An Oldie view of the Proms

[french frank]

Richard Osborne's article on this year's Proms programme. Sans commentaire .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[Stanley Stewart]

Thank you, ff. Copy now ordered.

[gurnemanz]

We went to the Handel House in Brook St a few year's ago (well worth a visit) and noticed that Robert Ponsonby was one of the volunteer room guides (he had a name label on his lapel). It clearly was the man himself and we enjoyed a very pleasant chat with him.

[pastoralguy]

We went to the Handel House in Brook St a few year's ago (well worth a visit) and noticed that Robert Ponsonby was one of the volunteer room guides (he had a name label on his lapel). It clearly was the man himself and we enjoyed a very pleasant chat with him.

Wow! Good for him. I visited the house with a friend about 6 years ago and enjoyed it.

[Lordgeous]

Thank you, ff. Copy now ordered.

Can I ask where you ordered it? Cant track any supplier down on the web.

[Stanley Stewart]

Instantly acknowledged by the river people @ £8.99 - and have just been advised that delivery will be made tomorrow, (6Aug)!

[Lordgeous]

Thanks. I looked on there first and it didnt show. I'll try again!

[seabright]

Can this quote from RO's article please be printed off in very large letters and circulated to all BBC Radio 3 and indeed the televised Proms presenters:

"The downside, for those of us listening at home, will be Radio 3’s presentation, with its unstoppable barrage of chatter and hype. The shouting of prepared quotes over applause, when all one wants is pause for thought. And, even worse, all those gushing endorsements. As Ponsonby says in his essay on the subject ‘An Abortive Campaign’, ‘It really isn’t the job of the presenter to evaluate the work or the performance.’"

Spot on, Richard! :)

[Petrushka]

I wonder if RO is on this Forum hiding under a pseudonym.

His thoughts on Bruckner recordings are Holy Writ in Petrushka Towers and he's spot on here as well.

[french frank]

he's spot on here as well.

I was looking through my cuttings for a piece by RP from a couple of years back headed "Pass the sickback", but instead I found one from RO, again in The Oldie, from back in 2004:

"This summer I more or less stopped listening to the Proms because of the raucous, overhyped presentation. Being shouted at within seconds of the music ending, first with a random quote about the piece, then with a relentless insistence on how 'brilliant' the performance has been, strikes me as being more than an irritaton. It is an offence against the very act of of quiet and discriminating listening. (The boo that greeted the Berlin Philharmonic's undistinguished account of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben was salutary. It well and truly dampened the hype.)"

My impression is that the only change seems to be that now that 'boo' wouldn't stem the flow of hyperbole ... Perhaps it's the Radio 3 presenter who gets in first with the shout at the end?

[Serial_Apologist]

I was looking through my cuttings for a piece by RP from a couple of years back headed "Pass the sickback", but instead I found one from RO, again in The Oldie, from back in 2004:

"This summer I more or less stopped listening to the Proms because of the raucous, overhyped presentation. Being shouted at within seconds of the music ending, first with a random quote about the piece, then with a relentless insistence on how 'brilliant' the performance has been, strikes me as being more than an irritaton. It is an offence against the very act of of quiet and discriminating listening. (The boo that greeted the Berlin Philharmonic's undistinguished account of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben was salutary. It well and truly dampened the hype.)"

My impression is that the only change seems to be that now that 'boo' wouldn't stem the flow of hyperbole ... Perhaps it's the Radio 3 presenter who gets in first with the shout at the end?

You mean the conductor, with an earpiece connection to the simultaneous broadcast, holds his hands up after the final note in order to stay any applause until the presenter gets his or her hyperbollox in first?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... Perhaps it's the Radio 3 presenter who gets in first with the shout at the end?

I think this one needs to be handed his cards, or at best, sidelined into research.

[french frank]

Got my copy of In and Out of Tune. Don't know what made me look up RW in the index but I was well rewarded :-)

[ahinton]

his or her hyperbollox in first?

"Hyperbollox"! What an apposite term, however unfortunate it is at the same time...

Although only an incidental matter here, Sorabji once headed a secton of a solo piano piece dedicated to one of his friends (Un nido di scatole, available in a wonderful recording by Jonathan Powell) Ein Heldentenorleben and it's a delightful though in no sense barbed parody of Strauss in Heldenleben mode...