'Last of the Proms'?

[french frank]

Norman Lebrecht has now turned his fire on just about everyone currently in charge of the Proms - and the BBC - in this article, of which some, at least, is rubbish:

http://standpointmag.co.uk/music-september-2015-norman-lebrecht-bbc-proms

Roger Wright said that the 2015 season had been fixed before he left (most Proms concerts have to be planned 3 years ahead), so the idea that he battled to prevent 'dumbing down' (his phrase) seems bizarre, as does: "this summer when, in a regime-change power vacuum, six Proms were removed from Radio 3 editorial control and parcelled out around the BBC for corporate dumbing down."

He's never had any time for 'career civil servant' Alan Davey, who now has overall responsibility for the Proms; now, it seems, he has no more respect for David Pickard.

A pity he overstates a bad case because he discredits his rather better points (like comparing the cost of Proms, Radio 3 and the orchestras with what the BBC paid for Saturday night Premier football highlights).

[Anastasius]

I find Lebrecht too full of his own self-importance to give any credit to his views. I attended a few years back one of his pre-Prom talks and left within a very short time as His Smugness gave me a very queasy stomach..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh dear, NL spouting again. It's a bit like the Daily Express talking about the weather.

[french frank]

Re the 'power vacuum' (published July 2013):

"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."

So … no power vacuum between the time Roger left (summer 2014) and the 2015 Proms?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Though I suppose the late night concerts could have been a postscript?

[french frank]

Though I suppose the late night concerts could have been a postscript?

Hadn't thought of that. I've queried it with Lebrecht - let's see if he comes up with an explanation

[french frank]

No, I don't think so - on checking. There were roughly the same number of Late Night Proms last year, and the radio Proms seems to be the equivalent of The Pet Shop Boys, Battle of the Bands, Laura Mvula, Paloma Faith and Rufus Wainwright concerts last year.

[wenotsoira]

Norman Lebrecht has now turned his fire on just about everyone currently in charge of the Proms - and the BBC - in this article, of which some, at least, is rubbish:

http://standpointmag.co.uk/music-september-2015-norman-lebrecht-bbc-proms

Roger Wright said that the 2015 season had been fixed before he left (most Proms concerts have to be planned 3 years ahead), so the idea that he battled to prevent 'dumbing down' (his phrase) seems bizarre, as does: "this summer when, in a regime-change power vacuum, six Proms were removed from Radio 3 editorial control and parcelled out around the BBC for corporate dumbing down."

He's never had any time for 'career civil servant' Alan Davey, who now has overall responsibility for the Proms; now, it seems, he has no more respect for David Pickard.

A pity he overstates a bad case because he discredits his rather better points (like comparing the cost of Proms, Radio 3 and the orchestras with what the BBC paid for Saturday night Premier football highlights).

Lebrecht's claims that the Southbank Sinfonia and something else (i can't get back onto the article), can read anything at the blink of an eye, is just plain rubbish.

His claims of the BBC wanting sponsorship and their wish for more commercialisation is possibly correct though.

Lebrecht's problem is that he knows absolutely nothing about music and musicians - so anything he says in regard to those subjects is always total B.S.

However "The budgets I have laid out above for the Proms, five orchestras, and Radio 3, amount to less than one-third of the £204 million the BBC agreed this year to pay a greedy Premier League for an hour or so of edited football highlights on Saturday nights. ITV, exercising sound commercial sense, declined to bid.

The BBC has lost any sense of real-world value and, critically, the innate balance of its triple mission to “inform, educate and entertain”. The Proms exemplified all three ambitions of the BBC charter. The Proms must now pay for the BBC’s greater failures." could well be true.

[Barbirollians]

Many a good argument has been spoiled by a third class advocate.

[seabright]

In view of what is said above about Mr Lebrecht, you might like to hear his views on "Conductors and Conducting" from 23 years ago ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51WX3yzTML0

[french frank]

Many a good argument has been spoiled by a third class advocate.

@wenotsoira

His claims of the BBC wanting sponsorship and their wish for more commercialisation is possibly correct though.

Except that he quotes a possible 'Audi Proms' in a few years time. The BBC has been banned from promoting sponsored programming of that kind. That's why Sainsbury's pulled out from the high profile 'Sainsbury's Choir of the Year' on BBC Two some years back. Consequently, the competition has nothing like the coverage it once had - because Sainsbury's aren't guaranteeing the cash that compensates for lower viewing figures - so the slot was dropped.

[Zucchini]

...because Sainsbury's aren't guaranteeing the cash that compensates for lower viewing igures

what does that mean?

[french frank]

what does that mean?

It means that if Sainsbury's hand over a nice chunk of cash to the BBC to use as it wishes, the BBC will tolerate putting a lower audience programme on mainstream television. No cash, no programme.

[Add: In fact, I think it was the BBC's decision to relegate Choir of the Year to Radio 3 that caused Sainsbury's to pull out, and 'Sainsbury's Choir of the Year' became 'Radio 3 Choir of the Year'.]

[Darkbloom]

"What I have described may be a worst-case scenario"

It's surely unlike Norman to be so pessimistic in search of a headline-grabbing article? (there really needs some sort of 'irony' typeface on here).

This stuff has mostly come out of his Cassandra-like imagination, as far as I can see. I don't think a few 'popular' Proms spliced in among the more usual stuff is likely to bring down civilisation, but when you start putting sponsorship in the mix you might as well give up and go home. I'm sure I am not the only one to have read this forum and felt a certain Proms weariness among the contributors, even from the beginning, and I have often felt that the season was a couple of weeks too long, with too many makeweight concerts of little originality.

I don't know whether comparing the Proms with football is all that helpful. Whatever my feelings about our obsession with sport in this country, things like football can at least point to a genuine demand, where a profusion of orchestras all competing in the same marketplace to a largely indifferent public doesn't command the same respect. I imagine there is a general sense among most of us here that conceding anything in a discussion like this is like letting the barbarians through the gates, but we probably ought to be realistic about the situation out there and the interest in what is being sold.

I have been going to the Proms for about 20 years and I feel sometimes that things need a bit of a shake-up, but hopefully by someone with vision and sympathy for the arts, not a faceless bean counter. I don't, for example, find the visits of jet-lagged international orchestras struggling with the RAH acoustic as interesting as I used to. I go to far more concerts in that 2 months than I ever do for the rest of the year, but even a fan like me recognises that just putting on a series of (mostly regular reportoire) concerts might not be a long-term option. Getting commerce involved however, would be a disaster, and I hope we will avoid that particular black hole.

[PhilipT]

In view of what is said above about Mr Lebrecht, you might like to hear his views on "Conductors and Conducting" from 23 years ago ...

I don't think so. The last time I read anything he wrote it was about the Proms. Anyone who takes money for parading himself as an expert while demonstrating his ignorance of the facts is fundamentally dishonest, and should be ignored.