Lebrecht: Prommers Ruin the Proms

[cavatina]

Here's a classic rant from Norman Lebrecht to help continue the conversation in the season pass (http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?2202-Are-season-passes-mailed-or-does-one-need-to-pick-them-up-somewhere)thread about Arena newcomers, unwritten rules, and how "welcoming" the Front Row clique is to daytrippers, young people, and other interlopers:

NORMAN LEBRECHT: PROMMERS RUIN THE PROMS
http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/030806-NL-prommers.html

Key excerpt:

"It is the phalanx 525 every-nighters who constitute the problem. They form an elite at the heart of the Proms, an aging praetorian guard whose dominance of the arena actively deters the young and curious. They brandish resentment at the seated majority and squatters' rights at the BBC, asserting a spurious ownership of 'their' Proms."

Although the tone of this piece is jaw-droppingly vitriolic--and curiously personal-- I think he makes quite a few points worth considering. I'll save my comments for later...any thoughts? :smiley:

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've never been an "elite prommer" (NB must have a HUGE chip in his shoulder), but I've met a number of them, and they have all been welcoming and friendly on the few occasions when I've made to the front of the arena. As for "unwritten rules", someone has to make a few, 'cos the ushers, Roger Wright and the hall management don't seem to have got their act together.

[Mandryka]

Another pointless polemic from the master of the same.

Restricting available Prom tickets to the 'under 30s' is straightforward Facism, as far as I'm concerned.

Thank God no-one - and I mean NO-ONE - takes Lebrecht seriously.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Thank God no-one - and I mean NO-ONE - takes Lebrecht seriously.

Sorry but that is an absurd view! Mr. Lebrecht is England's most eminent and accurate living critic. We wonder whether any of those who write about him thus have ever opened his magnificent Complete Companion to Twentieth-Century Music. Only the other day we were for instance reading therein what he says about Grainger the Antipodean man:

"He wasted a modest compositional talent on pianistic miniatures and orchestrations of folk songs. He treated jolly country frolics with utmost solemnity . . . "

How we wish we could write as well and succinctly as that! We have the greatest respect for everything he says.

[ahinton]

Sorry but that is an absurd view! Mr. Lebrecht is England's most eminent and accurate living critic. We wonder whether any of those who write about him thus have ever opened his magnificent Complete Companion to Twentieth-Century Music. Only the other day we were for instance reading therein what he says about Grainger the Antipodean man:

"He wasted a modest compositional talent on pianistic miniatures and orchestrations of folk songs. He treated jolly country frolics with utmost solemnity . . . "

How we wish we could write as well and succinctly as that! We have the greatest respect for everything he says.
There are those who do take Mr Lebrecht seriously, although I suspect that hey are realtively few and far between, particularly as his principal purpose in life appears to be to draw attention to himself and his writings which are for the most part shot through with more slickness than substance. Every now and then, he puts his finger on something that requires due consideration and he writes with penetrating intelligence, a fact which make it all the most dispiritingly galling that such examples are as an oasis in a desert of largely platitudinous attention-seeking. He has a neat style, to be sure but, again, it is the style that usually triumphs over substance. His remarks that you quote above about Grainger (who, incindentally, was part Scots and part Australian) are quite typical of his habit of resorting to pompous dismissal by choosing from his store of cheap one-liners; there's far more to Grainger than that!

"England's most eminent and accurate living critic"? That, I am bound to say, really "is an absurd view"! It would surely be very difficult if not impossible to "take seriously" anyone who evaluated Mr Lebrecht as a living English(?!) critic above the likes of Arnold Whittall or Paul Griffiths; one has only to trawl through a random selection of NL's Scena Musicale rants for the differences to become glaringly obvious - and let us not forget that this is the man who has for years been braying about the death of the classical music recording industry in a climate in which BBC, record reviewing journals and such like have continued to receive ever-increasing numbers of new releases.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How we wish we could write as well and succinctly as that! We have the greatest respect for everything he says.
The point here is that NL does indeed have a way with words, but he uses it as a weapon for his own ends - possibly attention seeking. I frequently bash Alison Graham, a critic from RadioTimes, who adopts precisely the same techniques. Fortunately, there are still responsible critics out there.

[David Underdown]

I'd forgotten this ridiculous article. Lebrecht never let's the facts get in the way of a good rant. I forget what the count of basic factual inaccuracies was, and I'm not going to reread it. Ruth Elleson wrote a great letter to the Standard at the time pointing out most of its flaws. Mind you, back then she (and I) were actually under 30. Last year was the first time in donkeys years that season tickets actually sold out before the start of the season. In the days when a season ticket was actually a book of tickets and you could resell the nights you couldn't go yourself then there was an issue. Several people I know started promming in the gallery because it was impossible to get arena tickets.

