A sense of ending at the BBC Proms
OrchestrasSimon Rattle is terminating his short term as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra with a Mahler9th at the BBC Proms. Rattle was the first to be granted the title of music director by the LSO. He is leaving them for a better orchestra in Germany. Rattle’s farewell sets the tone for much of this summer’s meagre menu, which has been made public today. There are many endings in the Proms, few beginnings.
Mozart’s deathbed Requiem, Mahler’s tenth symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, Strauss’s Four Last Songs, underline the morose mood. There is the UK premiere of Kurtag’s opera Endgame. The lights dim at the Last Night of the Proms with Bruch’s sombre version of the Kol Nidrei prayer and Coleridge Taylor’s Deep River. A sense of fun is seriously lacking.
Should we prescribe librium?
photo: Andrew Davis’s hard night at the Proms,by Chris Christodoulou
Negative spin on everything.
For yourself maybe. There’s lots of good music and great artists to be heard.
Relentless negativity regarding certain organisations and people is getting very tedious.
So we should simply shut up and be grateful?
Or maybe the blog could make its point once and move on. I for one believe that if both Vienna and Berlin were present the author would still find something to complain about.
maybe it’s you who needs to move on?
The famous school aged comeback: “no you”
Come on….Try to be a bit more inventive…
Okay, not fun, but Endgame is a highlight for me.
And the Lesbian Cyclists could be fun?
Thank f**k that the bumbling and inept Alan Davey is finally out of the door. Pickard – a nice but ineffectual Bertie Woosteresque patrician – and nasty Webb should jump now or be pushed.
Sam Jackson has the most enormous rebuilding job to do – I just hope that given his current status as one of the most likable figures in the music business he’s willing to sharpen his elbows. Many of us have had a decades-long love affair with the BBC’s cultural output and still believe that at its best Auntie can be one of the world’s greatest forces for good in classical music.
I think solidi, and plenty of them.
Claudio Abbado also had the title of Music Director at the LSO
Any comment on the debacle at the BBC, Mr Pemberton?
The ABO was very much a forum in which a certain BBC executive has shaped his gig economising ‘philosophy’, I’m sure we’d all be enlightened by your comment.
Over to you, the stage is yours:..
The ABO wants renaming the ADO (Association for Destruction of Orchestras). Simon Webb was the chairman of its board until a month or two back & in January its conference awarded Alan Davey a medal for his so called achievements.
Stinks of corruption. Come on Mark, musicians careers are on the line and we are angry. We deserve to hear your comments and not just about dead conductors.
It’s the most politicised season ever. It’s supposed to be a classical music festival, but you’d never guess it. Yes, it’s woke, yes, unknown female composers chosen one suspects for their sex rather than their actual quality, a vast amount of music simply being ignored, relaxed proms, mindfulness proms, Max Richter, Northern soul (for heaven’s sake). Samuel Taylor Coleridge being pushed as a great (rather than a merely good one) composer…at least we’re spared Florence Price…
Wot, no Trans Prom?
I supposed we should be grateful there’s a Prom season at all. but yes, Norman, it looks painfully valedictory.
@Rob Keeley – and what would be your problem with a “Trans [sic] Prom”? Go on, please do say…
Skin colour, genitals and who knows, what you do in bed and with whom…how did we get to the point where these can decide whose music is to be performed at the Proms?
He meant “transcription” as in Liszt/Busoni!!
I like your nickname, or username, on here Sue! More people should study sonata form, I guess!
The irony of you complaining of music being ignored… when in the same breath you complain about them programming works by unknown composers. Which is it?
Also, music and politics have overlapped for eons. If you don’t like what’s on offer then don’t go.
You know perfectly well what I mean by politicised – yours is a straw man argument. Actually, it’s quite possible to have both. When there is no transparency as to who gets commissioned, isn’t it least a possibility that the commissionees are chosen because of reasons other than their abilities? it’s a woke variant of the old ‘Buggin’s turn’, and it applied equally to male composers from the past: I’m sure that the vast majority of Proms commissions from both sexes have been forgotten.
I’ll go to the concerts that appeal to me. To provide a counter argument, I’m delighted that they’re playing Strauss’ Aus Italien.
By this logic isn’t it least a possibility that the commissionees are chosen because of their abilities?
Leave it out Bean “he ain’t worth it”
Glad we’ll soon no longer have a need to program works that please you, Mr. Keeley.
Oh sorry, that I, as a license fee payer should have opinions on the music that gets played, Mr Observer.
Wasn’t aware that you were the music director. Maybe you want to go have some words with Simon Webb?
Rob
His name is Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
The BBC is focusing on his music this season and includes him in 5 Proms as well as a Prom in Truro.
I just heard his Overture to “Hiawatha” performed live just a few weeks ago. Pleasant but very forgettable music.
You’re right. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the poet the composer was named after. Yes, I enjoy much if his music too, and am currently playing one of S C-T’s compositions, Deep River, on the piano.
It should really be split into three: The Trans Prom, the Stop Oil Prom, and the Decolonize Prom. Music optional.
Next year the first fluid gender prom and the Elgar cello concerto transcribed for contrabassoon played in a hippie bus ?
Last year, the Proms were rather woke too. I was going to like your comment, but what’s wrong with Florence Price? I’ve liked quite a bit of her piano music, but admittedly have not heard any if her orchestral or choral output. I have heard a solo sing written by her.
Some syphilitic pensioners can only enjoy classical music when it’s written by someone who looks like they imagine themselves to.
Beautiful and ‘real’ classical music though.
Not an especially flattering photo of Sir Simon.
Maybe that’s because it’s a particularly unflattering picture of Sir Andrew Davis rather than Sir Herr Rattler. probably inflicting. By the looks of it, AD was possibly inflicting something turgid by Tippett or Maw on the poor audience that was there at the time.
