Proms at ... Stage@TheDock, Hull - 22.07.17

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

12:30 Saturday 22 July 2017
Stage @TheDock

Georg Philipp Telemann: Water Music – overture
Frederick Delius: Summer Night on the River
George Frideric Handel: Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major
Grace Evangeline Mason: RIVER BBC commission: first concert performance
Felix Mendelssohn: Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage
Jean‐Philippe Rameau: Naïs – overture
Grace Williams: Sea Sketches – High Wind
Grace Williams: Sea Sketches – Calm Sea in Summer
George Frideric Handel: Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major

Royal Northern Sinfonia


he BBC Proms travels out of London, to Hull - UK City of Culture 2017 - for a site-specific performance of music inspired by water, centering on Handel's Water Music suites, first performed 300 years ago at a river party for George I on the Thames.
Pioneering early music expert Nicholas McGegan directs the Royal Northern Sinfonia at Stage@TheDock - Hull's outdoor amphitheatre - in a programme featuring everything from storms and shipwrecks to calm seas and seductive sirens.

Nicholas McGegan conductor

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I welcome this as a step in the right direction - moving towards making the Proms a truly national festival (PITP doesn't count ) rather than yet more music in the capital.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would've gone to this Prom, had I not recently moved south.

The irony of it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... music inspired by water, centering on Handel's Water Music suites, first performed 300 years ago at a river party for George I on the Thames.

OK, but what about the F major suite - my favourite?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I'm talking to myself here.

[bluestateprommer]

I welcome this as a step in the right direction - moving towards making the Proms a truly national festival (PITP doesn't count ) rather than yet more music in the capital.

David Pickard briefly addressed the question of holding Proms outside of London here:

'Whether the BBC makes Proms outside London a regular fixture remains to be seen. “It really is a wait and see,” he said. “For many reasons, the Albert Hall is absolutely perfect for us: it has got a capacity of 6,000 seats and we move in there, we set it up for everything we want to do – film, broadcast. The minute we move outside London we set up a whole set of extra costs and infrastructure.”'

Obviously as an ignorant Yank, I'm not up on the whole question of London-centrism, although in the US, we sort of have the same issue with respect to New York City as America's cultural mecca and main powerhouse.

On Grace-Evangeline Mason, she had an interview with Imogen Tilden here. She played trombone, although evidently she decided to go for composition rather than be the next Helen Vollam.

[bluestateprommer]

Just finished listening to the Hull Prom in iPlayer. Musically, it was a 'nice afternoon' out, so to speak (even if it's morning here now on this side of the pond). The main debit of the presentation was Tom Redmond's occasional, or more than occasional, OTT-ness in trying to whip up audience cheers at the mention of the name 'Hull'. But that's the presentation rather than the music and the music-making, the most important things here, of course, which were of a consistently satisfying order. I only just noticed how the program, while it looks 'light' and 'pleasant' on the surface, managed to straddle four centuries of music.

I admit that I wasn't aware that Grace-Evangeline Mason's WATER had actually gotten its first performance earlier in the week, and was aired on R4 (must track it down at some point). I found her work more texture and shimmer than melody, but the idea was apparently to capture the feel of water, or being on the water. The brief Q&A between G-EM and TR didn't have a whole lot to say between them. But G-EM is but 22, and hopefully she'll do well at the RNCM and go on to a nice compositional career.

Of the two Graces on the concert, perhaps unfairly, Grace Williams was the winner hands-down. I can't remember ever hearing her Sea Sketches on record before, but based on these two movements, I'll have to try to look for it.

Should also note that the Iain Farrington encore (duly archived in the Calendar) managed to bring a bit of the Last Night up north early, so to speak.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The main debit of the presentation was Tom Redmond's occasional, or more than occasional, OTT-ness in trying to whip up audience cheers at the mention of the name 'Hull'. But that's the presentation rather than the music and the music-making...

I might have thought this was the BBC patronising northerners. But then I remember KD doing something similar on Thursday.

I wonder why they don't exhume Eamonn Andrews, so he can rouse the audiences, like he did every time he said "Crackerjack".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Obviously as an ignorant Yank...

I do wish you wouldn't describe yourself as such. You know more about the Proms than 99+% of the limeys.

[Lat-Literal]

Listened to this one in full as something of a "champion" of Grace Williams. So good that she should be in the Proms and not a bad performance. I wasn't keen on the Hull/Crackerjack thing but can hardly complain if it pleased those who were enjoying the performance, especially given what will be its historical relevance of being outside London. It is also more broadly symptomatic. I have already mentioned that the BBC has added Hull to the weather map and Elizabeth Rizzini mentioned today that there would soon be a weather division roughly on the line of Preston to Hull. It was said without any obvious facial expression but the tiniest of pauses indicated it was there for knowing effect. One could imagine the cereal bowl cheers in the Land of Green Ginger. "River" by Grace-Evangeline Mason was more than acceptable. I was surprised to discover she isn't black as the name might well suggest it.