Prom 35: New York: Sound of a City – 8.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

22:15
ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Hercules and Love Affair
serpentwithfeet
Sharon Van Etten
Heritage Orchestra
Jules Buckley conductor

[Old Grumpy]

22:15
ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Hercules and Love Affair
serpentwithfeet
Sharon Van Etten
Heritage Orchestra
Jules Buckley conductor

OG

[DracoM]

Seconded.
Welcome, R2 listeners - specially for you.
Or rather those of you brought up in the 1950s

My guess is that many New Yorlers will be squirming in embarrassment.

[bluestateprommer]

Seconded.
Welcome, R2 listeners - specially for you.
Or rather those of you brought up in the 1950s

My guess is that many [New Yorkers] will be squirming in embarrassment.

Well, I'm originally from NYC (though not of the vintage decade that you mentioned), so given that no one seems to have given this a go, I took it on myself to be the guinea-pig of the group and give this a listen. The first surprise was the first song, with Berlioz's 'March to the Scaffold' as musical backup for serpentwithfeet's opening number "Four Ethers". It used the Berlioz surprisingly effectively, without imposing any overly outlandish layers on it. Granted, Berlioz has nothing to do with the NYC music scene as such, but there we are.

The other general surprise was that it took about a half hour for the music to get into more of a hard-edged vein, which was what I was half-expecting throughout from these acts. But then the presence of the Metropole Orkest (i.e. real live musicians, not electronica or such like) contributed to that. I don't really know the R2 audience, except for a quick look recently at the R2 homepage. I was also half-expecting the music to veer more towards Radio 6 (or I guess 6Music is the more accurate name), an edgier "urban" style. Andrew McGregor did mention something about highlights to be aired on 6Radio later.