You can take a whore to culture...

[valkyriekaren]

Thanks to steer  having a ticket going begging, last night after work I had a pleasant walk across Hyde Park and went to the Proms.

I'd never been to the Royal Albert Hall - I don't think you appreciate the sheer scale of it from pictures, or even from the swooping aerial shots that the BBC favours in its Proms coverage. It's a great big overwrought

Comments

[technotom]

..."but you can't make it drink." Is that how it goes?

Or "but you can't bring culture to a whore"?

[valkyriekaren]

... but you can't make her think.

[technotom]

Ahh two letters out. If I said it in a garbled radio transmission with static and distortion then people would assume I'd got it right.

[rozk]

One of my most intense memories of my first trip to Italy, when I got ill halfway through the trip and had to stagger onto trains and to the flat in Milan which I was using as a base - the friends who owned it were off on their own vacation in Greece, is of turning on the radio. I knew there was a concert - Bernstein was conducting in Rome - only instead of the advertised overture, they were playing the Largo movement from the Shostakovich 5th. And I knew instantly that he had died, and this was his memorial.

[valkyriekaren]

That's so sad - and fitting.

[chickenfeet2003]

Is Britten unfashionable? He seems to get performed quite a bit. I've seen Peter Grimes, A Midsummer Night's Dream and the War Requiem in the last couple of years and we've got tickets for Death in Venice for later this year.

[valkyriekaren]

He's still immensely popular, but I think he's seen as not quite 'edgy' enough for the modern intelligensia. And of course very, very British, which is a tricksy thing to be.

[chickenfeet2003]

He's definitely more popular in the English speaking world than in continental Europe though I note that the production of Death in Venice that is being done in Toronto this year is a co-production with The Aldeburgh Festival, Opéra national de Lyon, Bregenz Opera and Prague State Opera.

The "edginess" thing is silly. The man has been dead for 35 years. I'd also argue that his music is still more "difficult" (for some value of "difficult") than contemporary composers like Part, Ades or Adams. I think the more interesting question is which composers of the mid 20th century will remain in the repertoire long term. My money says that we will hear much more Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky than Webern, Hindemith or Tippett (to pick three at random who are certainly "edgier" and arguably more fashionable in their day).

[steer]

My money says that we will hear much more Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky

Aye they're certainly better known and well represented in the current prom season.

[steer]

Very enjoyable evening. For me the Shostakovich was the undoubted highlight but actually the Avro Part was my second favourite -- as usual though I'd forgotten the running order so didn't know what was what when they were performed.

Britten seems to be performed more often now -- at least if my concert going is anything to judge by. But maybe it is that he pairs well with the things I like to go to.

[valkyriekaren]

Thanks for inviting me!

[altoclef]

Huw Watkins was a contemporary of ours at Cambridge - I remember playing some atonal thing that he'd written with CUMS.