Prom 41: Sunday 14th August 2011 at 7.00 p.m. (Purcell, Britten)

[EdgeleyRob]

Can't wait for this one.Top notch Britten or not the Spring Symphony is a wonderful listen.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Re # 1 & 2, JB is ill and will be replaced by MW.

[mercia]

JB is ill

oh dear. very ill? is he likely to miss Prom 51 too?

[rauschwerk]

I concur with Mary Chambers (if it's her opinion of course) that the Spring Symphony is a lovely work, but not top notch Britten. Even his own recording cannot cover up the lesser inspired moments. The idea is brilliant. But though Britten was definitely on top of his powers as he composed the work in the late 1940s, something is lacking. Perhaps Spring as subject lacks "tension", or "drama"?

I was at that 1963 Prom and remember it well. We were so enthusiastic that the only way they could get us to leave was to start turning the lights out.

I love the Spring Symphony, but it has so many associations for me that I can't possibly judge it objectively. The second time I heard it was at the RFH on my first date with the girl who would later become my wife (Dorati conducted BBC forces). Then it was on the programme for my first gig with the LSO Chorus in 1966 - a quite thrilling experience! Finally I sang it at the 1974 Proms just before I moved away from London, with Haitink conducting.

I got to know it well from the composer's recording. For a CD version I tried Previn (very good but his boys are useless - can't whistle for toffee), then Gardiner but finally returned to Britten and still think it the best of all I have heard.

[Richard J.]

Re # 1 & 2, JB is ill and will be replaced by MW.

Thanks for letting us know, which is more than the BBC has bothered to do on its Proms site.

[Ravensbourne]

See also http://www.markwigglesworth.com/news...the-bbc-proms/

Mark Wigglesworth returns to the BBC Henry Wood Proms. Replacing an indisposed Jiří Bělohlávek, he joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus, the BBC Singers, and Trinity Boys Choir for a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Cantata Misericordium, Sinfonia da Requiem, and Spring Symphony. The concert opens with the world premiere of Joby Talbot’s orchestration of Purcell’s Chaconny in G Minor.

[Serial_Apologist]

it's just so much fun. The boys' choir, the whistling, the cuckoos, the hard-won Sumer is Icumen In at the end

I find those parts of this work unbelievably twee. At school we were "persuaded" St Nicholas was a fine example of modern music, and I was made to sing in it. Just as well we had Howells, Ireland, Holst, RVW, Leighton and Kodaly to sing too! There's lots of bits in later Britten that for me demean the best of the early work, such as "Our Hunting Fathers", parts of the Bridge Variations, (though the tendency to tweeness and gratuitous dissonance starts to emerge in that work), the Piano and Violin concertos, "coalface", "On This Island", Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra and "Grimes". And it isn't just down to Pears, (or Dudley Moore ): "Dying, dying, dying" from the Serenade... well, get on with it then, fer gawd's sake, as Kenneth Williams would doubtless have said, is my suggestion.

Frank Bridge considered the young Britten more than worthy of note; and I would have agreed; what he would have made of the later Britten, I've often wondered

No Joby Talbot works on this concert then, just an arrangement. I once had high hopes for Mr Talbot - his theme tune to "The League of Gentlemen" was one of the finest TV themes ever imv... but he has since gone in a Philip Glass direction

S-A

[salymap]

I love the Spring Symphony, having heard very early performances of it and many times. Details of artists sadly forgotten.

There is a magic transition of one section to another near the end that reminds me of the way Britten introduces the Fugue at the end of the Young Persons Guide. Can't describe it better than that but it's there.

[Serial_Apologist]

I love the Spring Symphony, having heard very early performances of it and many times. Details of artists sadly forgotten.

There is a magic transition of one section to another near the end that reminds me of the way Britten introduces the Fugue at the end of the Young Persons Guide. Can't describe it better than that but it's there.

As the music marks time with a tremolo punctuated in the bass: "And now, the entire orchestra rejoins in a fugue on Purcell's great theme, starting in the treble with the woodwind"

?

[Ravensbourne]

Christopher Maltman is no longer available to take part in this concert. He is replaced by Leigh Melrose.

Mark Wigglesworth returns to the BBC Henry Wood Proms, replacing an indisposed Jiří Bělohlávek.

John Mark Ainsley is now unavailable owing to ill health. He is replaced by Alan Oke.