Prom 1 - 18.07.14: The First Night - Elgar: The Kingdom, BBC SO / A. Davis

[french frank]

Has Ivan Hewett been tipped for Controller, Radio 3 or for Director of the Proms? When he presented Music Matters [or its predecessor(?)] he always seemed interested in and interesting on every musical subject, and more self-controlled than Tom Service who's always tripping over himself. Just a thought ...

I thought he was good on Music Matters, and gave up listening when he departed. But I don't think he has the right experience for running the Proms. The real burden would fall on the 'underlings'. His references to Wright and Radio 3 were always supportive, so sounded a bit as if he was saying 'Gissajob'. Or at least gissa a seat in the R3 box for my favourite Prom and the BBC canapés ... :-(

[Lento]

Has Ivan Hewett been tipped for Controller, Radio 3 or for Director of the Proms? When he presented Music Matters [or its predecessor(?)] he always seemed interested in and interesting on every musical subject, and more self-controlled than Tom Service who's always tripping over himself. Just a thought ...

Someone in the press (Richard Morrison, I think) did suggest Tom Service as a possible applicant, while commenting that his organisational skills are as yet, shall we say, unproven.

[ardcarp]

Very positive and informative review from Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...ood-still.html

...but again not much praise for the large chorus[es] and Davis's choral direction.

[salymap]

I could never get into The Kingdom and The Apostles but heard and loved dozens of performances of Gerontius, sung by the best ever singers.

Happy days.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Very positive and informative review from Ivan Hewett in the Telegraph also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...ood-still.html

...but again not much praise for the large chorus[es] and Davis's choral direction.

Reading that review without knowing The Kingdom you could almost be forgiven for thinking it involves a band and two soloists.

Par for the course, if my recall is correct. Maybe IH has stopped mentioning choruses in his reviews because of his habit of getting them wrong. This time around it's the soloists' turn to be omitted or misattributed. (And who on earth is "Marty Magdalene"?)

I'd hope the incoming head of R3 is more obviously empathetic than this about choral works.

[french frank]

Someone in the press (Richard Morrison, I think) did suggest Tom Service as a possible applicant, while commenting that his organisational skills are as yet, shall we say, unproven.

If one looks back, Roger Wright must have seemed a godsend! Experience of industry at Deutsche Grammaphon, orchestra administration in Cleveland, management at the BBC, wide knowledge of repertoire. Journalism and broadcast presenter don't compare with that. Even Kenyon protested that he'd run a music festival and a music journal when surprise was expressed at his appointment. That said, the post is unlikely to be nearly as highly paid for the new appointee so perhaps 'mere controller' might be regarded as a light one, with 'minions' doing most of the heavy lifting.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Someone in the press (Richard Morrison, I think) did suggest Tom Service as a possible applicant, while commenting that his organisational skills are as yet, shall we say, unproven.

Not entirely - he was the caretaker Director of the 2005 Huddersfield Festival (during the interregnum between Susanna Eastburn and Graham McKenzie). Did it extremely well, too; albeit with some assistance from Richard Steinitz - but then the Proms seasons have a considerable portion of concerts at least "pencilled-in" the year before, don't they?

[mercia]

interesting about the work only being performed complete twice at Proms, as it is listed quite frequently, I think, in the archive; so presumably these performances had cuts.

yes the proms premiere was 1999, yesterday being the second proms performance - the other 6 entries in the archive are just for the Prelude and/or 'The sun goeth down'.

Excerpts used to be the order of the day - like Radio 3 Breakfast.

[ardcarp]

"Marty Magdalene"

[ardcarp]

perhaps 'mere controller' might be regarded as a light one, with 'minions' doing most of the heavy lifting.

Indeed, I'm great friends with a past assistant director of a major music festival. He definitely did all the work , making a fantastically complicated organisation run smoothly. The director's job, OTOH, was to have a few ideas from afar. I'd suggest the new Controller might consider lying down and taking a long rest when he/she feels a new idea coming on.

[french frank]

- but then the Proms seasons have a considerable portion of concerts at least "pencilled-in" the year before, don't they?

Pretty much finished for 2015, and largely done so for 2016! As the man said this time last year:

"By the time the 2013 Proms festival is beginning, 2014 is pretty much locked down. Because that’s just the way the classical music world works. We know broadly what’s happening in 2015 every night and some things are already pencilled in for 2016."

Though I really can't see why TS would be preferred over a number of others. It seems like pulling a name out of a hat. (Why not Stephen Johnson? Or Rob Cowan? Or Sara Mohr-Pietsch? Or Andrew McGregor?)

[Ravensbourne]

Welsh tenors

The choruses were well within their comfort margin and I could tell there were welsh tenors in quantity!

Well, there were seventeen Welsh tenors in a chorus of two hundred and fifty.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, there were seventeen Welsh tenors in a chorus of two hundred and fifty.

Ah! A seven percent solution!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I notice the amateur music critics are up to their usual habits of sounding off, including that Guardian reader (and don't blame the paper just because one uninformed reader thinks Queen Victoria was still around by the time Elgar's last and greatest oratorio was composed).
There's nothing remotely Catholic about this work, but snide remarks persist.

[Pabmusic]

...I think most of us who have sung around a lot have spent half our lives singing 'Catholic' music, the other half 'Protestant' music and haven't been in the least bothered by matters sectarian.

Well said! It's interesting how the 'Catholic' criticism of Elgar can still emerge.

As to choral (non-) sectarianism, don't forget the non-believers such as Parry and Vaughan Williams, and deists and pantheists such as Holst.