CBeebies Prom: A Magical Bedtime Story

CBeebies Prom: A Magical Bedtime Story

Royal Albert Hall

It's been a hot and sunny bank holiday Monday, though I have been working from home today, covering the fort. Not too stressful, with reduced hours of 10am-3pm, and it stays pretty cool in my old house. I haven't been running for a few days, so I do a 6k afterwards.

After all this, I am sitting comfortably in my tub chair, so I press play on BBC Sounds and today's Prom begins [a couple of hours behind the live schedule]. The Story Fairy is late and, not for the first time in my life, I'm wondering what I'm doing here [this is Taylor Swift all over again]. I think the story is that the story itself is lost, and we are on a quest to find it.

I giggle to myself, because the incidental music is actually reminding me of the Anglo-Amalgamated Carry On films. The orchestral music on those films was top notch as a matter of fact, but further to that I think we'll draw a discreet veil over the topic.

While I'm sure there's a captive audience at the Royal Albert Hall, somehow I'm struggling to imagine preschoolers being glued to Radio 3 at home. Maybe there's a catchment for those children who are being fed a deliberate diet of P.L. Travers, Michael Bond, and Beatrix Potter; as opposed to those on a more relaxed regimen of Cartoon Network and YouTube.

It's not long before I hear the beautiful opening of Grieg's Peer Gynt. I just love it: it's the epitome of springtime beauty expressed in music, and I think it's a great choice for introducing kids to classical music - well done whoever organised, I don't blame you for throwing that in! [This may well have been the first piece of classical music I ever became familiar with myself. I remember my parents had a CD of it, with a lilac flower on the front cover - might still have it somewhere.]

There follows a glorious roster including Pizzicato Polka by Strauss, Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison, and Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. Christ, the kids are getting better music than we adults are! But why not? In my humble opinion, the best way to get children engaged in classical music is to make it accessible in the first instance. Just play them the good stuff, and they'll enjoy it. One or two might even be sparked into learning more for themselves.

Personally, I would have paid good money to be there.

Pappano Conducts Puccini and Strauss

Pappano Conducts Puccini and Strauss
Royal Albert Hall

Tonight we've got a bit of opera! Two operas, in fact: 

1)  Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), by Richard Strauss

2) Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica) by Giacomo Puccini.

It's to be the first time Suor Angelica has been outed at the BBC Proms. But guess what... I've met her before! Yes, in 2019 I went to see a performance of Suor Angelica at St George's Hall concert room in Liverpool. Before that time I had never seen an opera before, so it was a bit of a bucket list job more than anything. (It was on a double-bill with Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, but it was the Suor Anglica I've remembered more, out of the two). They were performed by the North Wales Opera Company. Before tonight's Prom airs I have a root around to see if I can find the programme from the time, and I am successful - it's under my bed, amongst the mountains of other tour programmes and museum guidebooks I've hoarded over the years [It's times like these I glad I did - thank God for Ottoman storage!]. I even find my programme from Prom 48 at the RAH on 2016 - the one and only Prom I had attended before this year - I will add a photo and more about this, retrospectively, in my Introduction Blog from the start of the run.

But on to the music, and first up tonight is Die Frau Ohne Schatten, by Strauss. It starts off with some short, coarse tears on the lower brasses. Feels like a summons. The strings soon take over though, and it's a breath of fresh air. It's glorious! Repeating a simile I have already used, it's like wandering at leisure though a floral meadow. Lots of lilac, green, and yellow colouring. Is this a bout of musical synesthesia I've got? Yes, it's beautiful. It's majestic, but in a benign way, rather than the forceful way. Is it extroversion? I do think it is, now that I think back to that meadow. 

There's a bit of Mahler and Berio during the interval and, Oh My God, it's not that bad. Also a bit of Bach, never-a-bad-thing, on piano, to soothe us through.

Second half is Suor Angelica. What is there to say about it, really? Obviously it's a solitary piece, and that in itself is what makes it stick out to me. I have a read of my old programme from St George's Hall in 2019, and it offers me a 'plain English' synopsis of the tale - which follows through as I listen. It's a tragedy as old as time, and arguably even more tragic now than when it was first written. Because we, as modern listeners, are all too aware that that reconciliation with her son and Our Lady at the end, are nothing more than one final, pre-death hit of noradrenaline.

Strauss, Simpson, and Berlioz

General photo of the RAH by me. 

Just as last night, I enter the Royal Albert Hall via Radio 3 in my kitchen. Tonight, though, the microwave is unplugged and I am quietly preparing one of my ‘go to’ salads. 

We kick off with Strauss’s ‘Death and transfiguration’. The music itself seems pleasant enough (is that the point?). Just prior to tuning in this evening, the news of Ozzy Osbourne’s death popped up on my phone. All my social media feeds are awash with the news, and it is this that I have reverberating through my head. So - even if I cant sense the narcotic theme through the instrumentation - I’m still getting it. Add to this the pink-red staining on my hands and splatted all over my kitchen sink, as I drain the beetroot (not a euphemism).

Next up is the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s ZEBRA. And this is where it gets interesting for me, because it’s going to feature electric guitar - my own instrument! I’m a Clapton man myself, but I’m wondering if Sean Shibe’s playing is drawing influence from another of my guitar heroes, the late great Jeff Beck? Certainly sounds like; his playing is transcendent and I’m now starting to feel the hallucinogenics. 

I pick up a bit of Bladerunner philosophy during the interval, but not being familiar with the franchise (I know, I know… it’s on the list), this sadly falls on deaf ears.

Last but not least it’s the Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. I’m still a bit giddy from the electric guitar, and once again I’m struggling to catch on to the dark narcotic feel of this piece (sounds nice enough?!). More than anything though, I’m wondering why I haven’t heard of Berlioz before (thought he was a modern-day composer before looking him up - is that bad?)