Proms 2020

[bluestateprommer]

In the absence of a BBC list I'll see if I can put together a list from the archives. (It won't be instant, though.....)

I'll do the parallel job with the Forum Calendar. It's going to be an extremely manual process, with lots of cross-checking of the Proms archive and links to R3's schedule page for each. But since I'm not going to Santa Fe this year, what else do I have to do? :) 5 selections are currently in the Forum Calendar as of this post.

From looking at the selections of the archival Proms for the 1st six weeks, on balance, it's a pretty nice selection, at least to my amateurish eye. Some of them, I can certainly skip, but that's par for the course. All of the older broadcasts from when I started listening to the Proms in earnest from this side of the pond are clearly of interest, i.e. everything from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Some of the other selections do fit with my general guess of tributes to artists who left us within the past year (Jansons, Jessye Norman), along with honoring artists gone for several years now, e.g. Belohlavek's last Prom from 2016, and a Prom with Neville Marriner. Other selections also have their point, e.g.

* Rebroadcasting the Sondheim 80th birthday Prom for his 90th birthday this year
* Saluting Bernard Haitink with several selections, in tribute to his retirement (one wonders if he would dare to listen to them again from home, as he's said that he doesn't like to listen to his recordings - perhaps his wife will listen and tell him "hey, that was a pretty good Prom then :) ")

[Ein Heldenleben]

Very grateful, thanks Pet.......shall scrutinise.....
Shame though when you click on a specific concert...... no more detail is revealed.....another big sigh.....the natural and cultural and political world is re-arranging itself around us, so we have to try to do the same..... protest & petition & try to influence for the better where we can....

I do remember that MGT LvB 5th ..... all too well....

I wonder whether the reason for lack of detail is that they dont know themselves exactly what they will be able to schedule - it might be that by end August they might be able to stage larger orchestral pieces.

[ARBurton]

The new Radio Times contains full detalis of the R3 broadcasts but only mentions half a dozen tv screenings....that can`t really be all, can it....??

[LMcD]

The new Radio Times contains full detalis of the R3 broadcasts but only mentions half a dozen tv screenings....that can`t really be all, can it....??

I think there are 15 - July 19th and 26th, August 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 28th (2) and 30th, and September 3rd, 4th, 6th, 10th, 11th and 12th.
Go to bbc.co.uk/proms and click on 'Beethoven's 5th on BBC4'

[Andrew Slater]

I'll do the parallel job with the Forum Calendar. It's going to be an extremely manual process, with lots of cross-checking of the Proms archive and links to R3's schedule page for each. But since I'm not going to Santa Fe this year, what else do I have to do? :) 5 selections are currently in the Forum Calendar as of this post.

From looking at the selections of the archival Proms for the 1st six weeks, on balance, it's a pretty nice selection, at least to my amateurish eye. Some of them, I can certainly skip, but that's par for the course. All of the older broadcasts from when I started listening to the Proms in earnest from this side of the pond are clearly of interest, i.e. everything from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Some of the other selections do fit with my general guess of tributes to artists who left us within the past year (Jansons, Jessye Norman), along with honoring artists gone for several years now, e.g. Belohlavek's last Prom from 2016, and a Prom with Neville Marriner. Other selections also have their point, e.g.

* Rebroadcasting the Sondheim 80th birthday Prom for his 90th birthday this year
* Saluting Bernard Haitink with several selections, in tribute to his retirement (one wonders if he would dare to listen to them again from home, as he's said that he doesn't like to listen to his recordings - perhaps his wife will listen and tell him "hey, that was a pretty good Prom then :) ")

You've beaten me to it. I've been pondering what to do for the last few days and have arrived at the conclusion that my initial plan of extracting the info from the archive was too onerous and error-prone. As a result I now have a more universal program that will generate a Proms list for any given year at the touch of a button .

