Vision-free Last Night of the Proms 2017

Nina Stemme at the Last Night of the BBC Proms 2017. She was not the only one left open-mouthed by this year's Non-Event LNOP, which was as vision-free as most of the this year's season.  Formula works, to some extent. Stemme is such a megastar that even those who know zilch about music know who she is and that she does Wagner. So nil imagination  needed to make her do Brünnhilde while singing Rule Britannia. So no-one really goes to the Last Night for music. But Nina Stemme deserves better !  She's an artist not a cartoon.  A few years back, Roderick Williams did it in street clothes. That was infinitely more sincere and moving and more in the spirit of the anthem.  Dressing up is all very well, but it needs to be done with genuine flair and humour,  the way Juan Diego Florez did last year as Inca Prince and the skit on Paddington Bear as homeless immigrant. (Please read more here).  It's not Stemme's fault. It's the marketing philosophy behind the Proms these days that puts commercialism above music.

Formula is all very well and, thanks to formula, there were many good Proms this year, scattered around the crass detritus. Thanks to good performers who actually like music, not the suits behind formula.   How did the Royal Albert Hall get its name ?   The vision of a Prince who believed in excellence and learning.   Who created the Proms ? A man with vision who loved music and believed that ordinary people could appreciate serious music which wasn't dumbed down.   Instead, we're now locked into the "Ten Pieces" mentality, probably the worst case of moronic, musically illiterate goonishness ever. The first year, it was a gimmick but repeated and extended it's become a joke that's gone stale. Yet again, formula without vision.  Alan Davey  claimed "Don't apologise for classical music's complexity. That's its strength". So if he really believes that, why not act on it? For a start, the BBC should scrap the Ten Pieces groupthink and get rid of those behind it.

What makes the Last Night of the Proms so much fun is that it's when Prommers party.  Party, as in having fun, not party as in Party. As someone interviewed for the broadcast said "We Germans can't do that". They've seen where mass rallies and jingoism can lead.   Flag waving wasn't a LNOP tradition til fairly recently, and in principle, there's nothing wrong with it. But there's flag waving because you love your country, and flag waving as a form of passive aggression and intimidation. Again, hidden messages. Parry's Jerusalem arranged by Elgar, setting a poem by William Blake whose real meaning has been misappropriated.  Read more about that here. What's more, Parry's original version is more questioning than truculent. It might not go down well these days.\funny how

Funnyn how Nigerl Farage and his pals in the media are attacking those who handed out EU flags, while conveniently forgetting that Aron Banks, w2ho bankriolled Brexit and UKIP did the same stunt last year. 

What also makes the Last Night great is the sense of spontaneity and irreverence. This is why it responds so well to current affairs and social conscience.  The Conductor's Speech varies, but the best have been the ones which came from the conductor's heart.  That's why conductors need freedom. The job usually falls to the Chief of the BBC SO, the BBC's flagship orchestra, which works so hard all year around.  Sakari Oramo's a genial, engaging character, with integrity. No firebrand he.   But this year, he was reading a script so banal it sounded like it had been cobbled together by BBC management. All bullet points and mealy mouthed platitudes. Like the bit about women conductors. If the Proms really cared about women, why stick to one token conductor, moulded by Bernstein, whose speeches were self-promotion  as opposed to the common cause? Oramo is a good speaker because he's real.   Rumour had it that the political powers that be, in whose hands the BBC's fate lies, wanted to control the LNOP speech. And perhaps they did.

But if such politicians and those who influence them (to put it gently) were so secure in their beliefs, why would they feel threatened by Barenboim and Igor Levit?  We don't live in truly democratic times but in a world where those who control the media control minds and use their power to bypass parliamentary process and the very right to dissent.  Fact is, most people in the music business, and in the business world in general,  have experience dealing with the complexities  of the situation.  Regular Prommers, the ones who come all season for the music, not just for LNOP, often think on the same lines.  So why the fear? In a democracy, you live with alternatives, you don't suppress them.

Nice enough music, though the LNOP isn't really about music. Most memorable apart from Stemme's Liebestod, were Sibelius's Finlandia Hymn in the version made in 1941 with a text relevant to the war between Finland and Russia,  and Zoltán Kodály Budavári Te Deum with Lucy Crowe, Christine Rice, Ben Johnson (looking natty in a beard) and John Relyea.  Good stuff from the BBC Singers and BBC SO Chorus.   Much lesss edifying, though, tye pieces by Mlcolm SAargeant, w2ho was a great marketeer, and \John Adams, both of whom included to fulfill the obssession with formul themes, not for intrinsic musical value.

