Prom 16: Ibiza/Cobblers Prom (29.07.15)

[MrGongGong]

The BBC Proms is a classical music festival. Why shouldn’t it focus on classical music?

It does
and it has always included other things just like other "classical music festivals"

I went to Verbier last year which is a fairly "hard-core" classical music festival, I sadly missed Youssou N'dour as he played after I had left.

Those who somehow feel that they are being 'invaded' by aliens should maybe take the foil hats off from time to time and what better occasion than the Proms?

(Don't get me wrong, I think gigs like this often don't work very well at all ...BUT that's not a good reason to not have a go IMV)

[MrGongGong]

Ah, the old and naïve argument that has virtually destroyed art music in the classrooms of this country -.

I think you are being a little disingenuous here.
Like you I had a bad experience of something (yours was amplification , mine was Elgar) but I think i'm coming out of it now..........


Unimaginative teaching (and even worse education policy making) by people unable to recognise the thread that unties Rammstein and Schubert has a lot to do with this IMV

[Bryn]

I think you are being a little disingenuous here.
Like you I had a bad experience of something (yours was amplification , mine was Elgar) but I think i'm coming out of it now..........


Unimaginative teaching (and even worse education policy making) by people unable to recognise the thread that unties Rammstein and Schubert has a lot to do with this IMV

When I Google "unties Rammstein and Schubert" I am asked "Did you mean: aunties Rammstein and Schubert". Surely that should read "Did you mean: auntie's Rammstein and Schubert"

[MrGongGong]

When I Google "unties Rammstein and Schubert" I am asked "Did you mean: aunties Rammstein and Schubert". Surely that should read "Did you mean: auntie's Rammstein and Schubert"

OOOPS

Unites (workers of the world untie !)

[Beef Oven!]

Unimaginative teaching........

Indeed. Many of us have had experience of that.

[Beef Oven!]

When I google Rammstein & Schubert, I get this!

[MrGongGong]

When I google Rammstein & Schubert, I get this!

Exactly (like I told you before)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's no longer the Henry Wood Proms, it's the BBC Proms. As the Beeb is funding it, the current powers-that-be have decided that the Proms should have something that caters for the tastes of all its Licence Fee payers, so Musics outside the Western Classical traditions are being accommodated, just as they are on Late Junction - and in order to facilitate this accommodation, there are now more Proms in each season. And the "popular" (with acknowledgement to ts' caveat) items are being kept to the late-night events, to avoid clashing with the more traditional Proms repertoire (unlike the "Broadway Musical" events which take up the mainstream evenings, and which are seen as the equivalent of the "G&S" nights that were regularly featured until about 1980).

So far, so reasonable - there are still more concerts of the type that Newman and Wood would have recognized in each Season, and the Ibiza event isn't interfering with the run of those, nor is it much interfering with the listening habits of R3 listeners, as the timing coincides with the usual broadcast time of Late Junction, Jazz on Three, Hear & Now, The Verb, etc - in other words, regular R3 programmes that might attract the sort of audience that will be more inclined to give the Ibiza a try anyway.

None of this addresses the reported silly comments of someone who should know better as reported in an article in the Radio Times, intended to provoke the readership of that grubby and over-priced publication in the same way that the hackwork of Alison Graham is so intended. The programmes concerned are incidental to the publicity such drivel leads to - it gives RT more credit than it begins to deserve to let it cause friction amongst ourselves.


Nonetheless (and this isn't meant facetiously) I would still look forward to hear that the Grosse Fuge, Machaut, Varese and the Bminor Mass (etc etc etc) will be performed and broadcast live and in full from T in the Park. THAT's the main issue for me - that "outreach" is (or appears to be) a one-sided effort. There are only two national broadcasting stations devoted to the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions (and none, to my knowledge, to those of the non-Western Classical Traditions) - as opposed to dozens that don't include those repertoires in their output. Why put the burden of "outreach" so much on one of those two?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A thoughtful and balanced view, fhg.

(I dumped Radio Times years ago because of Alison Graham's opinionated drivel. She'd do better as a gossip-columnist in a tabloid.)

