R3 on the Proms

[MrGongGong]

Not much to do with classical music (nor with Radio 3 as far as I am concerned) but probably a lot to do with the Proms.

The Radio 1 Prom is an orchestral homage to club dance music, (not to pop music). On Radio 1, Pete Tong plays club sounds, not orchestral celebrations of club sounds. Any incidental future experimentation with classical orchestral Promming is surely secondary to the intrinsic worth of this orchestral happening.

Not quite sure what you mean by the second sentence?

If one thinks about this a bit more rather than having a knee jerk reaction to the idea of "club sounds" (Half man half biscuit?..... out on the ice ) then one might realise that there is a lot of MUSICAL connection between dance music and orchestral music.

Personally I would have gone for the Rammstein/Schubert evening but its not about what I want

When folks talk about their Proms experiences they usually mention things that do have the quality that they couldn't have happened anywhere else...

Cage & Cunningham with the Irish musicians spread around the auditorium
Gruppen
Tan Dun's Water percussion concerto
the Gothic Symphony

etc etc

[teamsaint]

Not quite sure what you mean by the second sentence?

If one thinks about this a bit more rather than having a knee jerk reaction to the idea of "club sounds" (Half man half biscuit?..... out on the ice ) then one might realise that there is a lot of MUSICAL connection between dance music and orchestral music.

So it has your seal of approval then?

One of the issues that I might have about Proms programming , in the areas outside the established classical core, is lack of continuity.

EG, I went to the World Routes ( late night) Prom a couple of years ago, which was a terrific event IMO. But why just one year? Why not decide to cover some world music every year,and create something that can develop and have life of its own, rather than one offs , ( like the Folk music prom) which just seem to end up being museum piece curiosities, after the event.

Of course this might mean excluding something else, but i feel sure it would work better to cover fewer areas,but in more depth and more consistently.

And your "quality" point is absolutely right.

[Bryn]

Who do you think ‘those who would like to listen to it’ are? Audio enthusiasts (i.e. those to whom sound quality is the prime interest and not the music)? If that is the case, it seems rather an excessive service Radio 3 is expected to be obliged.

There is a thread here on the topic of streaming services. In that thread there is a number of contributions regarding the problems of sound distortion associated with lossy compression algorithms such as mp3 and aac. As it happens, one of the more demanding genre of music re. data rate is "dance music". One of the perennial complaints re. DAB is that dance music, as broadcast by Radio 1 and its offshoot, just does not sound right. It's a bit like the problems we classical enthusiasts encounter with lossy compression broadcasts of harpsichord music, or cymbal transients. I recall recording the DAB broadcast of a Cinematic Orchestra concert on Radio 1 shortly before that channel's data rate was cut from 192kbps to 128kbps mp2. Tom Chant's saxophone playing came across that much more clearly than subsequent broadcasts of the same ensemble when Radio 1 DAB got cut down to the aurally annoying 128kbps mp2 a month or so later in preparation for the inauguration of 1 xtra, 6Music, etc.

Many listeners to genres such as danc dance music also have discriminating ears.

[french frank]

Well, for a start, it gives those who would like to listen to it the rare opportunity to avail themselves of Radio 3's HD Sound offering via the iPlayer. Radio 1 is restricted to 128kbps HE-AAC while Radio 3 gets 320kbps LC-AAC.

That is an argument for having all Radio 1's output on Radio 3 since my question was not about this one Prom (as I made clear at the beginning).

To try again, and it applies as much to 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 Music output: what is the purpose of having a Radio 1/1Xtra/6 Music Prom? That is a straight question - NOT an objection to the Proms themselves. What is the reason for including them?

[Bryn]

That is an argument for having all Radio 1's output on Radio 3 since my question was not about this one Prom (as I made clear at the beginning).

To try again, and it applies as much to 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 Music output: what is the purpose of having a Radio 1/1Xtra/6 Music Prom? That is a straight question - NOT an objection to the Proms themselves. What is the reason for including them?

Possibly an attempt to emulate the programming of early Proms, where the popular music of the time had its place.

[Honoured Guest]

That is an argument for having all Radio 1's output on Radio 3 since my question was not about this one Prom (as I made clear at the beginning).

To try again, and it applies as much to 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 Music output: what is the purpose of having a Radio 1/1Xtra/6 Music Prom? That is a straight question - NOT an objection to the Proms themselves. What is the reason for including them?

These orchestral concerts extend the music offer of those stations. The BBC Proms is a prominent place in which to mount them. They also broaden the activity of the orchestras.

[MrGongGong]

So it has your seal of approval then?

