asynchronous link to your DAC, even compared to good optical you'll get a useful improvement in SQ, that link needn't just be for HiRes files...

[Petrushka]

That's so true. People used to try to emulate the BBC quality with their hi-fi. Not so any more. It's either compressed FM sound or thin, low-bit DAB, unless you have a computer link-up for HD sound (HD meaning "probably as good as FM was 30 years ago").

You only have to listen to some of the BBC Legends CDs to see how good the sound quality was as achieved by the engineers on the night years ago. There is, for instance, a Dvorak 8 from Giulini and the Philharmonia recorded on the day of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 and it sounds absolutely superb. It could have been recorded yesterday only it's actually superior to yesterday. There are other similar examples.

As someone else said on another thread (forget who sorry) the stage is bristling with microphones, possibly 25 or more and that allows the engineers to fiddle with the controls. Has anyone noticed the staggering number of cables going from the hall to the OB vans? Wish I'd taken a photo.

All the experience that successive generations of BBC engineers have accrued has been thrown out of the window and it's sad to see. It should be back to basics with a stereo pair!

[PJPJ]

I had posted this in another thread and have deleted it and post it here ....

I was pleased to hear Ansell's Plymouth Hoe yesterday, especially in such a good performance and in such good sound. Light music of this sort is given a poor deal these days, since Brian Kay's weekly slot was axed, apart from the Light Music Weekend, a disaster of an idea, as with the Film Music one......... I won't go on, you all know the script.

I don't expect to be interested in every Prom even if it contains stuff which belongs on R3, and I did enjoy a few of those some may feel are interlopers, the Battle of the Bands (despite its dire presentation), the Brubeck concert and the War Horse Prom. Do they really draw people in to listen to other Proms or to classical music in general?

Highlights for me included Haitink/LSO and all of the Elgar, VW, Mathias, Walton, Beamish, Moeran, Kelly, Butterworth and Gurney on offer, and the Aurora and Lapland Orchestras, Storgards, Oramo and Sondergard concerts, as well as most of the PCMs. For me, the opening night was one of the most satisfying of the lot. Other proms were of little or no interest to me, or disappointed with lacklustre readings. Others were ruined by ham-fisted engineering, for example Dutoit's Respighi - if the level needs reducing for some unaccountable reason, do please reduce them all, not just the trumpets thereby vandalising the performance.

The season did seem to go on too long. Perhaps it was announcers (presenters) being forced at every opportunity to insert the increasingly predictable "You are listening to BBC radio 3, the home of the Proms......." ad nauseam which finally pissed me off.

[jayne lee wilson]

You only have to listen to some of the BBC Legends CDs to see how good the sound quality was as achieved by the engineers on the night years ago. There is, for instance, a Dvorak 8 from Giulini and the Philharmonia recorded on the day of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 and it sounds absolutely superb. It could have been recorded yesterday only it's actually superior to yesterday. There are other similar examples.

As someone else said on another thread (forget who sorry) the stage is bristling with microphones, possibly 25 or more and that allows the engineers to fiddle with the controls. Has anyone noticed the staggering number of cables going from the hall to the OB vans? Wish I'd taken a photo.

All the experience that successive generations of BBC engineers have accrued has been thrown out of the window and it's sad to see. It should be back to basics with a stereo pair!

Yes, but do bear in mind that these recordings have been digitally remastered, often with very considerable benefits to the results you hear! AND a CD is already at a higher resolution than FM or 320kbps AAC, clever though that is.... It's not a fair like-for-like comparison really....

Life's so wonderfully simple in 2014, isn't it?

[gradus]

Re the Season, I thought it was as good as any other with some wonderful evenings but I confess to missing many of the concerts, as, rather like visiting galleries or museums, I make for the things that interest me or I am curious about.