Proms 2022

[seabright]

It will be interesting to compare this performance of RVW 4 with their one under John Wilson in Bridgewater Hall on 13 April 2019, the first item on this month's BBC MM cover CD, which both Bryn and I found a little undercharged; see our comments on the RVW 4 Building a Library thread.
I hope you enjoy the live experience.

This reminds me that Previn's RCA recording with the LSO was generally considered somewhat underwhelming. However, his 'live' performance of the work, with the Houston Symphony from Carnegie Hall in 1969, caused one member of the RVW Society to tell me he thought it was "fantastic." Both performances are on YouTube but here's the Houston one. Perhaps others will also think it "fantastic" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQg84UwiftI&t=296s

[Edgy 2]

This reminds me that Previn's RCA recording with the LSO was generally considered somewhat underwhelming. However, his 'live' performance of the work, with the Houston Symphony from Carnegie Hall in 1969, caused one member of the RVW Society to tell me he thought it was "fantastic." Both performances are on YouTube but here's the Houston one. Perhaps others will also think it "fantastic" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQg84UwiftI&t=296s

Excellent, very 'punchy', thanks for posting

[Pulcinella]

I've written some experimental code to modify the existing indexes to a more conventional format, using the lookup table method so that I should only need to 'unreverse' inappropriate 'reversals' once. I haven't incorporated them in the main listing yet, but the composer and performer indexes are on the server as independent files, links: COMPOSERS PERFORMERS. They might not display correctly on all browsers as they aren't strictly correct html files, being intended for incorporation in an existing html file. The blue links also won't work at this stage. If I've not 'unreversed' something I should have or have 'unreversed' something I shouldn't have, please let me know. If I don't receive any adverse comments, I'll incorporate them into the main listing later.

Many thanks, Andrew: certainly no adverse comments from me.
Actually, I rather like the little quirk that assigns the roles to performers, so we see, for example, that Iestyn Davies is both counter-tenor (JSB, B minor mass) and Solomon (Handel, Solomon).

[Andrew Slater]

Many thanks, Andrew: certainly no adverse comments from me.
Actually, I rather like the little quirk that assigns the roles to performers, so we see, for example, that Iestyn Davies is both counter-tenor (JSB, B minor mass) and Solomon (Handel, Solomon).

The quirk is entirely on the part of the BBC.

I've now incorporated the revised indexes into the main listing.

I see I missed "un-reversing" the "composer" "Various Artists", but as it doesn't make much sense or provide any information, I've decided to leave it as it is.

[alywin]

Has anyone found any lower prices for the Proms guide anywhere? I'm assuming the river people as usual, but my other sources seem to have stopped selling it since Covid hit.

[Petrushka]

Booked for four Proms this morning and all done and dusted in under 25 minutes. There now seems to be a pre-Waiting Room', which I got into at 8.56 and given a position of 1723 moving down the queue very rapidly. It looks as if the booking system has more capacity and is a much less stressful experience than in years gone by.

[Norrette]

Less a senior moment, more a senior morning for me! I completely forgot today was Saturday and dashed to my PC just now. There was no queue, and the only stalls ticket I couldn't get was the Rattle Resurrection. I didn't accept the gods ticket on offer.

[Petrushka]

I detect waning enthusiasm for the Proms, possibly a reflection on the relatively poor fayre on offer plus remaining Covid concerns.

The quality of the Proms is definitely in decline, in my opinion, and would be better as a shorter festival with higher quality, something I've been saying for some years.

[Bryn]

I detect waning enthusiasm for the Proms, possibly a reflection on the relatively poor fayre on offer plus remaining Covid concerns.

The quality of the Proms is definitely in decline, in my opinion, and would be better as a shorter festival with higher quality, something I've been saying for some years.

In my case, it's the withdrawal of the bus service, operated for Greenline buy Reading Buses, which used to leave from the RAH at around 10:15 pm. It now leaves 15 mutes earlier and terminates some 11 miles short of the stop I used to use. There is an advertised onward connection, but it is scheduled to leave just 5 minutes after the bus from the RAH is due to arrive at the connection point. All too often that connection is lost due to late running.