Many improvements this year in the physical management of the Proms, like not letting latecomers enter willy nilly, and exceptionally helpful ushers and security staff. The people at Door 9 in particular deserve praise, though praise from the public doesn't often get relayed down to the folks on the ground.  The presenters are less hyped-up, too, thank goodness, though some of the chat shows were dire. So many thanks to someone getting things as right as possible.  Hopefully those standards of excellence will apply in future to artistic policy and (dare I say) the Vision Thing.

Crossed wires? Proms downgrade the Vienna Philharmonic

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms ought to be top priority. One of the greatest orchestras in the world, and in Mahler, too,  with Daniel Harding , one of the most interesting conductors around.  So why has the BBC Proms Team shunted it aside by a whole hour to accommodate "The 2017 Winning poems inspired by Music in the Proms " ???  Strange priorities - not music. It's not even "about" poetry, which springs from inspired source but a game show - audience participation exploited to boost some management nerd's marketing targets. With all respect to those taking part, there is a world of difference between writing a poem about a  Prom and actually listening to music. Game show tactics to get people to listen to music? Top flight poetry, maybe but game  show spin-off?  Further evidence of the way BBC management downgrades music.  Why not put the poetry show at 630, so the music audience don't miss out if they turn up at 730 ?  Or put Andras Schiff at 845 instead of 930 so music lovers can attend both Proms, and still catch the bus home?

For years now, there's been no music on BBC Radio 3 after 10 pm, as if music people go to bed early.  Nuts ! By definition, concert goers are nightbirds. It;'s what we do.  Some of the most interesting music on BBC R3 is late night broadcast, which fortunately we can access anytime online. Now the BBC's talking about taking "slow radio" to a "new level"  Please read Catherine Bennett "Slow radio is a silly idea"one of the sharpest pieces Guardian culture's done in years   Analytical thinking, instead of the pap that passes for journalism these days. 

Sure, life is too frantic, but mindless vacuousness is not the answer. I loved Aldeburgh's Messiaen bird marathon last year  but that at least had a point. "Slow radio" as envisaged by BBC Radio 3 is mindless corporate muddlespeak taken to a new level   Ambient sound recordings do exist (I have some from my New Age years) but they're pointless unless you choose to listen, when you can't do stuff in the real world.  In any  case, good serious music can transport you to another plane very effectively indeed. Maybe BBC Radio 3 people should try it sometime, instead of chasing gimmicks and marketing fallacies. But after this year's Proms, I suspect that, while some at the BBC Proms Team like music, some at BBC Radio 3 do not. 

Manipulating the Reformation - political bias at the BBC?

From St John's Smith Square a very good concert marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, with soloists Mary Bevan, Robin Blaze, Nicholas Mulroy and Neal Davies, with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and Clare Baroque, conducted by Graham Ross. Works by Bach and Mendelssohn and Martin Luther himself, but also by non-believers like Brahms and Ralph Vaughan Williams.  Excellent programme and performances.  But far less admirable was the deliberate political bias with which the BBC packaged the concert and indeed, the whole concept of Reformation.  

The Reformation was a revolution in European history, definitely worth commemorating.  But it was not "Martin Luther's Reformation" as if he dreamed it up on whim.  Christianity always was schismatic, but this break succeeded because social conditions were changing.  The development of printing, for example.  Intellectuals like Erasmus and Linacre were changing attitudes.  When Luther posted his 95 theses on the doors of the church at Wittenberg, he was not starting a new religion. The Reformation took off because it was politically expedient, and exploited as leverage by kings and princes. We should mark the Reformation, but we should also see it in the wider context of cultural change, rather than as a calculating power grab. 

So why does the BBC package the Reformation as "a Brexit Moment"? A stupid comparison, demeaning to religion, and to the millions who have died for their faith on all sides.   AN Wilson says that "Protestantism was the first great Eurosceptic thing, the setting up of local power bases against a shared wisdom." which is true to some extent, but disregards the Pax Romana which brought civilization to the tribes of the north. Or perhaps some people don't want to be reminded of the Sack of Rome by "barbarians" and the dark centuries of ignorance that followed ?  "Breaking Free", indeed. 

For centuries after the Reformation, Europe was torn apart by wars, using religion as an excuse.   There was no universal consensus, nor should there have been, since society isn't monolithic, except through  repressive coercion.  Democracy is an ideal which recognizes that no-one has to think the same thing. Otherwise there wouldn't be a need for representation and discourse, or checks and balances against abuses of power. Absolute control is the opposite of democracy. Leaders who fear opposition become dictators.  There is a difference between winning elections and good governance.

