We're only a quarter of the way through the season, and some of the statistics may be a little misleading; I'm pretty sure, for example, that until this year the Sinfonia hadn't turned up since '84. That year began with a mini-festival of British Music, and although the usual suspects turned up, there's remarkably little correlation between which works of theirs are played in both of the focus years. Indeed, there seems to be more in common between 2006 and '07, particularly when it comes to the TV broadcasts: DSCH 10 two years running, Prokofiev 2nd piano concerto ditto, for example, though DSCH 10 was also played in '84 - I'm pretty sure that of the cycle it's had the most outings at the Proms. Later in the '84 season we'll see a rather different crop of British composers: Elias, Saxton, Birtwhistle, Gerhard, Maxwell Davies, Hugh Wood, Knussen, Muldowney, Tavener, Musgrave, Colin Matthews and Mathias all represented as well as Maw (and don't forget that Tippett was very much a living figure then, too). In '84 even the older British works which appeared were not always standard fare: the Britten concerti were still less common then than they are now, though the one for violin is starting to be played a little more.

Yes, the BBC orchestras have always had the lion's share of the work for economic reasons. In the 60s and 70s this was even more so, and visits from crack foreign orchestras were very special events indeed.

Where did you look this up, G? Not long ago I was hunting around for an online archive of Proms programmes and couldn't find such a thing. I can't believe you were at the Proms in 1965.

I was, Richard. My first Prom was actually 1964 .

I don't think they are online but being an anorak I've kept all the Proms Guides from 1965 onwards. Very happy to provide a look up service. I think that probably makes me oral history


In fact, just to complement Ron's latest entry, the equivalent concert for Monday 26 July 1965 was

Mendelssohn   Overture, Fingal's Cave

Debussy  Three Nocturnes

Mahler   Symphony No 6

The Ambrosian Singers  (Ah yes, remember them? They were said to live on creamed rice.)
Halle Orchestra
Conductor: Sir John Barbirolli

(Oh, ache, ache, no, I didn't go to that one )

Not yet, I don't, Mr S. Hmmm. It may have to be added to the order for the Boulez Rite with the bassons and the Virtuoso Timpani Concerti. (£££!!! )

Friday 3 August 1984

Bizet
Symphony in C major (27 mins)
Mozart
Concerto in E flat major for two pianos and orchestra, K.365 (26 mins)

Interval

Sir Lennox Berkeley
Four poems of St Theresa of Avila (13 mins)
Saint-Saëns
Symphony No. 3 in C minor (36 mins)

Susan Kessler mezzo-soprano
Imogen Cooper piano
Anne Queffélec piano

BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Jacek Kasprzyk

Friday 27 July 2007

The charismatic conductor of last year's Last Night weaves together our Shakespeare and Auden themes with his Hallé orchestra. Strauss's early Shakespearean tonepoem vividly depicts the murder of Duncan and Macbeth's descent to madness. There is antagonism, too, between the battling timpani in Nielsen's 'Inextinguishable' Symphony, but its overriding aim is to celebrate the unflagging spirit of the human life force.

Please note that 'Les Illuminations' replaces 'Our Hunting Fathers', which was previously billed.


R. Strauss
Macbeth (18 mins)
Britten
Les Illuminations (24 mins)

Interval

Nielsen
Symphony No.4, 'The Inextinguishable' (36 mins)

Joan Rodgers soprano
Hallé
Mark Elder conductor

The one with the purple cover?  One of my favourites.  What good taste you have Mr S

Tommo

We at the Cawdor General Mental Health Unit are trying to establish whether Mr Macbeth is seeing an imaginary dagger or is imagining he is seeing a real dagger.

The trouble is we can't now remember which of those is mad and which is sane. He himself keeps insisting he is sane, or 'thane' as he puts it (it turns out on his documents he is actually Mr Macbess). We have a philosopher on standby just in case this gets tricky or pointless.

I should point out, perhaps, that the blurb for this year's concerts comes direct from the Beeb. Whilst they have managed to update the cast and work alteration, nobody has noticed that the concert now has no Auden connection, since Les Illuminations has words by Rimbaud, or, if we wish to continue the descent into madness theme, possibly Rambo...