The Proms as a festival

[french frank]

Wow.

I find it strange that people have latched on to the brief mention of Glyndebourne in the linked article without taking much notice of what it has to say about the Proms, its central subject and that of this thread!

Possibly a discussion about the Proms as festival, rather than the latest season, would deserve a different thread?

"BBC Proms 2016 is about as exciting as my sock drawer. But it’s unclear who exactly is to blame. The new head David Pickard claims only half the stalest socks are his — the rest inherited.
The festival enjoys an incredibly privileged position. Some might even say it’s dangerously spoilt. Free from commercial pressures, free from government interference, an entire TV and radio network at its propagandistic disposal, the two-month summer blowout is a mighty musical monopoly. It can do what it wants with pretty much whomever it wants.
Last year it dedicated a night to Eric Whitacre, the Noel Edmonds of contemporary music, and hosted an Ibiza prom 20 years after …" [Can't read any more. I'm told I've used my free allowance - no idea when]

[Richard Barrett]

Possibly a discussion about the Proms as festival, rather than the latest season

The article is about the latest season.

[french frank]

The article is about the latest season.

Oh, right - I was asked to subscribe £12 if I wanted to read the rest.

[teamsaint]

The Proms is/are not free of commercial pressure, as claimed.
The might be seen as being in a favoured commercial position, but that isn't the same thing.

[kea]

[Can't read any more. I'm told I've used my free allowance - no idea when

I'd agree to an extent with the opinions there, & would think that whatever one's opinions might be it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the one thing the BBC is thinking about is ratings. And money, I suppose.

[french frank]

I've moved the last few posts to a separate thread in case people want to discuss the Proms more generally, but I'll have to remove the Spectator piece soon.

It will still be accessible to most people on the Spectator website here:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/the-heckler-those-behind-the-proms-this-year-have-the-imagination-of-a-dead-fish/

[PhilipT]

Wow.

I find it strange that people have latched on to the brief mention of Glyndebourne in the linked article without taking much notice of what it has to say about the Proms, its central subject and that of this thread!

I'm not latching on to the brief mention of Glyndebourne in the linked article. I'm latching on to your ignorance of Glyndebourne ticket prices, as put on public display in post #265.

[french frank]

What I would disagree with in the Spectator article is the view of what the Proms 'used to be like'. On the whole there have been changes of emphasis depending on the whim of the current director. As for:

"The Proms was once a place for adventurers. In the 1970s half the BBC Symphony Orchestra took up residency in a railway-repair shed, the Roundhouse, and bashed out the very latest bit of invigorating modernism by Cage, Stockhausen, Boulez and Messiaen."

But before then and after then that wasn't the case. The Proms is no more 'the place for adventurers' than it is the place for pop artists and concerts for young people. It started out with the aim of creating a new audience for classical music. To some extent, it did; and worked up to a point where it could be 'adventurous'. But arguably, there is as much reason now to aim at creating a new audience than there was when the Proms began. So the world-weary sophisticates who have moved beyond "Bruch’s Violin Concerto, Verdi’s Requiem, Holst’s The Planets, Colin Matthews’ 2,765th Proms piece" will be unimpressed. Too bad. So:

"In the 1970s half the BBC Symphony Orchestra took up residency in a railway-repair shed, the Roundhouse …" and this year there will be a concert in a multi-story car park, except … Oh, noooo … it's Steve Reich. It might as well be Philip Glass …

[Richard Barrett]

I'm latching on to your ignorance of Glyndebourne ticket prices

I'm not ignorant of them - my internet gets me to the Glyndebourne website as well as anyone else's.

"arguably, there is as much reason now to aim at creating a new audience than there was when the Proms began. So the world-weary sophisticates who have moved beyond "Bruch’s Violin Concerto, Verdi’s Requiem, Holst’s The Planets, Colin Matthews’ 2,765th Proms piece" will be unimpressed" - Who are you calling world-weary? - and surely one way of creating a new audience is to play music that wouldn't be given such a platform otherwise. The pieces in that list, with the exception of the last (and I'm sure it was more than 2,765, seems like it anyway), are staples of every "classical" concert season. Isn't there supposed to be something a bit different about the Proms?

[french frank]

Who are you calling world-weary?

Igor Toronyi-Lalic, since he was the one who picked out those particular four pieces.

and surely one way of creating a new audience is to play music that wouldn't be given such a platform otherwise.

It might get a new audience for the works that were chosen to be showcased. But one way in which the Proms has moved on over 100 years is in the range of the repertoire now covered. It has continued to introduce audiences to 'new' (as in not familiar to them) works. What I was suggesting was that the general public now is so unacquainted with the repertoire which is familiar to most of us that there needs to be some platform which is accessible (sorry, sorry, sorry!) to people who don't go down the road to the Barbican as a matter of course.

No, of course the works mentioned don't fill me with any enthusiasm, but if there had been an analysis of the percentage of works this year that could be placed in that category, rather than the arbitrary naming of four pieces, I might have found the argument more convincing.

Isn't there supposed to be something a bit different about the Proms?

Different for whom? would be one response. But even a Bowie tribute and Reich in a multi-story carpark are half way to countering the examples mentioned. Just off the top of my head.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh, right - I was asked to subscribe £12 if I wanted to read the rest.

You've shown your true worth by declining the outrage.
Off topic, I know, but I did one of those online IQ tests - quite challenging, but I was almost certain I had every answer correct. To find out what I IQ was, I has to pay a fee. I think resisting that was a better test of my intelligence.

[teamsaint]

You've shown your true worth by declining the outrage.
Off topic, I know, but I did one of those online IQ tests - quite challenging, but I was almost certain I had every answer correct. To find out what I IQ was, I has to pay a fee. I think resisting that was a better test of my intelligence.

you have passed the test.....

[ahinton]

I have already deplored the gratuitous allusion to Colin Matthews in another thread.

Has anyone actually checked past Proms season programmes to ascertain how many performances of Colin's works there have been in them, compared to other 20th century British composers? I haven't, but were someone to do so and find the answer to be more than some and less than others I would be somewhat surprised.

What in any case is it about Colin's music in particular that prompts that author to write of it as he has? Does anyone have any thoughts on that, just out of interest?

[ahinton]

[deleted: duplicate]

[teamsaint]

I have already deplored the gratuitous allusion to Colin Matthews in another thread.

Has anyone actually checked past Proms season programmes to ascertain how many performances of Colin's works there have been in them, compared to other 20th century British composers? I haven't, but were someone to do so and find the answer to be more than some and less than others I would be somewhat surprised.

What in any case is it about Colin's music in particular that prompts that author to write of it as he has? Does anyone have any thoughts on that, just out of interest?

all time count:

Colin Matthews. 21
David Matthews. 7
James Macmillan 20
Mark-Anthony Turnage 20
Judith Weir 19.

By way of comparison, Steve Reich 11.

which rather confirms my suspicion ( EG Henry Cowell 1 performance ever) that British composers fare much better than Americans.