The sad fact is that the media can manipulate opinion, thereby destroying the fundamentals of democratic process. An institution as big as the BBC can't help but have some bias, but when bias becomes so pronounced, it no longer reflects the fact that not everyone thinks the same way, nor should have to.  That is why the BBC needs to be more scrupulous, since it should be responsible to the nation as a whole.  British identity draws strength from concepts like fairplay and tolerance, even diversity.  Values that reflect Jesus's teachings : "Love thy neighbour as thyself". These tenets are the fundamentals of democracy.  Will the BBC be able to stand up to political and commercial pressure? For the sake of this nation, I pray.

Mumbo Jumbo Mantras at the BBC Proms

What's really going on behind the scenes at BBC Radio 3 and at the Proms?  Before cheering the end of TV-themed Proms like DrWho, Cbeebies etc etc, let's look analytically behind the maudlin platitudes. So Alan Davey, head of BBC R3, has finally twigged that "new" audiences aren't necessarily Proms audiences?  What a revelation!  The "theory: that you get people into the Albert Hall and they see what it’s like and that it’s actually quite nice, and they come back for something else.” is mumbo jumbo mantra,  mindlessly repeated to numb dumb minds.

Since people go to the Royal Albert Hall all year round, for all kinds of events, why should they be afraid of the building?  That's supposition without substance.  It's not houses that scare the punters but perceptions based on falsehood, like "elitism" which the nonsense mantra stupidly reinforces.  The success of Proms in the Park should be evidence that people can have a good time with classical music, of a sort, whatever the situation, without downgrading core product?
 
Given that classical music can be accessed in more ways now than ever before, why should physical attendance be a prerequisite? Didn't someone at the BBC realize that they broadcast worldwide and online, or don't they tell each other ?  That is the "new" audience for classical music, potentially greater than ever before. But policymakers are trapped in the Stone Age of "bums on seats".  The government, and Arts Council England, are straitjacketed into geographical, small-scale thinking that bears little relation to reality.  All over Europe, orchestras, opera houses and concert promoters are wise to the fact that technology reaches bigger potential audiences. And audiences who have more choice are more sophisticated, less easily fooled by gimmick marketing. The way ahead is not dumb down but smart-up.  That's why top-quality new concert halls have been opened in centres of excellence like Paris and Berlin: the Philharmonie de Paris, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin,  and La Seine Musicale.  Even Hamburg, a little off  the beaten track, has raised its game with the Elbphilharmonie.  Some may gloat that we don't need a world-class concert hall in the UK. But culture is global industry: being Luddite is Little Britain blindness.

And why pick on the Dr Who and CBeebies Proms, which were so successful they sold out fast, providing income for other things?  Those were fun and surprisingly high quality, like the Science Prom a few years back. Nothing wrong with a populist tag, as long as the music is well chosen and well performed.  And that's where the new announcement shows its flaws.  Does someone, somewhere, like trash as long as it doesn't promote the BBC?

There arre plenty of non-BBC brand gimmicks this season.  A lot of Proms , even those with mainstream classical music, seem aimed at audiences who don't care much about music, and are easily fobbed off by big names and safe repertoire.  John Wilson, light music, film music, are all OK in small doses,  but not elevated to canonic status.  How will the "sensory" Prom work for people with disabilities when the Royal Albert Hall itself is not at all disability-friendly. A significant part of the core audience, many of whom have  who have dedicated a lifetime to the Proms, are now excluded because basic facilities are so inadequate.   Even the website's annoying. They've even killed the composer search section in the Proms archive !

The over-riding philosophy seems to be that whoever is making policy has neither faith in the core product, serious music, nor faith in the ability of audiences to discern the difference between trash and treasure.  This is absolutely not what Sir Henry Wood stood for. But the new Regime blithely uses his name for self-promotion and flogs the anodyne Ten Pieces mentality instead. Ten Pieces was a joke once: now it's too moronic to bear.  It's a symptom of the lemming-like rush towards mindless stupidity.

The real problem lies not with the Proms and the BBC but a whole cultural dumbing down, enshrined in Government policy towards the arts and towards the BBC. I've written about this many times over the years (follow the labels below on arts policy, BBC  policy, music education, etc etc).  The Elephant in the Room ? Political agendas, not economic reality.   The arts are a big part of this country's economic success and international status.  The arts aren't cheap because excellence is always hard to attain. But everyone benefits when a nation has a thriving arts culture.  The BBC and the arts do more for British prestige and foreign policy than goonish sabre rattlers and the cultivation of dubious allies.  Mess up the arts and mess up big time.  Witness the demise of the ENO and the denigration of London as a whole.  So what is really going on?

