"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest
You are definitely right, they weren't appearing earlier, in fact I logged on to the BBC Press Office to see if they were listed there. Not being able to get to the Proms I do enjoy the television converage. But, on another look at the listings, not a very exciting season I think
Whoa there! - what's that I see on August 16th - BAX symphony no. 2.
Same programme offers Prokofiev's Fourth and Bartok's 2nd piano concerto.
and
Just started to trawl through the other listings. Boy, that's a bummer of a way to set up a website. How many clicks does it take to find the details? - geez!
Last edited by Bax-of-Delights; 14-04-11 at 16:28. Reason: got the date wrong! doh!
Not sure why they have to muck about with Images with other works interspoersed between movements.
The guide book is brilliant like usual.
Not much Dvorak or Verdi :-(
I see that, predictably, the crossover proms are all being shown on TV. I sometimes think that if your knowledge of the proms was restricted to those shown on TV, you'd think that the proms consisted of a steady diet of film music, music from the shows and youth orchestras. Oh and Nigel Kennedy.
I do think it odd that there are 3 operas being performed (which generally work very well as TV broadcasts), none of which are being shown on TV this year; perhaps there are rights issues which have prevented this.
Hopefully some of the broadcasts will be in 5.1 sound on the BBCHD channel.
"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest
I think compared to previous years this new layout is an unmitigated disaster. Maybe it was designed by Roger Wright's 6 year old granddaughter?
Way, way too many clicks to actually see what piece of music is being played. I seem to remember last year that you had a week-to-view with the concert details clearly set out. So one could, at a glance, see what was on in any particular week.
This year, Prom 1 - great..what is it? Click. No consistency..some days it does tell you what piece is being played, other days it does not.
Too much space given over to over large photographs which means that you are forever scrolling up and down each page, scroll down to see what the music is then scroll all the way back up to click on the calendar for the next day.
Search for Mahler works...you don't just get a simple list of Mahler Symphonies..you get Prom 32 Brahms and Mahler....if I wanted Brahms I would have asked for Brahms.
I really am vexed about this. Like a long lost dear friend turning up having had a sex change.
EDIT: Just thought I'd give it another go...scroll down to Tuesday, click to see what is on, display Tuesday, scroll down to see what is on as the photograph above is so huge, back click, scroll down to next day, click to see Wed, scroll down to see what the music is and which orchestra and so on. Sorry but life is too short. I live aways from London and did go to a couple last year but this website frankly makes me not want to bother to wade through pages and pages to see what is on. I shan't be going back to it.
Please tell me I have it all wrong and that there is a weekly page-to-view?
Last edited by BetweenTheStaves; 14-04-11 at 18:17.
Quite an interesting season. A pity you have to click on every individual concert to discover what it being played.
Mahler 9 with Roger Norrington is one I'll be giving a miss. That 2008 Elgar 1 performance still annoys me, but not nearly so much as the ridiculous claims by RN that they didn't play with vibrato in those days. I wish he'd just come clean and admit that he just doesn't like vibrato - one could respect that.
Are you EVER happy about ANYTHING the BBC does ?
The website seems fine to me given that i am able to move my mouse fingers independently
the Proms seem a bit safe this year though
no Xenakis, Feldman, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Boulez, Cage etc
but the Gothic should be a hoot