I don't think it's automatically a bad idea
or that the "barbarians are at the gates"
I've worked on pieces for symphony orchestras that have started as dance tracks made on computer and ended up somewhere else.
Dance music has always inspired composers and what Radio 1 plays on a Friday night is no exception.

Maybe the "problem" is that the BBC has to always try and package it's output in genre defined ways?

Late Junction, Mixing it, Freak Zone, Jarvis Cocker's 6 Music show ALL have (or still do) work in different ways.
What communicates is music presented and performed with integrity and passion.

[MrGongGong]

Possibly an attempt to emulate the programming of early Proms, where the popular music of the time had its place.

Exactly

(Shouldn't we be arguing about clapping between movements by now?)

[french frank]

These orchestral concerts extend the music offer of those stations. The BBC Proms is a prominent place in which to mount them. They also broaden the activity of the orchestras.

Right. There's still a tendency to read some sort of objection into the question (Gongers banging the same gong). Taking HG's answer: since the Prom concert is extending the R1 music and providing broader activity for the orchestras (though isn't it what the Heritage Orchestra specialises in?), why not have this kind of material on the stations at other times of year? Why just one Prom? Maybe Jules Buckley and the Heritage Orchestra are on regularly, I don't know: googling Jules Buckley BBC "Radio 1" only seems to bring up the Prom)

[Though if one were going to find an 'objection' to the argument that it goes back to the early days of the Proms, one might point out the current proliferation of annual festivals dedicated to the kinds of music played on other radio stations which might have been taken as grounds for 'narrowing' the Proms - the world moves on - but that wasn't the point I was interested in.]

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't think it's automatically a bad idea
or that the "barbarians are at the gates"

The barbarians stormed the gates years ago, but not everyone noticed.

[teamsaint]

I don't think it's automatically a bad idea
or that the "barbarians are at the gates"
I've worked on pieces for symphony orchestras that have started as dance tracks made on computer and ended up somewhere else.
Dance music has always inspired composers and what Radio 1 plays on a Friday night is no exception.

Maybe the "problem" is that the BBC has to always try and package it's output in genre defined ways?

Late Junction, Mixing it, Freak Zone, Jarvis Cocker's 6 Music show ALL have (or still do) work in different ways.
What communicates is music presented and performed with integrity and passion.

Sorry, the " seal" was jus a bad pun thing on the Half man half biscuit reference.

I think you are right about the " problem", which might extend to questioning whether packaging " hear and now", for instance, is such a great idea.

[MrGongGong]

Sorry, the " seal" was jus a bad pun thing on the Half man half biscuit reference.

I think you are right about the " problem", which might extend to questioning whether packaging " hear and now", for instance, is such a great idea.

Sorry about that, not sharp this morning

The barbarians stormed the gates years ago, but not everyone noticed.

Mozart really should have been stopped, allowing those noisy Turkish instruments into the orchestra was the slippery slope

[doversoul1]

These orchestral concerts extend the music offer of those stations. The BBC Proms is a prominent place in which to mount them.

If that is the case, why doesn’t the BBC broadcast all proms on these stations, as well as on R3 instead of something that is neither one thing nor the other, or the music that is already familiar to their listeners?

[french frank]

And getting back to the 'original' popular Proms, this is what Robert Newman said: "I am going to run nightly concerts to train the public in easy stages. Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music."

We can see the 'popular' in these concerts (though I don't think even Newman meant Proms that had only popular music e.g. just music hall, as opposed to even 'popular' classics). What is not quite clear is how the current, non classical Proms are raising a standard which will help to create a public for classical and moden music. Other than modern popular music, which I don't think, again, is what Newman meant - judging by the programmes he put on. And in any case there would be no need to 'create' a public for popular music: it already has one.

So my explanation of the 'reasons' would be:

1. To give the impression that the Proms are 'for everyone' by seeming to have every sort of music (albeit mostly classical)

2. To grab the headlines, as they know, cynically, that the media (including the BBC itself) will sell the new season as Ibiza and Sherlock. Even the children's Prom got left out this year because there was no Doctor Who only rotten old Ten Pieces of classical music …

[DracoM]

Exactly.
This is so manifestly a purely commercial decision, one designed to jig up ratings, get PR on all BBC networks.
Does that mean that RW - presume 2015 Proms are his farewell gesture? - is actually re-defining what the Proms are? i.e. just an amorphous music festival to generate as much dosh as possible by mounting all manner of such different entities that the festival loses focus?

BUT, as FF says, it does not mean that it 'educates' at all: classical fans are very unlikely to tune in to Pete Tong's stuff, same way that as it stands, few R1 fans are going to tune in to a Mahler symphony. Where's the 'crossing the divide' in that?