We live in an age of Trojan Horse Policies, everywhere and in many fields. People are manipulated into "taking back control"  while handing over control to vested interests whose concerns have little to do with good governance or even public benefit.  We need to face the fact that many would be delighted to see the BBC scrapped because it competes with private interests. But if private interests are so great, why are they so afraid of competition?  The idea that culture is part of civilization prevails:  the Royal Albert Hall stands as a monument to an enlightened age where policymakers had faith in the ability of ordinary people to progress through knowledge. Unfortunately, market forces operate for the benefit of whoever profits by fair means or foul.  Market forces can be manipulated, against the wider interests of the community.  Some ideals that we cherish, like public health, education, the arts and the environment,  need communal involvement.  When  market forces become mantra,  the minority profit at the expense of the majority. Market forces are a political construct, and not necessarily good for the wider economy. 

Practical and important improvements : BBC Proms 2016 Post Mortem

Now the Royal Albert Hall is quiet, though the cleaners and maintenance people are busy, let's take stock of the BBC Proms 2016 season and look ahead. The Proms are so big that plans are made many years in advance - that's the way the business work.  No doubt the figures will show good sales, which will please politicians and bureaucrats. But success isn't measured solely in terms of statistics.   Short-term targets are all very well, and box-ticking, but what of the longer-term future? Will the Proms honour the musical ideals of Sir Henry Wood or will they become a giant commercial splash promoting anything but serious music? 

First, kaput to the mantra that the Proms have to be all things to everyone. Proms for kids, Proms for minority interests, etc etc are a very good thing indeed.  Even party-time gimmicks have their place - that's why we love the Last Night of the Proms. But any business that loses sight of its USP goes down the tubes.  In the case of the BBC, that's a real danger given the competition from vested outside interests.  A few years ago, many moaned about the Michael Ball Prom. It brought in new audiences, yes, but not the core Proms audience, but audiences who thought that by hearing Ball at the RAH they "knew" about music.  Now, nivellement par le bas become the norm.  Even the Children's Prom, which not long ago was so good that even adults could enjoy it , is now more about being cute than getting kids enthused.  Will these kids grow up thinking that serious music is poison that must be coated in sugar? I know someone who was taken to the Proms at schools and hated the experience so much that she's assumed ever since that music is for middle-class toffs pretending to be Right On.  My friend, and many of her friends, are not fools. They can spot condescension a mile away.  Sir Henry Wood believed that ordinary people were capable of learning.  Now, those who make arts policy seem ashamed of excellence, trapping us in a counter-productive downward spiral.  

It's all very well to chaase new audiences, for that is the current mantra. But face demographics, and face the global market for the arts.  Through technology, the BBC Proms can reach millions all over the world.  In places like Asia - potentially the biggest market of all - people are brought iup to value cultivation. they look to the BBC as a beacon of high standards. Give them too much parochial drivel and lose their attention. 

Anecdotal evidence is that many Proms regulars are cutting down on what they attend. Driving  away the core audience is bad business : killing the goose that laid the golden eggs in the first place.  Although one could cultivate the proms as fun for tourists, the fact is that the British public is ageing. This year, I've witnessed many problems for people with disabilities. I don't know if the Royal Albert Hall,is exempt from normal Health and Safety regulations, but surely there must be ways for the BBC to make things fairer for those who can't leap up stairs and stand in the arena.  One obvious and very simple solution: keep seats with easy access for people with disabilities, so people with special needs can book ahead, knowing that they will be able to use seats that currently have to be booked blind.   One man told me how difficult it is just to come to the RAH, and then be turned away. Better even, he saiud, to spend a bit more than lose so much.  Not everyone who is disabled is in a wheelchair or is registered blind or whatever, but people have a right to come to the Proms and be treated with dignity. If these reserved seats don't sell close to date, then sell them openly. It can't be that difficult.  

Part of being a presenter is the ability to adlib while stages are being changed and so on, and that's a skill!  But it would help if the presenters were briefed and not just off Wikipedia.  Proms interval features vary : one of the best this year - by far - was the shepherd who spoke during the prom that featured Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Someone with something genuinely interesting to say, not just a motormouth. Also, as a voice person, I can vouch that at least one presenter needs a voice coach.  Take breaths for punctuation, don't let your voice squeak higher and higher , faster and faster, calm down and be natural.  Hysteria might be fine on some forms of radio (like sports), but it pains audiences who listen  to pitch and modulation. 

