McClintic Sphere brought this to my attention recently - isn't it just as well one of us is up-to-date with such things? - and I initially just registered it as an upcoming Braxton event, right here in the UK indeed, without fully comprehending just how weird and unlikely an event it is.
For those who may not know, the BBC Proms are/is a long-running annual music festival in which - hell, what am I talking about... I daresay everybody has probably heard of the Proms and has at least some idea what they are - which is, after all, about as much idea as I have myself, not being overly interested in classical music*. As a child I would end up sat in the living room while the Last Night of the Proms was on, but this now seems like one of those tragic imperial hangovers which refuse to go away (in which the orchestra plays things like "Land of Hope and Glory", and everyone waves little union flags and pretends that Britain is still a global superpower). It's been a very long time since I would dream of sitting through anything like that, and as for the concerts themselves... I just wouldn't know. Apparently (sez Wikipedia) 'Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival"**' - and clearly I have no opinion on that, but you would have to excuse my cynicism preventing me from believing in the idea of much cutting-edge contemporary music taking place at such a festival, even if it does last eight weeks. The Brits in general conflate art and entertainment to the extent that any attempt to explain the difference sees their eyes glaze over within seconds. People with money treat this stuff as "fun" because they know they are supposed to like it, as with opera and ballet, but really for most of them it's just about getting tanked up and being seen in expensive evening clothes***.
An-y-waaaay... blow me down if they haven't somehow allowed a programme to slip through the net which contains some actual cutting-edge contemporary music, albeit only in the second half. It would appear that this was achieved with the utterance of the magic words "Duke Ellington", since even the British middle classes have heard of him, and would know that they are supposed to pretend to admire him, even if they have no very solid idea of who he was. But yes, I pretty much have to assume that this was how the event was pitched to the organisers, since very few of their target audience can be expected to know anything at all about Mary Lou Williams (to be fair, I know relatively little myself) - and if any of them have heard of B. at all, this is more or less guaranteed to be along the lines of "that weird American jazz musician who makes music nobody understands". The set has been carefully contrived to open with the Ellington stuff, followed by Williams' Zodiac Suite, followed by the interval... and it will be quite interesting to see how many people make it back from the bar after that.
But enough of my cycnicism (for the time being). I say that it "will" be interesting, not "would", because however I might feel about attending something like this, I really have to do so - the logistical details will just have to work themselves out nearer the time. As you can see from the event's webpage, the whole concert will be conducted by Ilan Volkov, who has been brought to my attention on at least one occasion recently#, and will mainly feature the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; but there are also guests and soloists, and B. himself is due to play, together with James Fei and Katherine Young. The post-interval set, projected to last around thirty minutes, is due to comprise a very rare public performance## of Comp. 27, with additional material from Comps. 46 & 151 as well as language musics - which sounds like ( = is) a lot to squeeze into one half-hour set, so who knows exactly how this will be achieved; all three of these pieces were composed for creative orchestra, or rather 27 and 151 were, whilst technically 46 was originally written for ten players, but has "previous" as an orchestral piece. Comp. 27 itself has never been officially recorded, and looks - in the catalog(ue) of works - like a close relative of Comp. 25 (which of course was recorded) - but B's notes say that it is more useful to view it as "the second part of Comp. 24" (which itself had to wait well over three decades to be recorded). [46 has been recorded a few times: besides its 1980 orchestral outing as noted above, it crops up on BH009, where it opens the album; it is also featured on NBH048 - and has doubtless been collaged in as a tertiary before now. 151 has turned up on multiple occasions, and Volkov has prior experience of conducting it.]
Alexander Hawkins evidently knows Ilan Volkov, and describes him as "a great conductor", adding that he is sure they will do a brilliant job of interpreting all this music, so even if there may not be very many of us who can truly even try to appreciate it, I can buy my ticket with faith in the musicians' intention to try their best to do the material justice. Now, how do I let the maestro know that I am planning to be there this time..?
* I was brought up on it, among other things, but I so long ago turned away from the values of the British middle class that any real interest in this stuff went with it. Baby, bathwater..? Yes, quite possibly, but although I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt for not bringing up my daughter to be at least familiar with it, I never really miss it and I don't think it matters much. (She found her way to her own taste with very little help from me.) In principle I am up for exploring contemporary notated music, but in practice I would probably need a guide through it at this juncture. [As for the term "classical music", I trust that anyone reading this understands that term for the misnomer that it usually is, classical denoting a period in Western art music, not the entirety of it.]
** Noted on the Wikipedia page for the Proms, indexed with a link from here - a quick glance at which tells me that the Czech was chief conductor of the BBC SO in 2007, when he said that (... so it's not as if he had no skin in the game at the time).
*** Grotesque hyperbole aside, I am writing from some personal experience here. But I don't particularly want to talk about it :-S
# I had remembered it as being at least two occasions, but it looks as if it was one occasion, approached from two different angles in fairly quick succession. The point is, Volkov has worked with B's music before, and has worked on at least some of this material before, so his would seem to be a safe and sympathetic pair of hands (so to speak).
## It's not strictly speaking a premiere, though it may very well be the first performance of the "third revision" alluded to in the Composition Notes. Composed in 1971 (Book B) or possibly in '72 (catalogue of works), the piece was first performed at San Jose State University in 1975; that premiere was itself of the second revision, apparently. One thing's for sure: it has very seldom been played at all, anywhere, and this does add some extra spice...
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