The 2016 Proms Season: what are your thoughts?

[french frank]

He left out "collect cloakroom ticket from Steward (vital)", "experience sticker shock at bar prices", "get unwittingly involved in argument about pushing in" and "get mulcted by over-zealous charity collector".

No, I feel such details do not encourage, and are best discovered by experience.

[ucanseetheend]

An awful programme!

Unsubstantial.Full of parts of compositions of great pieces. And littered with "composers" (yes if you want to call them such ) and their "compositions" who frankly have no business being in the Proms. The butchering and death of the BBC Proms continues remorselessly .

[MrGongGong]

Unsubstantial.Full of parts of compositions of great pieces. And littered with "composers" (yes if you want to call them such ) and their "compositions" who frankly have no business being in the Proms. The butchering and death of the BBC Proms continues remorselessly .

Which "composers" are you referring to?

[french frank]

Unsubstantial.

I'll leave you to take up Mr GongGong's routine gauntlet, but "unsubstantial" is a bit unfair on the rest of the programme, isn't it?

What seems to me to be missing(?) is the blockbuster item(s) that recently claimed attention: the Havergal Brian, the RVW symphonies, the Ring, the Bach solo works from last year, &c. Not so easy to fit in at relatively short notice so presumably nothing bequeathed by the outgoing Director for this year?

I expect Bowie is one of the 'pseudo-composers'? I'm told this will definitely NOT be a pop concert, which may disappoint some of the audience. Serve them right, in my view. Should be more of an education

[MrGongGong]

I'll leave you to take up Mr GongGong's routine gauntlet,

I need to practice my arguments somewhere

[Richard Barrett]

Unsubstantial.

The word you're looking for is "insubstantial" I think.

The problem is the idea that there's music which has "no business being in the Proms".

[Cockney Sparrow]

I need to practice my arguments somewhere

You do practice them, you do......

[PhilipT]

The problem is the idea that there's music which has "no business being in the Proms".

Did you actually go to the José Mercé Prom? Or Staff Benda Bilili? Or (going back a bit) Bruce Gaston and his Fong Naam ensemble?

[ucanseetheend]

The word you're looking for is "insubstantial" I think.

The problem is the idea that there's music which has "no business being in the Proms".

Really? The Radio 1 "Techno" Prom? we are back to the same argument, Most of these "Non Classical jazz opera or related" have other outlets and the Proms has been hijacked all in the name of "reaching a wider audience" It's a "Cop Out"

[ahinton]

Really? The Radio 1 "Techno" Prom? we are back to the same argument, Most of these "Non Classical jazz opera or related" have other outlets and the Proms has been hijacked all in the name of "reaching a wider audience" It's a "Cop Out"

Whilst I wouldn't go that far, if there really is no such thing as "music which has no business being in the Proms", the kind of "diversity" to which such a stance might lead (if adopted by Proms programmers) would likely be such that the already by no means diverse spread of new music by living composers (to which accusing fingers have already been pointed) being performed there would worsen to the point at which anything remotely "cutting edge" (not that I care for the phrase) would be sunk without trace indefinitely, I fear.

[french frank]

The problem is the idea that there's music which has "no business being in the Proms".

The problem is more defining music which has "no business being in the Proms", in my view. Or perhaps in agreeing a definition.

[Beef Oven!]

The problem is more defining music which has "no business being in the Proms", in my view. Or perhaps in agreeing a definition.

Music probably can't be defined in the first place, so when we consider a subgroup like 'music that has no business in being in the Proms', it's even harder, perhaps impossible. What we're left with, as RB says, is an idea that there is music that doesn't belong. It therefore has more to do with the views and attitudes of the people making such claims, than it does about this or that music.

[ahinton]

Music probably can't be defined in the first place, so when we consider a subgroup like 'music that has no business in being in the Proms', it's even harder, perhaps impossible. What we're left with, as RB says, is an idea that there is music that doesn't belong. It therefore has more to do with the views and attitudes of the people making such claims, than it does about this or that music.

That's right insofar as it goes, of course but, as I implied earlier, if the Proms is to become a festival where almost any music can be programmed, it would seem likely that the clamouring for inclusion of more challenging material by living composers being presened there will fall on ever more deaf ears, to the greater detriment still of the kind of diversity among Proms commissions with which RB and many others would feel more comfortable in order that a wider conspectus of new music be accommodated; that's all.

[french frank]

What we're left with, as RB says, is an idea that there is music that doesn't belong. It therefore has more to do with the views and attitudes of the people making such claims, than it does about this or that music.

Possibly, yet I would say a concert devoted exclusively to Adele or Justin Bieber, featuring them performing their own music, would 'have no business' [not actually a phrase I'd use but … ] at the Proms. Not even a Late Night Prom. What I had against last year's Radio 1 Ibiza club-night Prom was that it had nothing to do with the original aim of the Proms: to create a new audience for classical music. The early Proms included what was then 'popular' music but no concert was exclusively popular music.

The argument that if a new audience is made to feel part of the Proms that will encourage them to discover other kinds of music like [name of 'classical composer' here] seems to me absurd. Why would it? What percentage would book for a more traditional Prom? Has the effectiveness of such a cunning plan been monitored?

[Beef Oven!]

Possibly, yet I would say a concert devoted exclusively to Adele or Justin Bieber, featuring them performing their own music, would 'have no business' [not actually a phrase I'd use but … ] at the Proms. Not even a Late Night Prom.

The implication being that 'so long as it's not a concert devoted exclusively to that music', it would be ok. I'm reminded of all the clucking we had last year when the five Prokofiev piano concertos were programmed in one night.

The argument that if a new audience is made to feel part of the Proms that will encourage them to discover other kinds of music like [name of 'classical composer' here] seems to me absurd. Why would it? What percentage would book for a more traditional Prom? Has the effectiveness of such a cunning plan been monitored?

You might think it absurd, but many people believe, based on real experiences, that classical music in the last fifty years or so has cultural/class barriers. One way of testing these barriers is offer more populist fare as well as the esoteric. It's rational, rather than cunning.