Is the BBC serious about women conductors ? Xian Zhang BBC NOW

Is the BBC serious about women conductors? Xian Zhang has just been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

 Gender should not be an issue at all, since no-one conducts with their anatomy,. As long as the person conducting does the job well, all else is irrelevant.

No-one good, anyway, would fall back on gender to get ahead. Xian Zhang is good and, to her credit, stayed out of the silly media circus surrounding women conductors. Ultimately that circus is a hypocritical scam. Understanding what makes a conductor good involves a bit of musical nous and taste.  So it's much easier for the media to fall back on gender  stereotypes. Ultimately that harms the cause.  This media circus creates tokenism, which ultimately harms the cause of women in the industry. There are good women conductors around  who don't deserve to be ignored because they aren't media darlings. In any case  conducting means not a thing to millions of ordinary women all over the world who suffer poverty, abuse, and hardship every day of their lives. The media focus on women conductors is a white middle class male-oriented construct, which ignores wider issues. It's shameful that some women are drawn into a debate which is actually anti-women.

Xian Zhang has built a solid career throughout Europe, and is Chief Conductor at the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (Laverdi). Despite its name and home town, it's not, strictly speaking, an opera orchestra. Founded in 1993, its repertoire is broad and wide ranging. She's been working with BBC NOW for several years: they're an orchestra which has improved considerably since the appointment of Thomas Søndergård. She's been a part of this revitalization, which is why she's got the job.

Is the BBC really serious about women conductors though ?  Getting Marin Alsop to conduct the Last Night of the Proms the first time was a good idea, helped a lot  by Joyce DiDonato's visionary commitment. But to do the same thing a second time ?  Like a stale joke, it falls flat on repeat. There are good women conductors around who could do the job with style - Susanna Mälkki, for example - but they're not going to get the chance while BBC management thinks in media clichés. Thank goodness that BBC NOW can recognize quality when they hear it. 

Why Opera Europa's Platform matters

Opera Europa, in conjunction with arte.tv, has launched an Opera Platform, streaming live opera from all over Europe. The Berlin Phiharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall has brought Berlin to the world. Is this where the future of classical music lies? Media and funding agency obsessions with crude measures like bums on seats and regional outreach are rendered pretty meaningless.

Opera Europa represents 155 opera houses and festivals in Europe, promoting co-operation and development, mainly between houses,. . Arte.tv, supported by French and German broadcasters, has been streaming opera and music for years, which is one of the reasons why some performances are blocked outside Europe. Arte.tv  operates like a normal online TV channel, with news, sports, pop, movies etc Medici.tv is already the world's biggest collection of classical music: I have no idea why Opera Europa didn't go through medici.tv which already showcases festivals like Lucerne and Aix., and is an indispensable resource.  

HERE is the link to this year's Opera Platform  streams, which will also be broadcast in 15 cinemas.  Quick link here.  For the launch yesterday, La Traviata (with the divine Ermonela Jaho)  from Madrid, but the real coup (on 16th May) might be the Royal Opera House's Szymanowski Król Roger which I've reviewed HERE.  This is a sensationally good production of an opera which holds a crucial place in music history - the equivalent of Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande, Béla Bartók Duke Bluebeard's Castle , Schoenberg Ewartung and Berg Lulu.   While the Nazis, Communists and Catholic Church in Poland didn't like Król Roger, there's absolutely no reason for English-speaking audiences (particularly London music critics) not to be aware of it. Thirty years ago, when Poland was still Communist, Simon Rattle recorded all of Szymanowski's orchestral work, including the opera. There have been numerous productions since. Two books in English on Szymanowski and many more in Polish. Opera Platform will stream in French, German and English  If it does nothing else at least it will break English-language insularity. 

On 24th May, Sibelius Kullervo from Helsinki.This is important, because it's choreographed by Tero Saarinen.  Kullervo isn't an opera so much as a tone poem with voices, so it's rarely dramatized.  In Finland, music, opera and ballet play a much bigger role in ordinary life than in most other places, like the UK.  Sibelius is of course a kind of god. Saarinen's dance company is brilliant: the production enhances the music beautifully. Highly recommended: Please read my review HERE.   Kullervo is being performed at the BBC Proms this year, and also at the Edinburgh International Festival, but I think we can be pretty safe saying that this innovative, creative Kullervo will be the best of the lot. Saraste conducts, also a plus.