The compromise is to run my weekly list for a couple of weeks ahead and extract the relevant parts into the standard Proms pro-forma. The list currently goes up to 24th July, and I've produced the usual pdfs. I'll try to keep a couple of weeks ahead over the season. One advantage is that it's picked up the additional Afternoon Concert Proms repeats. I've also included any other programmes with 'Proms' in the title, for good measure.

The list is here: I'll update the Forum sidebar and the link back to this Forum from the Proms page shortly.

[french frank]

If there's no objection, this could be moved to the new PROMS 2020 board, above Classical Forum?

[bluestateprommer]

If there's no objection, this could be moved to the new PROMS 2020 board, above Classical Forum?

Absolutely; you know you want to :) . I was intending to make the request as a post here at some point, except that the Forum Calendar is soaking up what little mental bandwidth remains. If anyone wants to look, 55 of the planned old broadcasts are now entered, about 5 and a half weeks' worth.

[BBMmk2]

Oh French Frank, Administrator? Lovely to see!

[bluestateprommer]

Is there no general day-to-day, prom-by-prom listing for the season available anywhere yet?

Yes, the Forum Calendar: hint, hint, hint, hint :) . Of course, it did take a while to assemble the Forum Calendar data, long after your initial post with the question.

On the much sadder side, both of the scheduled Berlin Philharmonic Proms for this summer have been nixed, for Friday 4 September and Saturday 5 September, where both entries pithily indicate:

"Unfortunately, this concert is cancelled."

From looking at the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig's site, the originally scheduled Proms date has been scrubbed from their "Tournee" page, so obviously their originally scheduled event is gone as well. The "2020 Season Guide" press release from the Proms indicates that UK groups will step into the breach for the live events (fingers crossed) for the last 2 weeks:

"Live performances from the Royal Albert Hall

From Friday 28 August, there will be a series of live performances from the Royal Albert Hall.

Each of the BBC Orchestras will perform live at the festival, and in long-standing Proms tradition, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will open and close the series culminating in a Last Night of the Proms. Led by the BBC SO’s Principal Guest Conductor, Dalia Stasevska, the 2020 Last Night of the Proms features violinist Lisa Batiashvili and soprano Golda Schultz.

Other highlights include: -
* Mitsuko Uchida with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle
* Nicola Benedetti and Alina Ibragimova with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
* Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason
* The Aurora Orchestra led by Nicholas Collon
* Anoushka Shankar with electronic artist Gold Panda and the Britten Sinfonia

Whilst it’s unlikely there will be an audience at the Royal Albert Hall, the live performances will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3, BBC Four and iPlayer."

[seabright]

... A pity, though, that there is nothing prior to 1987. There were some excellent Proms from the 1970s that sound as fine, if not finer, than anything since ...

Indeed and that means there's no Rozhdestvensky, which is a shame. Still, at least he's on You Tube. And if you can see Britten conducting the Proms Premiere of his War Requiem on You Tube, one wonders what else is in the BBC TV Proms Archive. Is there a list of all the surviving videos of Proms concerts dating back to Sargent's time and including anything by Boult? Such a list could show us what we are missing!

[ucanseetheend]

we really cant be surprised there nothing before the mid eighties. As Ivan Hewett says "sanitized" We know the sort running the BBC now.I guess they'll be going through the lot to make sure there's enough BAME performers and everything is politically woke acceptable in 2020 ..... will be giving the lot a miss.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/classical-music/archive-proms-sanitised-let-down-bbc-afraid-past/

[Simon B]

Isn't the lack of pre-1987 events due to copyright/performing rights/Intellectual Property issues?

IIRC the problem is that there is a lack of adequate records from this era of contracts and terms to deduce who would be due what, or indeed would need to give permission for fresh repeats. This is eminently plausible. So is the contracts not having being drawn up in a way that accommodates someone deciding to repeat broadcast a live event tape that's been lying around forgotten for 40+ years, other than with a blanket prohibition.

An organisation like the BBC is hardly going to get away with thinking "Ah well, sod it, nobody will notice" and broadcast anyway. Especially at a time when cultural organisations and artists in every part of the world are desperate for any income they can get...

