A Prom means a Promenade Concert, or a concert where part of the audience stands in a "promenade" area of the hall. Promenaders have two choices of where to stand: either in the Arena, the floor of the hall and directly in front of the orchestra (where many consider this the best position in the hall) or high up in the Gallery where the sound just drifts up to you. Today there are over 1,000 standing places available at each and every Prom. The Promenaders enjoy the music at vastly reduced prices, this year they pay just £4 per concert.
The Proms started in 1885 when the manager of the newly built Queen's Hall in London, which was used for symphony orchestra concerts, decided that he wanted to try to reach a wider audience by offering more popular programmes, adopting a less formal promenade arrangement and keeping ticket prices low. He asked Henry Wood, an organist, accompanist, vocal coach and conductor of choirs, orchestras and amateur opera companies, to be the conductor of the first series of promenade concerts. That first season was followed by more seasons, and seasons have continued annually from then to now. After May 1941, when a Luftwaffe bombardment gutted the Queen's Hall the Proms moved from the Queens Hall to its current venue, the Royal Albert Hall, where it has remained ever since. The BBC took over the responsibility for the Proms in the early 1930s and has done since then, with the exception of a couple of years during the last war (Sir Henry Wood, as he was by then known, still managed to keep the concerts going even without the BBC).
The seasons, which run from mid July to mid-September with at least one concert every single evening, now cover a remarkable range of music and with a huge range of internationally known orchestras, soloists and composers. Many new works are premiered at the Proms each year. The last few years have seen the Proms season being developed with Proms in the Park, Proms Chamber Music, Proms Lectures and Proms celebrating music from the worlds of jazz (there was a wonderful late night one last year with Wynton Marsalis hading up an excellent jazz orchestra last year), film and stage musicals. Plus Poetry Proms at the Serpentine Gallery and 'Composer Portraits' at the Royal College of Music alongside the ever-expanding series of Pre-Prom talks at the Royal Albert Hall. The wonderful thing, for those like the Husband and I who just cannot afford to travel to London to go to the Proms many, many times each season is that every single Proms concert is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and a fair number of concerts are televised as well.
There you are, and I haven’t even mentioned yet the Last Night of the Proms a splendiferous mixture of music and celebration, when everyone lets their hair down and when, in addition to other pieces of music, there are musical regulars like the Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 and Jerusalem and the audience sings like mad and flags are waved. The Last Night is televised all over the world and many in other countries may have seen it.
For more about the Proms you can go here and here.
4 comments:
Thanks for the explanation, Val. "Promenade" was all I could think of, but that still didn't mean anything to me. While we are defining terms for one another: Over here, Labor day is the first Monday in September.
I may copy some of your posting to send to some of the musical arts types in Wichita. The city/county are getting set to design and build a new arena, downtown. Wouldn't it be a fabulous idea to have something similar to your Proms? The late evening with Wynton Marsalis leading jazz musicians must have been a real treat. He and his clan are such great musicians--and know how to run a show! I've only heard the Marsalises on the radio.
Cop Car
Fascinating, and how fortunate for you that they are broadcast. We'd have the radio on every night.
We're on the outer ring of suburbs that surround Chicago, and it's just too much effort to deal with all the traffic and all the bodies to go in for concerts or clubs on a regular basis. We'd love this kind of set up.
Buffy
Where we live is quite a subject for us. I was brought up in the country and much prefer the slence of a country evening. The Husband, however, was brought up in the center of London. Where we live is very much a compromise: within walking distance of a (quite large) town and within easy distance of the city. Nevertheless I am very glad for the BBC and its broadcasts.
Don't forget, though, that you can hear every Proms broadcast yourselves from the BBC website. Try http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/listen/ and follow the links.
Since we use dial-up access to the internet, the download time is prohibitive to my enjoyment of a meaningful amount of BBC online. I do enjoy listening to their broadcasts on our local Public Radio station, at night; but, concerts are not included!
Cop Car
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