To come : Valentina by Arrturs Maskats from Opera Riga, Götterdämmerung from the Vienna State Opera (Simon Rattle),  Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Aix-en-Provence, features on Pesaro and Aldeburgh, on Den Norske Opera and on Teatro Regio Torino.

Although the Opera Platform isn't big enough to compete with Medici.tv, it's a good, new platform (literally) for promoting European opera, particularly from smaller houses which might not have the resources to do so on their own.  By offering quality and variety of choice, the market is developed in a much more organic way.   The BBC has attempted to emulate arte.tv and medici.tv, but its fundamental approach is too limited, too simplistic and too non-musical to be of much use. In a digital era, people can choose and think for themselves. The BBC just doesn't get it.

What's really ahead for BBC Radio 3 ?

On Thursday, the BBC Trust published a review of BBC Music stations (full document here). So what really does the future hold for BBC Radio 3?

It's striking how much commercial competitors have had an impact on the Trust's recommendations. Hence "Action 9"  which recommends for BBC Radio 3: "While individual programme and scheduling decisions are for BBC Radio not the Trust, we think that the priority for Radio 3 should be to increase choice for radio listeners by maximising its distinctiveness and minimising similarities with other stations". What does that mean, translated into plain English?

Although it's essential that the BBC is up to date on the market as a whole, that does not mean that competitors should dictate what the BBC does. Rupert Murdoch might not like what the BBC does but he doesn't, as yet, decide the agenda. Thank goodness that the BBC Trust isn't making recommendations on news provision, or sports. "Distinctiveness" means many things. In theory one could interpret this as meaning more esoteric, adventurous programming, but that would go against the whole way BBC Radio 3 has been heading for several years.. Does this mean scrapping the whole policy of de-specialization, when Radio 3 is run by those who espouse the mindless pabulum of "Ten Pieces" and the like? So it's much more likely that what the "Action" means is that commercial stations get priority and BBC Radio 3 gets the scraps that Classic FM does not want. When Classic FM started, it wasn't competition for the BBC but now it decides what BBC Radio 3 can and can't do?

Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England, was until recently the boss at Classic FM, while the head of BBC Radio 3, Alan Davey, has a background, not in radio or even in music but as a bureaucrat at ACE.  There have even been murmurings in some quarters that BBC Radio 3's cherished bandwith be changed, which should also serve to kill Radio 3's competitive edge.   So what is the way ahead for BBC Radio 3? I should like to see a return to serious music values, and the integrity that made BBC Radio 3 great  because it is Britain's Cultural Ambassador to the whole world, a position even more significant with new digital technology. Classic FM remains, and will remain, no more distinctive than any other local radio station. Fundamentally,  it's BBC Radio 3 that should be ring fenced, not downgraded.  Public money has been invested building up BBC Radio 3, s it's not smart to prioritize to private interests.  The photo above is George Orwell, addressing The Third Programme. Have his predictions come to, pass?

James MacMillan’s Inés de Castro

James MacMillan’s Inés de Castro, revised and revived with the Scottish Opera, Edinburgh.  Read Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph here.  The romance of Inés and Pedro has inspired works of art for centuries.  Horrified by adultery (and its political consequences) the King of of Portugal had  Inés's head cut off, reputedly in front of her children (his grandchildren). There are stories that Pedro had her exhumed, and her corpse crowned in a semi-Satanic ceremony.  Nice Catholic kids studying Camões learned not only about great love but also about lust, murder and the macabre,

 The photos show the tombs of Pedro and Inés in the Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça. Even the setting is dramatic. The tombs are in what seems to be a spartan, empty wing of the main building, reflecting  the desolation Pedro must have felt. Then, as you come close, the sculptures, among the finest in all Europe, reveal their glories. You could spend hours studying the detail and imagery. The romance is depicted, its tragedy, and its moral epilogue: souls descending into hell.  

I've wanted to hear MacMillan's Inés de Castro for twenty years  but short of travelling to Scotland, what's the chance   This is where the idea of a nationally aware arts organization (even if London based)  comes into play. Scottish Opera, no matter how hard it tries, can't hope to reach the rest of Britain on its own. MacMillan is one of the major names in British music, and his music is readily accessible.  This would be a chance for the BBC to deliver on Tony Hall's promise of making it a major force for the arts.  

But what do we actually get when we turn to the flagship BBC Arts ? There's a short clip of MacMillan talking about the opera, which is very useful, but no substitute for the music. Without context, it's pretty much meaningless.  The BBC Arts homepage is barely more than a collection of random clips.  The Space, its predecessor,  failed because it was disastrously mismanaged.  If the French and Germans can do umbrella arts web channels why can't the British? The BBC is in a better position to do this than anyone else, even if it drives Rupert Murdoch crazy, but it seems to have lost the plot, and learned nothing from the mess The Space descended to. 
 