It may not be able to afford the fees either. Does anyone know whether the BBC is having to foot the bill for hiring the RAH for 10 weeks while getting £0 box office? With a contract for perpetual exclusive access to the place for 10 weeks a year it seems quite likely, and as the RAH is trying to stave off bankruptcy they're also unlikely to adopt a "Nah, you're alright" approach to the £.

Regrettably I can't re-find the source of confirmation from the BBC of the records/contracts issue right now so take as unverifiable anecdote - like most of the other rationalisations being conjured for rhetorical purposes.

[kernelbogey]

Isn't the lack of pre-1987 events due to copyright/performing rights/Intellectual Property issues?

IIRC the problem is that there is a lack of adequate records from this era of contracts and terms to deduce who would be due what, or indeed would need to give permission for fresh repeats. This is eminently plausible. So is the contracts not having being drawn up in a way that accommodates someone deciding to repeat broadcast a live event tape that's been lying around forgotten for 40+ years, other than with a blanket prohibition.

Also streaming did not exist then, so there might be no basis on which to assess fees and royalties due for 30 days' streaming....

[Ein Heldenleben]

Isn't the lack of pre-1987 events due to copyright/performing rights/Intellectual Property issues?

IIRC the problem is that there is a lack of adequate records from this era of contracts and terms to deduce who would be due what, or indeed would need to give permission for fresh repeats. This is eminently plausible. So is the contracts not having being drawn up in a way that accommodates someone deciding to repeat broadcast a live event tape that's been lying around forgotten for 40+ years, other than with a blanket prohibition.

An organisation like the BBC is hardly going to get away with thinking "Ah well, sod it, nobody will notice" and broadcast anyway. Especially at a time when cultural organisations and artists in every part of the world are desperate for any income they can get...

It may not be able to afford the fees either. Does anyone know whether the BBC is having to foot the bill for hiring the RAH for 10 weeks while getting £0 box office? With a contract for perpetual exclusive access to the place for 10 weeks a year it seems quite likely, and as the RAH is trying to stave off bankruptcy they're also unlikely to adopt a "Nah, you're alright" approach to the £.

Regrettably I can't re-find the source of confirmation from the BBC of the records/contracts issue right now so take as unverifiable anecdote - like most of the other rationalisations being conjured for rhetorical purposes.

The relevant quote is this from an interview with Proms director David Pickard in The Times with Richard Morrison

“There is a technical issue, and also the fact that vital paperwork such as contracts tends to be hazier if you go back before the mid-1980s,”

Artists' contracts are complicated . While the BBC orchestras will be bought out in perp that may not be the case with conductor , soloists, composer etc . The usual contract includes a licence for a number of repeats. It may also include rights to bring out a CD or download. The MU and agents used to be very reluctant to accept complete buyouts in perp which, in my opinion only, is one factor in why the BBC has retained in house orchestras. I don't have any current knowledge on radio but the fact that the contracts appear to be 'hazy' doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I don't think the advent of streaming wil have made much difference as the contracts usually include a future technology clause.

[seabright]

Is there a "technical issue" in showing on TV the Proms that have been licensed to ICA Classics for commercial sale, and if so what is it? ... Their website lists a 5-DVD set which includes Proms conducted by Rozhdestvensky, Solti, Termikanov, Loughran and Susskind. They've also got a Previn Prom which includes Rachmaninoff's "The Bells" and a Bruckner 5 conducted by Gunter Wand. Another ICA Proms DVD features Rudolf Kempe in works by Richard Strauss and Dvorak. And are there to be any legendary radio broadcasts on Radio 3, such as the Proms Premiere of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony under Stokowski in 1963? That's been issued on a BBC Legends CD, so one wonders if there's a "technical issue" with that and many other great Proms broadcasts of the past as well.

https://icaclassics.com/releases/classic-bbc-proms-5-dvds