On An Overgrown Path

My life was changed by a Henry Wood Promenade Concert on 4th August, 1975. In the second half Sir Adrian Boult gave us Vaughan William's Fifth Symphony , and the blazing intensity of that performance remains unmatched, in my experience, in the concert hall or on record. Sir Adrian's 86 years had no relevance to his music making. Music, not age, was what mattered then. In the summer of 1975 punk was at its peak and the Vietnam War had ended after Communist forces took Saigon in the spring. Back with classical music, Pierre Boulez was in his last season as principal conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was at the top of its game , while William Glock's golden period as BBC controller of music and Proms administrator still informed music making in London. Your life could be changed for £1.30, which was the price of a balcony seat in the Albert Hall. All of which set me thinking, what price today's BBC Proms? In 2009 Promenade Concerts are one of few remaining...

Overgrown Path has been saying it for years - BBC Proms - a multicultural society? , BBC Proms 2006 lacks eternal feminine , Music gets in the way of running BBC Proms , and BBC Proms last night - I flee the country . Now other people are saying it - Hodge attacks Proms: they're narrow and lack the common British values: The culture minister, Margaret Hodge, will today criticise the Prom concerts as one of many British cultural events that fail to engender new common values or attract more than a narrow unrepresentative audience. At last people are finally waking up to the fact that the BBC Proms in their present form are outdated, irrelevant and unworthy of the BBC's marketing hype as 'the world's greatest music festival'. But government intervention will only make the situation worse, unless the cause of the problem is tackled. History is the key to understanding the present problems. The first Promenade Concert took place in 1895, and it was twenty-seven years ...

Tomorrow the 2013 BBC Proms start with the appealing combination of Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony . I have lost count of how many Proms I have attended, and some years ago wrote here that "I am a huge fan of the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts... they have changed my life". This year season quite rightly celebrates the Wagner bicentennial, but my enthusiasm for the Proms in their current guise is moderated by the wish expressed by Hans Sachs in the concluding monologue of Die Meistersinger that Art be kept genuine. So, on the eve of the new Proms season, I am setting down some thoughts on how Art, as it finds expression at the BBC Proms, can be kept genuine. These thoughts are often at variance with the coverage found elsewhere - see header graphic - and for that I am unapologetic. For years I have been critical of the BBC's stewardship of classical music , a stance that has lost me many friends and followers ....

Whether we like it or not brands are now part of classical music. Nowhere has the power of the brand been better exploited than at the BBC where the portfolio includes ' BBC New Generation Artists ', ' BBC Young Musician ', and, of course, ' BBC Proms '. And as every marketeer knows, brands sometimes need repositioning; which makes the headline above particularly interesting. Traditionally the BBC Proms brand represents a trustworthy source of mainstream classical and adventurous contemporary music; to supplement this in 1996 another brand, ' BBC Proms in the Park ', was introduced with the admirable objective of making light classical music accessible to an audience beyond the Albert Hall. Over the years the Proms in the Park have been repositioned from 'light classical to 'light entertainment' - last year Westlife headlined the Hyde Park event , and this year, to the delight of the media, it is Kylie Minogue . So far so good: 'Proms in...

This year, for the first time since I started the blog in 2005, I will not be posting personal previews of the BBC Proms , which start tomorrow evening (18 July). My decision is of no great importance as there is no shortage of coverage of the concerts elsewhere. The reason for dropping the previews is that I write best when I am passionate and enthusiastic about a subject, and, sadly, my passion for the Proms has failed to survive their remorseless corporate marketing as a BBC brand. For me at least, the message has been drowned out by the medium. There are some very fine compositions and very fine performers in this year's Proms and I will be listening to some of them on BBC Radio 3 and maybe posting a few thoughts. But as the promotional hullabaloo reaches fever pitch let's reflect on the fact that the core values of the Proms, which are so celebrated today, date from 1895 when the Promenade concerts were founded by Sir Henry Wood . The BBC did not become involved in the ...

