Proms dates 2019

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The website is utterly atrocious and a nightmare to navigate. All we want is a single-page listing of just the concerts (none of the other "outreach" nonsense is relevant), or at the very least give us a week's worth of concerts on one page without having to click "More information" to actually bring up the programme. It's infuriating!!!!

There's nothing for me that would make me want to part with money to go to, but quite a few works and concerts I'll certainly be listening to. (Benvenuto Cellini, the Weinberg works, the Linda Catlin Smith premiere ... bits and pieces from elsewhere.) This has been par for the course for me as far as the Proms is concerned for the past ten years at least. Well - saves money, I suppose.

[Anastasius]

The website is utterly atrocious and a nightmare to navigate. All we want is a single-page listing of just the concerts (none of the other "outreach" nonsense is relevant), or at the very least give us a week's worth of concerts on one page without having to click "More information" to actually bring up the programme. It's infuriating!!!!

I'm long past caring about the lousy web designs that come out these days. Far too much wasted white space and I wear out my scroll button. But silly me for wanting to look at these execrable websites on a decent large desktop screen rather than having my head down peering at a tiny screen and totally oblivious to any other members of the human race as I barrel down the pavement expecting them to get out of the way (I don't and am big and nasty enough for most to bounce off).

But you are spot on...the BBC Proms website has been among the worst ever since they 'redesigned it to give a better user experience' (aka a load of rowlocks). The good news is that, IIRC, there is a stellar forum member who massages the lousy BBC Proms website into something actually usable.

[Pulcinella]

BBC Proms Guide 2019 due out on 17 April. Cheapest pre-order price seems to be £5.04 from WH Smith, if you can collect from the nearest store. Must say I appreciated the fold out A3 paper poster included with the guide last year. IT remained on the wall beyond the end of the season. It doesn’t say whether the same is included in this year’s edition. Let's hope so.

Didn’t buy through Amazon this year but couldn’t help smiling when I scrolled down the page and saw that people who bought the guide were also very likely to buy this year’s Playfair Cricket Annual and Wisden’s Cricket Almanac. Why does that not surprise me somehow …

No poster, Constantbee, and preordering from WHSmith is not necessarily ideal.
I asked for delivery to and collection from the store, but apparently that's likely to be on Friday (online purchases come through a different company!). However, the assistant in the store was very helpful, gave me a copy from stock, got me to sign the paperwork I went with (a printout of my order), and said that she would sort everything out when the copy earmarked for me got delivered to them!

[Prommer]

Can we have a Proms 2019 section opened on the forum ?

Some good stuff this year - the VPO/Haitink probably the most obvious highlight together with Argerich returning to the Proms.

Yes. Do we think she will actually stick to performing the Tchaikovsky 1st PC?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Can we have a Proms 2019 section opened on the forum ?

All in good time. It's still 3 months away.

[Demetrius]

Finally sorted through this. Invasion of the German orchestras, no EU Youth Orchestra.

74 Proms and the usual Proms at ..., including the chamber music at Cadogan Hall.

4 Proms are Repeats or shortened repeats.

Of the remaining, 13 Proms fall into the broad Category of Prom for Children, Jazz, World Music, Crossover, Beatboxing, Scratch DJ etc. Purely for statistical purposes, these aren't quantifiable, since the works performed aren't listed. This is certainly a high water mark for these types of Proms.

of the Remaining 66 Events, my usual look into British Music at the Proms:

2019: 38 composers, 60 works, apr. 934 minutes of music = 15,56 hours

bolstered by a massive Haendel Oratorium of 138 minutes, this is nonetheless a step back.

Compare to the previous years:

2011: 31 composers, 68 works, apr. 1299 minutes of music, = 21,65 hours
2012: 43 composers, 68 works, apr. 1654 minutes of music, = 27,57 hours
2013: 37 composers, 90 works, apr. 1797 minutes of music, = 29,95 hours
2014: 35 composers, 77 works, apr. 1699 minutes of music, = 28,32 hours

2015: 37 composers, 53 works, apr. 879 minutes of music, = 14,65 hours
2016: 41 composers, 56 works, apr. 738 minutes of music, = 12,3 hours
2017: 30 composers, 44 works, apr. 958 minutes of music, = 15,97 hours
2018: 38 composers, at least 75 works, apr. 1150 minutes of music, so about 19 hours.

The spike in 2013 is due to the Britten festivities. That 2017 has more minutes/hours is due to the Elgar Cycle and Haendel Israel in Egypt (255 minutes are those 4 works alone).