[Petrushka]

In my case, it's the withdrawal of the bus service, operated for Greenline buy Reading Buses, which used to leave from the RAH at around 10:15 pm. It now leaves 15 mutes earlier and terminates some 11 miles short of the stop I used to use. There is an advertised onward connection, but it is scheduled to leave just 5 minutes after the bus from the RAH is due to arrive at the connection point. All too often that connection is lost due to late running.

Transport issues, cost of living, poor quality on offer, Covid concerns are all bound to affect the Proms, as they are to some extent, affecting other venues world-wide.

The future of the Proms may be up for question in the next few years, if not before.

[Keraulophone]

All went smoothly in around 90 minutes even though 4667th in the queue at 9am. Achieved 90% of my Plan (only seating issues, no Proms missed).

[Keith]

I'm just wondering if anyone with a season ticket had received their pass code yet?

[seabright]

There's an article in today's Guardian titled "Proms composers and their extraordinary new music." It reminds me to ask if anyone has ever gone back over the last 50 years of BBC Proms commissions to find out (a) how many works received just one performance and then sunk without trace after their premieres, never to be played again; and (b) how much money was paid to the various composers for each commission, presumably out of the licence fee. I think we should be told!

[Keraulophone]

.
One work that has stuck in my memory* since its premiere on 6th August 1977 during the Proms jubilee season is Proença by John Buller (1927-2004), performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Mark Elder.

'It uses Provençal verse of the 12th and 13th centuries and is concerned with the age and ethos of the troubadours, the flowering of their songs and the ultimate suppression of their liberal attitudes. The “singing” protagonists are a mezzo-soprano (at the first performance the splendid Sarah Walker) and an electric guitar, which perhaps represents masculinity; certainly there are passages which are strongly erotic. The work was warmly received by the Proms audience; its composer, hitherto unfamiliar to them, was a diminutive figure apparently unfazed by his reception.' (TImes obituary).

In 2002 Proença was performed and broadcast by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Rumon Gamba. The following year the BBC SO/Mark Elder recording of Proença and The Theatre of Memory was released on the NMC label. Writing in The Guardian, Andrew Clements was delighted to reacquaint himself with the work: 'It is particularly good to get the chance to hear again Buller's Proença, first performed at the Proms in 1972 [a Grauniad typo?], for it is by any standards one of the great achievements of recent British music. It is an intensely dramatic, incessantly colourful evocation of the world of the 12th-century troubadours...'

First song: https://youtu.be/LgcObbNiHR8 (the others have been uploaded individually to YouTube)

I am not aware of any other performances of this piece, but others will be better informed.
.

* largely because this was the peak period of my cassette-recording activity, when I amassed hundreds of Radio 3 recordings (for personal use only!), having marked up my weekly Radio Times with a red biro.

[PhilipT]

I'm just wondering if anyone with a season ticket had received their pass code yet?

Pass code? What pass code?

I've had an email saying that all details are to be found on the RAH's website. When I click on the link, it times out. This is so much of a piece with the RAH's contempt for prommers that it doesn't require comment.

However, this link https://www.royalalberthall.com/abou...n-proms-passes seems to work. So - at 9am, every day I want to prom, I log in to my RAH account, and print off a ticket for that day's concert. Right. Presumably this is to make it as difficult as possible for those people who want to be at the front and are already in the queue by that time. I can't think of any other reason.

I wonder how well this would go down with RAH staff: "From now on, all RAH photo id staff passes will be withdrawn. Every day you want to go to work, you should log into your online account that morning and print off .. ".

[Update] Logged in at 09:55, to be told that my tickets are not quite ready, and they will be ready when I have been e-mailed my PDF. Umm, I live in Winchester, I need to catch a train to get to London, and my e-mail account is on my home computer. How is this supposed to work, exactly?