Something has troubled me all through this summer’s BBC Proms season. It is not just the unvaried diet of Mozart and Shostakovich. Something else is wrong, so many of the programmes don’t seem to hang together in a coherent way, they just seem to be a sequence of unconnected music. Then the answer dawned on me – look at the mathematics. Here are the BBC timings in minutes of the works in the seven evening Proms between August 26 and September 1 – 82’, 86’, 97’, 95’, 92’, 91’ & 90’. See the pattern? It is no coincidence that the last four Proms by four different orchestras (including the Berlin Philharmonic) vary in length by no more than five minutes, and that the greatest variance of any one programme from the average length of 90’ 30” is just 8’ 30”. The media now dictates the message, and these Proms are constructed, just like programmes broadcast from CDs, to fit as closely as possible into the allocated ninety minute broadcast/webcast/telecast slot, with little regard for them...

As the close of the 2015 BBC Proms season approaches, there is increasing speculation as to how the forthcoming BBC charter and license fee review will impact on classical music. The more sensational speculation is predicting the disappearance of BBC orchestras, and 'Save the BBC' online petitions ' are already circulating. Realism has never been a strong point of the classical music industry, so this post will try to balance the mounting hysteria with a little realism. Lobbyists are quite right to press for a strong and independent BBC. But, as recent events have shown, that strength and independence is not being delivered by the present hybrid of guaranteed license fee income and commercial programming strategies. In my view the BBC should move to commercial funding, with vital minority programming including classical music being protected and encouraged by using top-sliced sponsorship/advertising income to fund non-commercial programmes created away from the current d...

No apologies for returning again to the vexed question of the BBC. Five orchestras, the BBC Singers, the Proms, the biggest new music commissioning programme in the world and a total classical music budget £51.6m are all controlled by the BBC . Which means that everyone involved in, or listening to, classical music in the UK is affected by the BBC, as are many others around the world. The uncovering here this week that the BBC was using beta software to monitor blogs, Twitter and other social media could have been embarassing for the corporation. But it was handled in exemplary fashion by the BBC's online and technology team who quickly and honestly responded to my story and explained what was going on . This response is consistent with my previous experience of the BBC technology staff; they work in an open and collaborative manner that contrasts sharply with some of their colleagues in programme making areas. It is probably not a coincidence that the video about this blog and m...

Let us hope that Roger Wright, director of the BBC Proms, makes a success of programming the annual concert series. Because a BBC Freedom of Information response has revealed that he could be doing the job until he retires in 2021. As part of my research for What price the BBC Proms? I filed an FOI question about the terms of tenure of the director of BBC Proms. Here is the BBC's reply: 'As confirmed in our previous response (RFI20091032), Roger Wright is contracted to undertake the combined role of 'Controller, R3 & Director BBC Proms'; therefore, each role is not treated separately in terms of length of the contract/conditions of service. I can conform that Roger Wright is currently on a permanent standard Senior Manager contract with the BBC in the above role; there is no fixed tenure associated with this role'. The combined post of 'Controller, R3 & Director BBC Proms', which has a 'permanent standard Senior Manager contract' controls: ...

Last week the RPS (Royal Philharmonic Society) Awards 2013 shortlist were announced. As the entry page of the awards website explains they are presented "In association with BBC Radio 3". Elsewhere we are told "our media partner, BBC Radio 3, carry extensive coverage of the awards including a full length programme which focuses on the winners". And one of the award categories is sponsored by BBC Music Magazine, while the announcement of the awards shortlist was broadcast exclusively on BBC Radio 3 on April 11 - see header image. From which you will gather that the BBC has a heavy involvement in the RPS Awards. But their involvement does not end there. Shortlisted for the 2013 'concert series and festival award' is the BBC's own Proms concert series, while nominated for the 'chamber music and song' and 'instrumentalist' awards respectively are the Elias Quartet , Francesco Piemontesi and Steven Osborne , all artists whose career...