Prom 32 (29.08.21) - Family Prom

**bluestateprommer** · 02-09-21, 18:22

The lack of posts on this Family Prom is understandable, given that its intended audience is not at all established connoisseurs, but very young children getting perhaps their first introduction to music in a full concert hall setting. In that light, I took it upon myself to listen to this Prom so that the rest of you don't have to

.

The new work by Daniel Kidane, Revel, didn't offer a lot to me, at least, in the way of musical substance, based on just the one (and only intended) hearing. Pleasant, but not much more. More 'entertainment' value came from the spoken word passages by EM Williams and Lem Sissay, although again, listening once was enough.

I'd heard the recent new recording by the Kanneh-Masons and friends of Carnaval des Animaux with the new Michael Morpurgo texts a while back. I'd forgotten some of the cultural in-jokes that Sir MM put in his texts, which are certainly more for adults, references to Cole Porter, Flanders and Swann, and such. While EM Williams could be a bit OTT in her delivery at times, it was actually a good idea for this audience to feature EM Williams delivering more to the kids, and MM addressing more of the adults and perhaps any older kids in the crowd. The musicianship wasn't the most polished throughout, with some extremely spacious tempi in places.

For example, and this is going to sound weird (besides going on an inordinate length): in the "Pianists" passage, when the K-M pianists actually tried to play "badly", they didn't do a good job of it, if that makes sense. It's an odd paradox when you have extremely talented and technically strong players, who play very well normally, but here trying not to play well. Or to put it another very confusing way: in order for bad playing to sound convincing, that only works if bad musicians are actually trying to play their best, but just completely failing at it. It's kind of like the old Douglas Adams joke about the secret of flying, namely throwing yourself at the ground and missing (words to that effect). None of the musicians in this ensemble are bad musicians by any stretch of the imagination, which actually made it that much harder for them to mess it up convincingly. (In the last try, of course, after a burst of audience applause, the band completely got it correct.) Points to Mark Simpson for interspersing the two note "cuckoo" on clarinet into "Pianists", cute idea.

It was also cute to hear Georgia Mann speak with 3 very young ladies who had been at the afternoon performance, to ask for their reactions, with the knowledge that she had to avoid asking them questions at a verbal level way over their heads. The audience applauded after every single movement of Carnaval, as you'd expect, but this is the one Prom where that is totally appropriate and welcome, given the nature of the audience and the educational nature of the presentation, in what the New York Philharmonic would call a "Young People's Concert", or even a "Very Young People's Concert". I certainly hope that the RAH was full for both concerts, and that they served their educational purposes.

PS: Speaking of Sir MM, I finally read War Horse only very recently. I can see why it's such a classic young adult book, and why it got the National Theatre treatment, even if, by default, the book is a lot less splashy and "loud" than the NT staging.

**BBMmk2** · 04-09-21, 08:02

Quite agree, with that new work, the Saint-Saens was marvellously entertaining.

**Ein Heldenleben** · 04-09-21, 08:31

Originally posted by bluestateprommer View Post

The lack of posts on this Family Prom is understandable, given that its intended audience is not at all established connoisseurs, but very young children getting perhaps their first introduction to music in a full concert hall setting. In that light, I took it upon myself to listen to this Prom so that the rest of you don't have to

.

The new work by Daniel Kidane, Revel, didn't offer a lot to me, at least, in the way of musical substance, based on just the one (and only intended) hearing. Pleasant, but not much more. More 'entertainment' value came from the spoken word passages by EM Williams and Lem Sissay, although again, listening once was enough.

I'd heard the recent new recording by the Kanneh-Masons and friends of Carnaval des Animaux with the new Michael Morpurgo texts a while back. I'd forgotten some of the cultural in-jokes that Sir MM put in his texts, which are certainly more for adults, references to Cole Porter, Flanders and Swann, and such. While EM Williams could be a bit OTT in her delivery at times, it was actually a good idea for this audience to feature EM Williams delivering more to the kids, and MM addressing more of the adults and perhaps any older kids in the crowd. The musicianship wasn't the most polished throughout, with some extremely spacious tempi in places.

For example, and this is going to sound weird (besides going on an inordinate length): in the "Pianists" passage, when the K-M pianists actually tried to play "badly", they didn't do a good job of it, if that makes sense. It's an odd paradox when you have extremely talented and technically strong players, who play very well normally, but here trying not to play well. Or to put it another very confusing way: in order for bad playing to sound convincing, that only works if bad musicians are actually trying to play their best, but just completely failing at it. It's kind of like the old Douglas Adams joke about the secret of flying, namely throwing yourself at the ground and missing (words to that effect). None of the musicians in this ensemble are bad musicians by any stretch of the imagination, which actually made it that much harder for them to mess it up convincingly. (In the last try, of course, after a burst of audience applause, the band completely got it correct.) Points to Mark Simpson for interspersing the two note "cuckoo" on clarinet into "Pianists", cute idea.