He also fails to consider the sea change in student life. Where once you'd have found a number of students among the ranks of season ticket holders, you're now more likely to find them in a red jacket, working their way through the summer as a steward to pay off their debts. If the idiocies of Lebrecht are the worst you can come up with...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

David, you have an even better command of the English language than Norman L., and what you write makes sense. :ok:

[David Underdown]

And just to show how little Lebrecht changes, in a recent blog he claims that the fact that Mahan Esfahani is doing a solo chamber prom at Cadogan is entirely down to Lebrecht. Obviously the fact that Esfahani is a former BBC New Generation Artist, who performed in the series of concerts at Cadogan two seasons ago in the Chamber proms celebrating the scheme is completely irrelevant. Oh, and Lebrecht couldn't even spell Esfahani correctly, and didn't even acknowledge the error whenit was pointed out to him (or correct it)

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Lebrecht never let's the facts get in the way . . .

Ahem . . .

[ahinton]

Ahem . . .
And apart from the accidental letting of a stray unwanted apostrophe getting in the way, what precisely is there about Mr Underdown's observation that prompts the clearing of the Grew throat, pray?

[LHC]

Mr. Lebrecht is England's most eminent and accurate living critic.

On the contrary, Storming Norman is known throughout the music industry for his love of hyperbole and his failure to check even the most basic of facts. How many other 'eminent' critics have had to have their books withdrawn and rewritten because of inaccuracies and libels they contained?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/26/pressandpublishing.medialaw

He is also not well liked. As one eminent conductor told the Independent at the time of the above withdrawal, Mr Lebrecht has, "for years, been getting away with "pompous, preposterous judgment" and "inept research".

[Pianorak]

Any views on Lebrecht's "When the Music stops. . . - Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music"? No idea how accurate it is, but it's quite a page-turner! :whistle:

[Mandryka]

Any views on Lebrecht's "When the Music stops. . . - Managers, Maestros and the Corporate Murder of Classical Music"? No idea how accurate it is, but it's quite a page-turner! :whistle:

A page-turner, certainly, but hardly accurate. Time and time again, Lebrecht finds what he wants to find in the facts available; and when the facts disagree with his thesis, he invents a few facts of his own (such as Karajan's recording of Carmina Burana).

[ahinton]

Page-turners have their virtues - good ones are indeed indispensible - but even the best of them serve a useful purpose only when they're assisting (usually a pianist) in performance; the prospect of Mr Lebrecht doing any such thing simply doesn't bear thinking about...

[David Underdown]

Ahem . . .

Sorry, an autocorrection from my iPhone which I overlooked. The same is to blame for any instance of "it's" with an unnecessary apostrophe (honest)

[Pianorak]

Page-truners have their virtues - good ones are indeed indispensible - but even the best of them serve a useful purpose only when they're assisting (usually a pianist) in performance; the prospect of Mr Lebrecht doing any such thing simply doesn't bear thinking about...
:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::ok:

[Ferretfancy]

Lebrecht is dangerous, because he encourages others to do the Prommers injustice. It will only a matter of weeks before the usual patronising nonsense starts to appear in reviews etc. I'm not suggesting that all behaviour in a hall that holds 5000 people is beyond reproach, but it does incense me when lazy writing produces stereotypes of the Lebrecht variety.
Like many others, I have made permanent friends at the Proms, and every year I find myself in the company of generous hearted music lovers, of all ages incidentally. I may be one of Norman's senile geriatrics in the audience, but many of my companions are not!

[cavatina]

Mr. Lebrecht is England's most eminent and accurate living critic.

Did you say this when J.B. Steane was alive? If so, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.



As for "unwritten rules", someone has to make a few, 'cos the ushers, Roger Wright and the hall management don't seem to have got their act together.

RW's fault again, is it? :doh: Perhaps this season he should wear a blue coat, leap out of his box like a parkour artist and break up the impending fistfights between belligerent interlopers and peevish regulars. :erm:


Lebrecht is dangerous, because he encourages others to do the Prommers injustice.

We're doing ourselves an injustice.

In my opinion, if rules aren't made perfectly explicit to everyone, there's no point in having them at all. Needlessly humiliating people for violating self-imposed codes of conduct is quite odious. There's absolutely no reason to assume people are deliberately trying to violate your standards when they're only behaving as they would in any other nominally "open" concert venue. And why is it that the only place people are having problems is the upper half of the upper left-hand quadrant of the Arena? Doesn't that tell you something?

While many prommers are perfectly kind and reasonable, many more could use a good dose of empathy and humility. It only takes one obnoxious jerk flying off the handle or one bitchy matron stage-whispering all sorts of vile things about you to ruin the whole evening.

[Ferretfancy]

cavatina,

The people in the left hand quadrant of the Arena that you refer to are the first to arrive at the hall every day, often for a picnic on the steps. It's true that they can be a bit territorial at times, but it's also true that they are responsible every year for the hugely successful charity collection, over £70,000 raised last season., and this involves a great deal of hard work.
I'm not of their number, but I know many of them to talk to and pass the time of day, and I haven't been treated badly yet.