[french frank]

Nonetheless (and this isn't meant facetiously) I would still look forward to hear that the Grosse Fuge, Machaut, Varese and the Bminor Mass (etc etc etc) will be performed and broadcast live and in full from T in the Park. THAT's the main issue for me - that "outreach" is (or appears to be) a one-sided effort. There are only two national broadcasting stations devoted to the Musics of the Western Classical Traditions (and none, to my knowledge, to those of the non-Western Classical Traditions) - as opposed to dozens that don't include those repertoires in their output. Why put the burden of "outreach" so much on one of those two?

This is the point: that the number of outlets for popular music (esp. so-called 'youth' music) has exploded, so that the fall-out reaches Radio 3 and the Proms as part of it. The rest of the BBC broadcast services reflect that.

And … now that Late Junction, World on 3 &c have bedded in after over a decade, one tends to forget that the late evening was not always the preserve of 'other musics': they are part of the very same evolution:

(Wed 4 June 1997)

9:10pm The Milan Collection
Presented by David Fallows. Orlando Consort: Robert Harre-Jones (countertenor), Charles Daniels (tenor), Angus Smith (tenor), Donald Greig (bass). Josquin: Motet `Vultum tuum deprecabuntur'. Compere: Officium de cruce (In nomine Jesu).

10:00pm Ensemble
Penny Gore introduces a recital by the Marais Ensemble, with narrator Simon James, including the first broadcast of Martin Butler's settings of Roald Dahl. Carter: Wind Quintet. Beethoven: Quintet in E flat for piano and wind, Op 16. Butler: Dirty Beasts (first UK broadcast).

10:45pm Night Waves
Patrick Wright reviews `Confessions of a Philosopher' by Bryan Magee, philosopher, broadcaster and former MP. Magee believes passionately in the interconnection of philosophical thought and everyday life. His autobiographical account of a lifetime's engagement with philosophy includes his encounters with such figures as Karl Popper and Bertrand Russell. Plus a report from the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, where poet James Fenton is collaborating with composer Dominic Muldowney in `Image Music Text'.

11:30pm Composer of the Week: Korngold
`He is the greatest hope of German music.' (Puccini). Today, Brendan Carroll highlights the years of Korngold's greatest successes, the 1920s when he was the toast of Vienna. Die Tote Stadt (Act 3, Prelude). Munich Radio Orchestra/Erich Leinsdorf. Marietta's Lied (Die Tote Stadt. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano), Hamburg Radio Orchestra/Wilhelm Schuchter. Piano Quintet (finale). Scot Woolley (piano), Korngold Quartet. An Aben Schmerz; Versuchung. Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo), Bengt Forsberg (piano). Piano Concerto. Howard Shelley, BBC Philharmonic/Matthias Bamert.

12:30am Jazz Notes
Digby Fairweather and Alyn Shipton review some new jazz releases.

[MrGongGong]

This is the point: that the number of outlets for popular music (esp. so-called 'youth' music) has exploded, so that the fall-out reaches Radio 3 and the Proms as part of it. The rest of the BBC broadcast services reflect that.

And … now that Late Junction, World on 3 &c have bedded in after over a decade, one tends to forget that the late evening was not always the preserve of 'other musics': they are part of the very same evolution:
.

So are you suggesting this is all a bad thing? (it seems like it?)

Maybe OXOBoy has the right idea and there should be a whole Proms season devoted to music that hasn't been played there before?

There are plenty of musics that don't get heard anywhere on the BBC should the Proms prioritise those?

(Trevor Wishart's Encounters in the Republic of Heaven would make a wonderful Prom IMV)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So are you suggesting this is all a bad thing? (it seems like it?)

I don't think it's a particularly good thing to have Mick Jagger et al on Radio 3, when there are countless other channels where he might expect to be heard.

[MrGongGong]

I don't think it's a particularly good thing to have Mick Jagger et al on Radio 3, when there are countless other channels where he might expect to be heard.

So you really are lumping ALL 'popular' music in one box?

The dance music that this Prom will play has more to do with Ravel than it does The Stones

[Bryn]

I don't think it's a particularly good thing to have Mick Jagger et al on Radio 3, ... .

Damn! When was that. I seem to have missed it. Ah well, hopefully he'll turn up again before too long. Mick and (Call me) al would be well worth hearing together.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So you really are lumping ALL 'popular' music in one box?

I'm doing nothing of the kind. It's just that the BBC is progressively lumping all music on to Radio 3 and is keeping their other channels just the way they were.

No. That's not true. Your Hundred Best Tunes is no longer on Radio 2; it's on Radio 3 all morning and in the late afternoon.