Thanks for letting us know Simon; it wasn’t clear from the blog! I thought the photo was of a different man than Sir Herr Rattle. Especially after, just a few minutes ago, looking at a photo of Sir SR in a Times photo of his last symphony concert as the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2018. There, he looked basically the same man from 25 years earlier. As you say, it is an unflattering picture of Sir AD.
Are there ANY? (miaow…)
I think that’s Sir Andrew Davis. 🙂
I know that now! (who the conductor is in the photo).
Considering it is actually Sir Andrew Davis, no!
Well, there’s always “Carmina Burana” to spice things up a bit. The only question is, what sort of “fortuna” is in store for the Proms long-haul?
With Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, too! 🙂
Better orchestra?
My sentiment also
Yes, that bothers me also. I think the BRSO is generally a better sounding orchestra for most Austro/German music. But I would certainly take the L.S.O. over them in British and American music. They’ve really excelled at Copland and Bernstein over the decades. They may possess more of the ‘transparent’ quality that French music benefits by as well. And certainly the L.S.O. has had a great track record in Russian music, particularly under Previn and Abbado. I just think the major London orchestras need one truly great symphony hall to rehearse and play in. Also, I think some of the percussion needs updating. London orchestras still use those odd sounding bass drums (that look like a half shell), and should use both Paiste and Wuhan tam-tams (and not just solely Paistes). Also, they’re in need of stronger low strings in London, particularly the double basses. The difference in concert halls has a lot to do with that (bass response). Still, the L.S.O. is among the world’s truly great orchestras. I’m sure Simon Rattle fully realizes that.
This is what is called contrast enhancement.
The Coronation shall outshine everything.
Me thinks there’s even an agreement with VPO to perform drab French music.
They could always have more Mozart, over and over and over and over…
Hey, what do you mean by “drab” French music? I love (most) French music!! If it’s not to your taste, you needn’t listen to it.
Better orchestra in Germany? More money but definitely not the electric shock like playing of the LSO. Have you heard them recently? And Rattle prefers the obscene amount of money and convenience since he commutes from Berlin.
Not to mention his carbon footprint. But that only affects the little people.
Rattle has chosen the best of three worlds: Berlin, London, and now Munich.
Commuting between three cities is tricky if you are married and have kids.
Let’s face it: commuting between Munich and Berlin is strenuous enough, especially if DB continues to be run down (like most concert halls) in favour of heat pumps and Hitler’s ailing highways.
Family has some bearing on Rattle’s decision which I admire.
I found myself bookmarking far more proms than usual!
Yep-started off with 12 on the list and have currently got 5 on the planner. I wish with my whole heart that I could Promenade but the crumbly knees require nursing!
Whoa. Steady on there. Simon Rattle leaving the LSO for “a better orchestra in Germany”. A very fine orchestra in Germany, yes, but not a better one. I don’t think one can categorise ensembles of this stature as being “better” or “worse” than each other. Different, yes, but not better. I would hazard a guess that he’s fed up with the continual battle that the arts have to fight in this country, and having made such a huge contribution here, he deserves to have rather more artistic freedom that I imagine he’ll get in Germany. And don’t get me started on Brexit.
I haven’t studied the Proms programme for this season yet. Just relieved that the noose hanging over the BBC’s English orchestras and the BBC Singers seems to have been been taken down, at least for the time being.
The only relevant question now is whether BRSO will become as good as BPO under Rattle or as good as the BRSO under Mariss.
But it’s like football and their coaches, you know.
Manchester City, Manchester, United, Bayern München…who cares, really?
If Rattle’s recent recording of Mahler 9 with the BRSO is any indication, then the answer could be yes. It’s a far better recording than Jansons’ relatively lightweight one. Jansons was a good ‘generalist’ across a wide spectrum of music, with a particular nudge towards the Russians (I think his Shostakovich was underrated).
I didn’t know that the noose had been lifted on the BBC Singers and the orchestras, but yes good news if that is the case (at least for the time being).
What, no Beethoven “Les Adieux” or Haydn “Farewell” Symphony? Honestly, there’s something in our culture and in our psychology that does seem biased in favor of the poignant valedictory statement in art over the cheery “hello” to something new or unfamiliar. Can you think of a classic work that says, “Hello!”? (and I don’t think that “morning” music should count.)
Alfred Brendel may be able to explain the audience how a subdued, drawn-out farewell can bring light into darkness.
The Creation?
As a composer myself, I can offer lots of jollity in my music. I simply await the BBC commision.. clearly lost in the post this year..
the brso is not better than the lso – it is just different
The BRSO is the best orchestra in the world.
Some people feel positive by being negative, and degrading others and their achievements is their only way to feel more relevant and get some pleasure….Which explains the success of this website
I’m boycotting the whole thing, the BBC can go jump off a cliff, no ticket sales for them.
Do you think you could rewrite the above but be a bit more sarky? I, myself, thought that you would know Rattle’s beef with London was the shelving of the new concert hall. The standards of the LSO may not have slipped as much as you say.
There is some negativity, as several people have posted, but in this photo Simon Rattle does appear to be looking significantly older now, certainly compared with photos (and videos) from 20 to 30 years ago. This happens to all of us, I know, but he seems to look a different man. I certainly hope that Simon Rattle continues in his very successful career.
As pointed out by two or three commenters, I stand corrected and the photo is of a different conductor, Sir Andrew Davis. I’d just assumed that it was of Sir SR, as most of the article seemed to be about him.
They’re having to schedule Proms around the country as the transport situation is so dire, unreliable and expensive nobody dare set out for London.
Nothing morose here……Apart from this grouchy post.