Proms Commissions By Numbers

The BBC Proms season got under way this weekend and the current edition of BBC Music magazine is the spcial Proms issue. Of course the cover disk reflects this and is given the title Great Proms Premieres. I think there is a certain hyperbole in the use of he term "great" here. The most celebrated work featured is Walton's Viola Concerto. I have a version by Maxim Vengerov that I have already posted about and this performance by Nobuko Imai with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Tadaaki Otaka from the 1990s is very competitive. Another 1990s recording is of John Ireland's Piano Concerto played by Kathryn Stott accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis. The actual premiere of this was in 1930, a year after the Walton, and apparently was a Proms staple for many years. Hard to see why now, a reflection of changes in programming fashion I guess. It is easy to see why it would appeal to soloists and the slow movement is particularly characterful but on the whole it sounda routine to modern ears. The other two works on the disk are recordings of the actual premieres. From 1942 we have another Ireland piece, Epic March, with Proms founder Sir Henry Wood conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Of obvious historic interest and recorded in the Albert Hall shortly after the destruction in the Blitz of the original Proms location the Queen's Hall, the music itself is reminiscent of the film music then current and seems imbued with the stoicism and defiance of the time. The disk concludes with a work premiered just last year, ...onyt agoraf y drws...by Welsh composer Guto Puw. In many ways, this is contemporary proms commissioning by numbers, the sort of work of which there are maybe half a dozen examples each year. It ticks the local outreach box ( Welsh composer, Welsh title, Welsh mythological theme, played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by David Atherton ) it is of the requisite length ( a 17 minute pipe opener ) and contains presentational gimmicks ( three piccolos situated in different locations around the arena to represent the birds of the witch Rhiannon who inhabit the story ) The title translates as ...unless I open the door... refers to a story from the Welsh epic the Mabinogion and has a Duke Bluebeardish " don't open the door" tale at its' heart. The music contains spells of static shimmering sound interrupted by violent eruptions, another modern music commonplace that gets a bit wearing. There is a feeling that there is a certain amount of "does the face fit" involved in contemporary Proms commissions but it is nevertheless admirable that such commissions are still undertaken.