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| A broken record |
Music fans have freed extra time for whinging this year by
bemoaning the poor quality of programming at the 2017 BBC Proms early, three
weeks before season details are even due to be published. Twitter, Facebook and
other forms of carping have been awash with complaints of slim pickings and
dumbing down in the yet-to-be-announced concert series. Twitter user
@classicalbore commented that there would be “not much worth seeing at the #2017Proms.
Can tell already.” There have also been suggestions that Norman Lebrecht is to
dust off his annual Proms-bashing article template and has been seen examining
the more obscure composer anniversaries listed in the Boosey and Hawkes music
diary in search of outrage-worthy omissions in the season’s programming.
Aficionados are also anticipating an excuse to whine
about the dearth of British composers programmed this year, with music by such
unsung greats as William Alwyn, George Lloyd and Kaikhosru Sorabji unlikely to
be performed. A post on the Bax Botherers forum summed up the mood among many
anoraks, complaining “The BBC think they can throw us a performance of Havergal
Brian’s Gothic Symphony now and then and that we’ll stop going on about music
no one else likes. In actual fact, every performance of a piece by a composer
not born in Britain is another missed opportunity to play one of Brian’s 31 other
symphonies.”
Meanwhile, Proms organisers are expected to continue
their wearisome commitment to composers who aren’t dead by including new
commissions in otherwise granny-friendly concerts. Jenny Squeekygate, head of
new music at the Proms, commented “Believe me, none of us like this stuff
anymore than you do, but we have noticed an inverse correlation between
contemporary music and champagne-related accidents in the Albert Hall boxes. And besides, it just wouldn’t be the Proms
without a 7/8ths empty Oli Knussen concert, would it?”