The major theme of the year: women. 7 Female conductors (I think) are surely more than in any season before. Given the number of concerts, this still reflects that conducting is a profession dominated by men. But baby steps, at least. They also tried to get more female composers into the program:

22 composers, 32 works, apr. 342 minutes of music = 5,7 hours

Again, probably more than ever before. Interesting to put a bad year for British composers and a sensational year for women composers next to each other. Relativity at its finest.

The Henry Wood novelty gimmick is interesting as it reflects the Proms under the new(ish) regime, I think:
You could celebrate his commitment to (then) new music by commissioning more new works than usual or even just put more stuff from the last 20 years into the program.
You could otherwise celebrate it by pulling a lot of world premiers he performed that are no longer performed regularly and give them a day out in the sunshine.

They did a bit of the latter (unearthing 3 Lyadov pieces; also Lamia from Dorothy Howell which doubles for the spotlight on female composers). But the Firebird as a Henry Wood novelty? Then it's just a gimmick to mark which works Henry Wood performed first in the UK; falling short of celebrating much of anything and reducing the whole thing to a series of footnotes.

The Proms currently shy away from any big steps. If you want to go all out in celebrating woman composers, find a corner stone, a dominant work, instead of only chipping in small works here and there. A Proms at Cadogan Hall with full string quartets of Maconchy and others, instead of featuring her by 1 song out of a set of 3 and a 6 minute bit at the last night. A second half of a Prom with Ethel Smyth Mass in D. Or a semi staged performance of the Wreckers. There are quite a few female composers with symphonic output (Gipps, Meyer, Gloria Coates, Beach, Alice Mary Smith, Zwilich, Farrenc, Makarova, Bacewicz, Andrée ....). Works by female composers at the Proms average 10,5 minutes, works by British composers 15,5 minutes, this number gets even higher when you only count male Brits. Female composers don't headline events, and they are represented by mostly shortish pieces.

[Barbirollians]

Yes. Do we think she will actually stick to performing the Tchaikovsky 1st PC?

Who knows ? I was quite happy when at the Manchester Piano Festival a few years back she substituted Beethoven 1 for the Shostakovich 1 a week before . The Beethoven was sensational.

[french frank]

The good news is that, IIRC, there is a stellar forum member who massages the lousy BBC Proms website into something actually usable.

The better news is that there are two stellar forum members who have provided the best Proms online listing service anywhere

All in good time. It's still 3 months away.

Yes, usual custom is to keep a general discussion thread going and then launch a Concerts subforum with a separate discussion thread for each concert, post-performance.

[Keraulophone]

When do tickets for the 2029 Proms go on sale?

9 May - passes; 11 May - tickets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3K8zlfLQBHNmVSxR5ccfgz6/how-to-book

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

All in good time. It's still 3 months away.

Yes, usual custom is to keep a general discussion thread going and then launch a Concerts subforum with a separate discussion thread for each concert, post-performance.

Indeed - I've moved the relevant posts from the 2018 Thread now that the programme has been published so general conversations can start, but specific concerts can wait until nearer the time.

[Andrew Slater]

Single page listing here:

https://www.radio-lists.org.uk/proms/2019

Printable pdfs are also available via the menu option.

Any errors, please let me know. (I know about the Cadogan Hall moving to the RAH on 19th August - a BBC error!)

I'll update the sidebar later.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Single page listing here:

https://www.radio-lists.org.uk/proms/2019

Oh, that is so useful, Andrew. Very many thanks indeed.

[BrianWilks]

Single page listing here:

https://www.radio-lists.org.uk/proms/2019

Printable pdfs are also available via the menu option.

Time for me to pop up with my once-a-year post to thank Andrew for his contribution. I've no idea how long it must take to prepare this invaluable listing but it must be considerable. So, thank you again and I shall have a comfortable browse through the listing this evening. Regards, Brian.

[Anastasius]

Time for me to pop up with my once-a-year post to thank Andrew for his contribution. I've no idea how long it must take to prepare this invaluable listing but it must be considerable. So, thank you again and I shall have a comfortable browse through the listing this evening. Regards, Brian.

Agree 100%. Thank you, Andrew.

[Andrew Slater]

Time for me to pop up with my once-a-year post to thank Andrew for his contribution. I've no idea how long it must take to prepare this invaluable listing but it must be considerable. So, thank you again and I shall have a comfortable browse through the listing this evening. Regards, Brian.

Thanks for your support. It didn't take a huge amount of work to generate the basic list as fortunately the program I used last year worked after a few slight adjustments. Most of the work went into adjusting the 'jump to' menus! I haven't managed to actually read the contents myself, yet!