Sep
10
BBC Proms on TV are boring
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Why are the BBC Proms on the TV so boring? The Proms themselves are a marvellous festival combining the very best soloists, orchestras and chamber groups; popular with varied programmes and all at an accessible price for anyone who doesn’t mind queuing.
Moreover, the BBC has done much in recent years to broaden the appeal of the Proms including Proms in the Park, reaching out beyond west London, the regular slots for the National Youth Orchestra and the late night proms with a more diverse range of music.
The TV coverage, though, is terribly boring. Caveat: I haven’t watched it all. But that’s partly the point. As someone who has been playing the Cello for all but 4 years of my life, who has played in orchestras for over 10 years and studied music at A-Level, I would have thought that the BBC would want me tuning into BBC 4 to watch their coverage a couple of times a summer. I did tonight, and I won’t again.
There are four problems with the programming. In my view it is:
1. Stuck between popularising the music and being high-brow
The programme tonight was a popular prom – a Haydn London symphony and Schubert’s 9th. But much of the chat around the concert was impenetrable with my B at music A-Level. There was an absurd moment at half time when a member of a string quarter was playing harmonics over a PA announcement to illustrate why Schubert chose C Major. I was totally baffled by the experience whilst back in the studio we heard some gentleman with bad hair agree with the presenter that the London symphony took the city ‘by storm’ without any deeper explanation. Cliches about how the Vienna Phil made a ‘different sound from other orchestras’ were too superficial to tell me anything I didn’t already know. And For those who wanted to know more, a discussion about Schumann’s brother discovering the score won’t have meant much without a degree in music or ready access to wikipedia.
2. Unimaginative presentation
It is always bizarre that the presenters run out of time as the orchestra is ready to play. You don’t get Richard Keys being cut-off Sky Sports because Liverpool are ready to kick-off a game of football. The captioning of the guests only showed their name, once, so I didn’t know who they were or why they were on the show. The presenter looked scruffy without being ‘relaxed and casual’. They spent the first half of half time talking about the piece we’d just heard which wasn’t very useful because, well, it had been and gone. And the explanation of the music was hopeless because it took place without reference to the piece!
Watching a symphony orchestra is not a visual extravaganza on the best of days. Unfortunately, from the (perfectly understandable) limited perspectives of the BBC cameracrews this was no visual feast – and first class instrumentalists though they may be, the Vienna Phil aren’t much to look at either. The only task left is to wonder who has the oddest hair and whether some of the viola players look odder than the men in the front row of the promenaders. A shame, therefore, that the BBC wasn’t able to provide a better presentation of the music.
3. Uninspiring production
It’s not just that the TV coverage was dull. The Proms must be one of the last outposts of the BBC that do not make fabulous use of multimedia facilities. I couldn’t go from my TV to my laptop to watch tonight’s conference (as far as I could see). And despite even Test Match Special migrating to Twitter, I couldn’t interact with any part of the programme. There weren’t any programme notes I could look up online (as far as I could tell).
There was no sense of information, educating or inspiring the audience. At discovery days for classical music, like those I take my daughter to at St Lukes, people new to classical music want to know about the intruments and the people. Surely the wealth of multimedia tools at the BBC’s disposal would provide a brilliant way to provide an insight into the preparations of the orchestra, the rehearsal, the mood of certain players (which would then make the concert more visually interesting), particular extracts and so on.
Perhaps the BBC Proms are interesting when they are on BBC 2. But if a Haydn and Schubert concert on BBC4 is this dull, to a semi-trained muso, then the BBC may struggle to convince politicians that its lavish proms budget is fulfilling a public service. That would be a disgrace.
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[...] BBC Proms on TV are boring Why are the BBC Proms on the TV so boring? The Proms themselves are a marvellous festival. But watching a symphony orchestra is not a visual extravaganza on the best of days and the Vienna Phil aren?t much to look at either. The Proms must be one of the last outposts of the BBC that do not make fabulous use of multimedia facilities. http://blog.matthewcain.co.uk/bbc-proms-on-tv-are-boring/ [...]