Prom 15 - 28.07.14: BBC SO, Fliter / Pons

[EnemyoftheStoat]

you just had NOT to be there...

Which Michael Church in the Indy seems to have managed for the second half of the programme simply by not being there (I don't understand why, as it didn't involve any Delius), while his review of the first half is rather ungraciously headlined with a memory lapse reference.

[kernelbogey]

[...]enthusiastically ruffling her hair on a couple of occasions. If he had allowed her a moment on her own....?

A bit patronising of him, that. Yes, maybe if she'd returned on her own, she might have sat down and played some Chopin. But then, I think she felt rattled by her 2nd movt slip.

Mind you, the giving of encores at the Proms is a relatively recent innovation.....

[Zucchini]

...and Pons also returned to stage with Fliter, enthusiastically ruffling her hair on a couple of occasions.

If it was as bad as it sounds, I think it's crass, crude and demeaning. If he tried that on Helene Grimaud let alone Anne Sophie Mutter he'd very likely wake up in hospital...

[PaulT]

If it was as bad as it sounds, I think it's crass, crude and demeaning. If he tried that on Helene Grimaud let alone Anne Sophie Mutter he'd very likely wake up in hospital...

Well I was quite surprised by it but perhaps we will have the chance to see for ourselves on BBC4 tomorrow night if the cameras caught these moments.

[Lento]

If it was as bad as it sounds, I think it's crass, crude and demeaning. If he tried that on Helene Grimaud let alone Anne Sophie Mutter he'd very likely wake up in hospital...

Doubt he'd wake up, actually.

[Nick Armstrong]

Looking forward to teamsaint's eyewitness evidence re: RuffleGate...

[Serial_Apologist]

Looking forward to teamsaint's eyewitness evidence re: RuffleGate...

It's positively hair-raising. Or maybe negatively...

[teamsaint]

It's positively hair-raising. Or maybe negatively...

The ruffling of those lovely (tinted) blonde locks was one of the evenings Highlights..........

actually I didn't spot it, don't know how I missed it as as I certainly didn't move before she left the stage.

Lets put it down to cultural differences, and not nasty old sexism, shall we ?

[kernelbogey]

The ruffling of those lovely (tinted) blonde locks was one of the evenings Highlights..........

actually I didn't spot it, don't know how I missed it as as I certainly didn't move before she left the stage.

Lets put it down to cultural differences, and not nasty old sexism, shall we ?

I've just watched the Mozart tv broadcast; the hair-ruffling that I had seen looked from the camera's perspective like part of an exchange about the memory-lapse and Pons being reassuring: just my guess, of course.

What struck me on hearing and seeing it anew was Fliter's wonderful attack, and rhythmic emphasis especially in the rondo - quite dance-like. I've heard a performance of the Schumann Piano Quintet she gave - and repeated twice - on TTN which had the same kind of vitality, and an almost masculine bravura. I was also struck by her rather masculine hands. I think she's terrific and very much someone to watch. I hope for future recordings of concerti.

[kernelbogey]

With respect to the tv presentation, and thinking of HS's comments on Prom 19 (post 36), this was a pretty conventional tv representation of an orchestra in performance - and I guess directors work on a kind of educative principle of 'This bit of music sounds like this because a clarinet, a flute and a bassoon are playing together and this is what that looks like'.

Of course tv directors' focus is always on the primacy of the image, rather than of the sound, and so for regular music listeners who know how that sound is produced the cutting around the orchestra in line with which instruments are prominent can be both predictable and tedious.

Most off-putting to me was the Pinky & Perky duo of Samira Ahmed and pianist Nicholas McCarthy (who he?) performing a scripted faux-dialogue introduction, like Magaret Juntwait and her man Ira Siff at the Met Opera broadcasts: just so false and (in this case) patronising.

[pastoralguy]

With respect to the tv presentation, and thinking of HS's comments on Prom 19, this was a pretty conventional tv representation of an orchestra in performance - and I guess directors work on a kind of educative principle of 'This bit of music sounds like this because a clarinet, a flute and a bassoon are playing together and this is what that looks like'.

Of course tv directors' focus is always on the primacy of the image, rather than of the sound, and so for regular music listeners who know how that sound is produced the cutting around the orchestra in line with which instruments are prominent can be both predictable and tedious.

Most off-putting to me was the Pinky & Perky duo of Samira Ahmed and pianist Nicholas McCarthy (who he?) performing a scripted faux-dialogue introduction, like Magaret Juntwait and her man at the Met Opera broadcasts: just so false and (in this case) patronising.

[Zucchini]

Lovely piano; beautifully set up for Mozart.

[mercia]

Nicholas McCarthy (who he?)

a one-handed pianist (who will presumably be on-hand () for next Friday's TV prom)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-19179499

I was about to ask what Ms Ahmed's music credentials are but I see she is a Radio3 presenter

[Hornspieler]

With respect to the tv presentation, and thinking of HS's comments on Prom 19 (post 36), this was a pretty conventional tv representation of an orchestra in performance - and I guess directors work on a kind of educative principle of 'This bit of music sounds like this because a clarinet, a flute and a bassoon are playing together and this is what that looks like'.

Of course tv directors' focus is always on the primacy of the image, rather than of the sound, and so for regular music listeners who know how that sound is produced the cutting around the orchestra in line with which instruments are prominent can be both predictable and tedious.

Most off-putting to me was the Pinky & Perky duo of Samira Ahmed and pianist Nicholas McCarthy (who he?) performing a scripted faux-dialogue introduction, like Magaret Juntwait and her man Ira Siff at the Met Opera broadcasts: just so false and (in this case) patronising.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was about to ask what Ms Ahmed's music credentials are but I see she is a Radio3 presenter

Samira Ahmed is a formidably intelligent journalist, but the fact that she presents programmes on R3 doesn't necessarily count as "Music credentials". She has previously cited her "listening interests" as

Mostly Radio 4. But when it lapses into quizzes, I can enjoy the World Service or 6 Music. Radio 2 is my little indulgence on Saturday.

I don't wish to suggest that interest in 6Music or R2 don't qualify as "Music Credentials", but would someone whose listening interests were "Mostly R3" be considered to have the right credentials to present a programme on 6 Music?

Regardless, the poised, steely and analytical former presenter of C4 News and programmes on Islam was worlds away from the frantic, gabbling "Blue Peter Presenter on amphetamines" figure who co-presented the televised Prom last night.