Proms premières - polls

[5against4]

As in previous years, in addition to critiquing each of the premières during the Proms season on my blog 5:4 i've been allowing readers to have their say on each piece by voting in my series of Proms première polls. Opinions about the Proms concerts have been quite robustly expressed on this fine forum, so i thought i'd flag up these polls for those of you unaware of them, who might be interested to take part. Each year the number of votes cast has been steadily rising (last year was around 1,500), and they give an interesting overview of the audience's response to contemporary music at the Proms.

The polls will be open for around another week, so there's still plenty of time to vote. The complete Polls page (which includes previous years' results) can be found here - http://5against4.com/the-proms-premieres-poll-results/ - and all of my Proms 2019 articles can be found here: http://5against4.com/tag/proms2019/.

i'll be writing a follow-up article crunching the numbers towards the end of next week.

[Constantbee]

As in previous years, in addition to critiquing each of the premières during the Proms season on my blog 5:4 i've been allowing readers to have their say on each piece by voting in my series of Proms première polls. Opinions about the Proms concerts have been quite robustly expressed on this fine forum, so i thought i'd flag up these polls for those of you unaware of them, who might be interested to take part. Each year the number of votes cast has been steadily rising (last year was around 1,500), and they give an interesting overview of the audience's response to contemporary music at the Proms.

The polls will be open for around another week, so there's still plenty of time to vote. The complete Polls page (which includes previous years' results) can be found here - http://5against4.com/the-proms-premieres-poll-results/ - and all of my Proms 2019 articles can be found here: http://5against4.com/tag/proms2019/.

i'll be writing a follow-up article crunching the numbers towards the end of next week.

Just wanted to say if you don’t fancy trawling through the Proms replays just to hear the 2019 commissions 5v4 has a Youtube channel dedicated to the premieres, and for the past few seasons if I’m not mistaken

[jayne lee wilson]

Fun idea, 5:4.....votes just added.....

My faves this year were the Eötvös, Broström & Glanert works........also dazzled and confused (in a good way) by the Ammann Concerto...

[5against4]

i closed the polls first thing this morning, and here are the results: http://5against4.com/2019/10/02/prom...how-you-voted/

[LMcD]

I wonder how many of these works will ever be heard again ....

[jayne lee wilson]

I wonder how many of these works will ever be heard again ....

The fault surely lies in the culture, not the music or the composers....

[Master Jacques]

The fault surely lies in the culture, not the music or the composers....

The faults in the commissioning certainly stem (as others have eloquently stated) from the BBC's culture, which reflects what's happening in the Western world generally, with the swift disappearance of "high culture" under the tide of populism.

But that doesn't mean that most of this year's composers or their music deserve a pardon. Nine-tenths of Proms commissions have always been ephemeral. The problem is that the final one tenth has more or less vanished, now that the organisers can't pay the best established composers, and don't use their antennae to spot the best up-and-coming ones, abroad or - most crucially - at home.

Every year there's more emphasis on glamorous orchestral visitors, and eye-catching soloists who seem increasingly ready to cancel. Perhaps it's time to make this a good, biennial festival rather than struggle with a second-rate one every year?

[Constantbee]

Having not a lot else to do, currently working my way through the 2019 Proms Premières. It repays the effort. Clear favourites according to 5:4's website were the Dieter Ammann piano concerto (Prom 43) and Linda Catlin Smith's Nuages (Prom 58). On re-hearing, I wouldn't disagree, and it was gratifying to hear Catlin Smith featured on the New Music Show Saturday 28 September. 5:4 also highlights a couple of choral pieces as personal favourites which might otherwise be missed: Alexia Sloane's 'Earthward' (Prom CH1 - sounds fearsomely hard to sing) and Joanna Lee's 'At this man's hand' (Proms at Holy Sepulchre). Recommended.

[jayne lee wilson]

I upvoted both of those top two - I'm so glad, they should get more hearings....
A selection of Proms Premieres on the BBCMM disc would be a great idea each Autumn, surely....?

I'd also recommend Detlev Glanert's Weites Land and Tobias Broström's Two-Trumpet Concerto, Nigredo...

Accentuate the positive....go on, get a listen...

[5against4]

Alexia Sloane's 'Earthward' (Prom CH1 - sounds fearsomely hard to sing) and Joanna Lee's 'At this man's hand' (Proms at Holy Sepulchre). Recommended.

Thanks for flagging these up, and i agree completely about Alexia's piece, it sounds very challenging! Joanna's piece wasn't very popular in the polls, but i don't really know why, it works really well and i've got more from it each time i've listened to it.

But then that sentiment applies most to Ammann and Catlin Smith!

[Richard Barrett]

I wonder how many of these works will ever be heard again ....

Very many new works are never heard again, either in the Proms or elsewhere, and this has been the case for many years. It's the programming policy that's ephemeral, which makes the disappearance of the newly commissioned pieces a self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever their qualities. One result is that very few of the interesting composers in today's world have established and sustained their work and its development through writing orchestral music. If one's only view of what composers might be doing in 2019 derives from hearing the new works performed at the Proms, that view will be seriously blinkered.

[ahinton]

Very many new works are never heard again, either in the Proms or elsewhere, and this has been the case for many years. It's the programming policy that's ephemeral, which makes the disappearance of the newly commissioned pieces a self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever their qualities. One result is that very few of the interesting composers in today's world have established and sustained their work and its development through writing orchestral music.

I seem to recall that you have alluded to this issue before; do you consider that this is partly down to economic reasons or would you regard the symphony orchesta as we understand it to be something of an antediluvian concept - or at least an entity largely for the performance of the music of past eras?

[cloughie]

I seem to recall that you have alluded to this issue before; do you consider that this is partly down to economic reasons or would you regard the symphony orchesta as we understand it to be something of an antediluvian concept - or at least an entity largely for the performance of the music of past eras?

Yeah man just play it on a simf!