A couple of years ago a middle aged man barged in after the interval with a tiny and very fractious child bouncing up and down on his shoulders just as Nigel Kennedy started to play the Elgar Violin Concerto, a total distraction which ruined enjoyment for many. After the concerto he pushed his way out, nearly knocking us over in the process. Obviously he had not been taught the "self imposed unwritten rules" that you seem concerned about.

As for the front quadrant folk, well, all regular events have their ardent fan groups, and the Proms are no exception. Let's live with it happily and enjoy the music.

[Caliban]

On the contrary, Storming Norman is known throughout the music industry for his love of hyperbole and his failure to check even the most basic of facts. How many other 'eminent' critics have had to have their books withdrawn and rewritten because of inaccuracies and libels they contained?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/26/pressandpublishing.medialaw

He is also not well liked. As one eminent conductor told the Independent at the time of the above withdrawal, Mr Lebrecht has, "for years, been getting away with "pompous, preposterous judgment" and "inept research".

:laugh:

:doh:

Don't you think Mr Grew's message #4 was perhaps just the tiniest little bit ironic...???? :erm:

[PhilipT]

Just my opinion, but if Nigel Kennedy had started playing I find it difficult to see what enjoyment there was to ruin.

I think we need to be careful to distinguish between different but overlapping groups. Not every Season Ticket holder who queues early goes to the front left. Not every habitual picnicker is involved with PMC (which is actually quite a small but dedicated group who succeed in recruiting many volunteers). No amount collected for charity could justify bad behaviour (whether of the pushing-in variety or the shouting-at-pushers-in variety). I imagine that PMC would want nothing to do with territorial arguments.

One obstacle to progress here is that Prommers are a very democratic bunch. Anyone who turns up for the first time on a day ticket is a Prommer; no Prommer has the authority to speak on behalf of other Prommers. The Trustees of PMC have no authority to represent the views of the Prommers on non-PMC matters (and there'd be resentment in certain quarters if they tried). Any effort to get the Hall to accept what a published code of behaviour should look like is down to individuals appealing to the Hall management's common sense, and that's a lost cause.

[LHC]

:laugh:

:doh:

Don't you think Mr Grew's message #4 was perhaps just the tiniest little bit ironic...???? :erm:

Although it can be hard to tell with Mr Grew's posts, it did seem too much even for him, so yes, I did realise I might be jumping into the sar chasm, but I'm afraid I couldn't resist the opportunity to have a go at Lebrecht.

[Ferretfancy]

Philip T

I think you may have been pleasantly surprised by Nige on that occasion, he played it very well.

I'm in one of the overlapping groups, usually near the fountain as I don't want to stand with my nose under the violinist's knees. The start of the season is always a bit like a new term, greeting familiar faces from a year back, other than those spotted at the Barbican or elsewhere. My point really is that every year this discussion about bad behaviour comes up, with a great many exaggerations. Of course spats and insults do happen, as they would do in any packed crowd in a hot space, but please, lets not overstate the case.
You are quite right that anyone who turns up on a day ticket is a Prommer, that's why my friends and I make them welcome, especially when it's their first visit. The complaints only arise when late comers try to push in when there's already limited space. You surely don't need to be told unwritten rules when it's a matter of common courtesy.

[ahinton]

:laugh:

:doh:

Don't you think Mr Grew's message #4 was perhaps just the tiniest little bit ironic...???? :erm:
Far more easily said than done, I'm afraid - at least for someone who has, as I have, read many of his posts elsewhere in which he rarely misses an opportunity to talk up Mr Lebrecht whom he seems convinced is a shining beacon of his profession and a leading authority on life, the universe and everything musical - so I fear that "we" must take him at his word...

[Bryn]

Far more easily said than done, I'm afraid - at least for someone who has, as I have, read many of his posts elsewhere in which he rarely misses an opportunity to talk up Mr Lebrecht whom he seems convinced is a shining beacon of his profession and a leading authority on life, the universe and everything musical - so I fear that "we" must take him at his word...

I tried that tack at first, but it is so clear that the Grewsome one is very well versed in the music of the 20th, and quite possibly the 21st, century. The glaring inaccuracies of fact in Lebrecht's tomes, especially the various editions of his dreadful survey of 20th Century music, cannot possibly have evaded Grew's attention. A (failed) attempt at irony is the only plausible interpretation, in my view.

[ahinton]

I tried that tack at first, but it is so clear that the Grewsome one is very well versed in the music of the 20th, and quite possibly the 21st, century. The glaring inaccuracies of fact in Lebrecht's tomes, especially the various editions of his dreadful survey of 20th Century music, cannot possibly have evaded Grew's attention. A (failed) attempt at irony is the only plausible interpretation, in my view.
In that case it must be a variety of irony of which I have little experience and even less understanding; if SG really has his tongue firmly in his cheek every time he offers plaudits to NL, so be it, but I must say that my peruslas of his poss in which he dies so do not seem to me especially suggestive of this (if only they did!)...