What's happened to Christmas TV and Radio ?

What's happened to Christmas radio and TV? In years past there would be at least something vaguely musical, but this year zilch but for re-runs of the least musical Proms ever.  What does that tell us about the BBC? Admittedly BBC Radio 3 is doing re-runs of Schwarzenberg's summer festival, but the same artists and programmes feature at the Wigmore Hall in London anyway. Not all that long ago there'd always be something interesting, like the year there were TWO complete Wagner Rings. It's as if the BBC has finally given up any pretence of culture.

But the real scandal isn't the dearth of Christmas broadcasting but the total lack of vision in arts policy. Replacing real music with drivel like "Ten Pieces" doesn't spread awareness. Quite the contrary. Even non-classical music audiences aren't so stupid as to think that centuries of culture can be a few pieces chosen by backroom bureaucrats. Even pop music playlists show more verve. By driving away the existing body of listeners, and trivializing the genre so it looks dumb even to non-classical audiences, the new BBC will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Don't feed your dog alcohol or mince pies!

At a time when technology is changing the whole way culture (in the widest sense) is being delivered, it is frightening how little vision lies behind the new BBC. Things are changing so fast that even ideas like HD in cinemas has had its day. I've written a lot about the future of classical music and its possible new outlets, so it breaks my heart to read the level of sycophantic non debate in the press.  London is dominant in the arts for many good reasons. It just doesn't make business sense to wreck one of the few great industries this country can still be proud of. And it's an international industry, too, that does as much for the nation as foreign policy or diplomacy. But British bureaucrats don't do vision. Alas, with a new head of BBC Radio 3 with no experience in the industry and management that thinks in terms of Classic FM, we don't have much hope. Fortunately the future may well lie beyond big corporations and similar dinosaurs if they mess things up..

God only knows what's wrong with BBC Music

Massive hype about the launch of BBC Music. All BBC "platforms" (whatever that might mean in real English) united to play a 3 minute video  The video doesn't actually say what BBC Music is and where it's heading, but that nothingness might be in itself a cryptic clue.

Maybe the producers are revealing more than the BBC bigwigs realize. This video is spectacular, so extravagant you'd think money was flowing like water from an inexhaustable fountain.  It's as if the BBC is sneering at the very idea of financial accountability at a time when it ought to be taking into account calls for prudence.  It's an insult to all who genuinely care about the BBC and about music. If  the faceless suits behind BBC Music really cared about music, the least they could have done would be to put resources into commissioning an original theme tune, rather than rehashing a Beach Boys hit from 40 years ago.So much for any commitment to Britain and British talent. Lots of celebrities appear, each for a few seconds, no doubt being paid big money. Yet many of them have passed their creative prime. If BBC Music wants to be relevant to wider audiences, why pitch to a relatively irrelevant group of 70's retreads?

Maximum expense for nil content, whatsoever. To find out what BBC Music really means you have to search around. Follow this link to see what BBC Music plans for classical music (I can't comment on pop and other genres).  Yikes ! short clips from past broadcasts, randomly chosen . No artistic input, but rather the demented dumbing down of the "Ten Pieces" mindset. Please see my article "BBC Ten Pieces : Motherhood and Poisoned Apple Pie". It's bad enough to devise a dopey (and arbitrary) playlist. But to base the whole BBC Music aesthetic on this banality is a crime against art.  What's happened to the mission statement to "educate,, inform and entertain" ?  The policy seems to have been dreamed up by middle-aged, middle-class suits who assume that young people are too stupid to like anything that's not loud and brash.  The real danger is that such narrow-minded rigidity is inherently opposed to the  richness that makes the arts worthwhile. Creativity thrives on imaginations, individuality and freedom of expression. The BBC Ten Pieces are like a Stalinist Five Year Plan, created by committees who think the arts are units of consumer  product.

When Tony Hall announced his vision for the BBC I hoped that, with his experience, he might stand up to the anonymous group-think that characterizes the Arts Council England, and its ties to gravy trains like the Cultural Olympiad of 2012. Plenty of money was poured into that scheme, though nearly all the events it claimed credit for would have happened anyway, without any connection to the Olympiad organization. About the only thing it did achieve were the entertainments for the ceremonies around the sporting events. Are the people involved connected.  BBC Music is being launched with the same style: extravagant entertainment but almost no artistic substance. That would be OK if the BBC were just another branch of the Murdoch empire, but it's not.