It was also cute to hear Georgia Mann speak with 3 very young ladies who had been at the afternoon performance, to ask for their reactions, with the knowledge that she had to avoid asking them questions at a verbal level way over their heads. The audience applauded after every single movement of Carnaval, as you'd expect, but this is the one Prom where that is totally appropriate and welcome, given the nature of the audience and the educational nature of the presentation, in what the New York Philharmonic would call a "Young People's Concert", or even a "Very Young People's Concert". I certainly hope that the RAH was full for both concerts, and that they served their educational purposes.

PS: Speaking of Sir MM, I finally read War Horse only very recently. I can see why it's such a classic young adult book, and why it got the National Theatre treatment, even if, by default, the book is a lot less splashy and "loud" than the NT staging.

It always amuses me when an actor is playing a bad pianist in a movie you can always tell it’s a good pianist who’s dubbed it and is faking bad piano playing . It’s the way they strike the keys - it’s clear they have lot of finger strength . The chords are usually well voiced . The smudges don’t sound convincing. They can’t reproduce that halting way that poor sight readers play - it’s not rubato , it’s not stop start but like a horse approaching a fence in show jumping.

**oddoneout** · 04-09-21, 08:35

I had flagged up this concert to my son as something he might like his two to listen to, and thought it might be an idea to listen myself. I missed most of the Kidane, and wasn't much taken with what I did hear but it was evidently very much a visual performance piece and as such judging solely from the broadcast isn't particularly relevant, but it struck me that it was quite a long piece - 30 mins.
The Carnival again was missing the "pictures" but I'm afraid that what made me stop listening was not recognising enough of the original in the reworked version - having the elephants reworked as a cello ensemble with token bass in the background was just too sad and for me missed the point.
So as an adult I didn't like it and I don't think my son would have either but the children in the hall seemed happy with it and as it's aimed at the young audience and making use of the USP Kanneh-Mason tribe my views have little value. It's a case of " not for me" (and I wouldn't have wanted to be the adult taking children either!) but all credit for putting it on.

**LHC** · 04-09-21, 12:01

Originally posted by bluestateprommer View Post

The lack of posts on this Family Prom is understandable, given that its intended audience is not at all established connoisseurs, but very young children getting perhaps their first introduction to music in a full concert hall setting. In that light, I took it upon myself to listen to this Prom so that the rest of you don't have to

.

The new work by Daniel Kidane, Revel, didn't offer a lot to me, at least, in the way of musical substance, based on just the one (and only intended) hearing. Pleasant, but not much more. More 'entertainment' value came from the spoken word passages by EM Williams and Lem Sissay, although again, listening once was enough.

I'd heard the recent new recording by the Kanneh-Masons and friends of Carnaval des Animaux with the new Michael Morpurgo texts a while back. I'd forgotten some of the cultural in-jokes that Sir MM put in his texts, which are certainly more for adults, references to Cole Porter, Flanders and Swann, and such. While EM Williams could be a bit OTT in her delivery at times, it was actually a good idea for this audience to feature EM Williams delivering more to the kids, and MM addressing more of the adults and perhaps any older kids in the crowd. The musicianship wasn't the most polished throughout, with some extremely spacious tempi in places.

For example, and this is going to sound weird (besides going on an inordinate length): in the "Pianists" passage, when the K-M pianists actually tried to play "badly", they didn't do a good job of it, if that makes sense. It's an odd paradox when you have extremely talented and technically strong players, who play very well normally, but here trying not to play well. Or to put it another very confusing way: in order for bad playing to sound convincing, that only works if bad musicians are actually trying to play their best, but just completely failing at it. It's kind of like the old Douglas Adams joke about the secret of flying, namely throwing yourself at the ground and missing (words to that effect). None of the musicians in this ensemble are bad musicians by any stretch of the imagination, which actually made it that much harder for them to mess it up convincingly. (In the last try, of course, after a burst of audience applause, the band completely got it correct.) Points to Mark Simpson for interspersing the two note "cuckoo" on clarinet into "Pianists", cute idea.

It was also cute to hear Georgia Mann speak with 3 very young ladies who had been at the afternoon performance, to ask for their reactions, with the knowledge that she had to avoid asking them questions at a verbal level way over their heads. The audience applauded after every single movement of Carnaval, as you'd expect, but this is the one Prom where that is totally appropriate and welcome, given the nature of the audience and the educational nature of the presentation, in what the New York Philharmonic would call a "Young People's Concert", or even a "Very Young People's Concert". I certainly hope that the RAH was full for both concerts, and that they served their educational purposes.

PS: Speaking of Sir MM, I finally read War Horse only very recently. I can see why it's such a classic young adult book, and why it got the National Theatre treatment, even if, by default, the book is a lot less splashy and "loud" than the NT staging.

It’s interesting what you say about the pianists playing badly. In this performance that section was played by Sheku and Braimah Kanneh-Mason – the only non-pianist siblings - so they may not have been trying as hard to play badly as we might have assumed.

**jonfan** · 04-09-21, 14:03

Great fun; thoroughly enjoyed it.

Prom 32 (29.08.21) - Family Prom

Prom 32 (29.08.21) - Family Prom

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