A thread elsewhere on the forum about James Loughran has sent me scurrying into the mists of time with the BBC Radio Times genome, to remind myself how active he was in broadcasting back in the 1970s (answer, of course, very).
A dangerous thing, that genome - endlessly fascinating.
Looking, for example, at the Proms season for 1970, I was struck by the oddity of some of the programming - ensembles and repertoire colliding in the same concert for no apparent reason - and also by the amount of music for chamber forces in the RAH (which at that time must have been acoustically even less suited to it than today, I'd have thought).
Two examples for now, on successive nights in the first full week:
(1) Tuesday 21 July. First half: Schubert D898 performed by the Beaux Arts Trio. Second half: Act III of Tristan conducted by Colin Davis ('Michael Langdon broadcasts by permission of the General Administrator, Royal Opera House Covent Garden' as King Mark; Ronald Dowd and Amy Shuard as T & I).
(2) Wednesday 22 July. First half: 20 minutes of Byrd motets, performed by Cantores in Ecclesia under Michael Howard. Second Half: The Dream of Gerontius!! conducted by Sir Adrian Boult with Alfreda Hodgson, John Mitchinson and Forbes Robinson (also broadcasting by permission of the GA etc).
I love Byrd. I love Gerontius. But the decision to have both on the same night seems (now at least) to be perverse.
OK one more. A Brahms prom on 31 July which went: Liebeslieder Walzer and Violin Concerto in first half, and the clarinet quintet and the St Anthony Variations in the second (again Boult conducting the orchestral bits). What a strange and, on the face of it, unsatisfying structure!
Does anyone admit to recall having been at these or similar proms? Did they work?
I must now stop trawling the genome for old proms.
A dangerous thing, that genome - endlessly fascinating.
Looking, for example, at the Proms season for 1970, I was struck by the oddity of some of the programming - ensembles and repertoire colliding in the same concert for no apparent reason - and also by the amount of music for chamber forces in the RAH (which at that time must have been acoustically even less suited to it than today, I'd have thought).
Two examples for now, on successive nights in the first full week:
(1) Tuesday 21 July. First half: Schubert D898 performed by the Beaux Arts Trio. Second half: Act III of Tristan conducted by Colin Davis ('Michael Langdon broadcasts by permission of the General Administrator, Royal Opera House Covent Garden' as King Mark; Ronald Dowd and Amy Shuard as T & I).
(2) Wednesday 22 July. First half: 20 minutes of Byrd motets, performed by Cantores in Ecclesia under Michael Howard. Second Half: The Dream of Gerontius!! conducted by Sir Adrian Boult with Alfreda Hodgson, John Mitchinson and Forbes Robinson (also broadcasting by permission of the GA etc).
I love Byrd. I love Gerontius. But the decision to have both on the same night seems (now at least) to be perverse.
OK one more. A Brahms prom on 31 July which went: Liebeslieder Walzer and Violin Concerto in first half, and the clarinet quintet and the St Anthony Variations in the second (again Boult conducting the orchestral bits). What a strange and, on the face of it, unsatisfying structure!
Does anyone admit to recall having been at these or similar proms? Did they work?
I must now stop trawling the genome for old proms.
)!
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