Tony Hall unveiled his vision for the future in two keynote announcements which I've written about here and here. I worried about the bullet point presentation style but thought it was simply PR bad taste. But I wonder now if the medium was the message, ie that the banality represented banal  conceptual thinking.  Crucial to this non-vision was the creation of a new level of management. In principle, that's not a big deal as long as the people involved are imaginative, but it seems that what we'll actually get might be über-suit apparatchiks who don't actually know the difference between corporate think and real thinking.

The new head of BBC Music is Bob Shennan. He's not a classical music man, which is perfectly fair enough. His ambit is to keep all the different special interest groups in balance. All the more reason why it's worrying that the new head of BBC Radio 3, Alan Davey, has a background in bureaucracy. He's the former head of the Arts Council England and, before that, worked for for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Department of Health. The vague, mealy-mouthed ACE Ten year plan was developed under his watch, so it's definitely worth looking critically at that document "Great Art and Culture for Everyone". Harriet Harman's views on the supposed "elitism" of the arts and punitive funding derive therefrom.  To his credit, the present Secretary for Culture, Sajid  Javid,  hasn't said much at all. But Harman might get into power next year. The triumvirate between Harman, the new BBC Regime and ACE would be formidable. The press, unfortunately, is neither analytical nor objective. Charlotte Higgins wanted Alan Rusbridger to head the Royal Opera House, and now wants Tom Service to head the Proms (notwithstanding his time at Huddersfield) and welcomes Davey.

God Only Knows what the future holds. The flashy video alone is an argument for curtailing the licence fee, for it's proof that the BBC places extravagance over substance. This new banalification of the BBC dovetails with wider social and political pressures to diminish the arts, to turn from individualism, creativity and innovation to bland corporate non-thinking.  No amount of spreadsheet clevernesscan ever replace real creative wusdom. And certainly not an expensive pop video mindset.

Red herrings - why the BBC drops new music

An article popped up in the Guardian just before 6 pm today, titled "Why does the BBC assume its audience won't like new music?" It deals with the fact that Harrison Birtwistle's Sonance Severance has been dropped from the BBC TV 4 broadcast of Prom 33. Hang on! Before jumping on the sackcloth and ashes bandwagon, try a bit of common sense.

First, Birtwistle's piece is only three minutes long, dates from way back and isn't a particularly crucial part of his output.  The really important part of this Prom broadcast is Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra, a  significant milestone in modern music. Not knowing who Lutoslawski is, would be a much greater scandal.

Second, it's taken the Guardian a while to twig onto the story, which I first ran on 11th August, titled "Why the Proms musical apartheid on BBC TV?" The Guardian uses almost the same title, but my piece is more detailed. Read my article in full here. 

Third, let's think critically  If we really care about new music, we should be looking not at TV but at the new music being performed in the first place. BBC TV4 is a generalist channel,  it's not aimed at cutting edge. It's like blaming Aldi for not stocking Beluga caviar. TV coverage of the Proms this year hasn't been as good as it used to be for various reasons, but that's a separate issue.

If we're going to talk about new music, at least we could understand what new music is. The two composers Daniel Barenboim featured in his Prom were pleasant enough, but won't change music history. They deserve credit, but shouldn't be used as footballs in a game they're not  playing.  The real crux of the matter is why the BBC needs to programme music that's too  bland to be original.  I've written a lot about the poor quality of new music this season many times, so search this site. By dropping some of the "new" music from TV, the BBC is doing some composers a huge favour.

Why is this year's "new" music so dull? The Proms audience is the biggest audience in the world. The bigger the audience, the higher the number of those who think they can't cope with what they don't know.  Because the BBC (and the arts in general) are under attack for being "elitist", they have to conform.

The trouble with art is that it's created by artists, not marketers. I don't believe that audiences are necessarily anti-innovation.  But public opinion is shaped by the media,  by politicians who play people off each other and, alas, by an increasingly vocal minority who espouse the musical equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church. If we genuinely care about new music, the real issue we should be addressing is not red herrings like BBC TV4 but much wider issues..

Why the Proms musical apartheid on BBC TV?

From Roger Thomas : "Something very puzzling is happening in BBC TV's coverage of the 2014 Proms. Although the concert items that the BBC labels as New Works are included in their original context in the live (but broadcast on a later date than the actual performance) TV screenings on BBC2 and BBC4, they are excised when the concerts eventually – there are delays compared with previous years when repeats were available almost immediately – appear on BBC iPlayer. Perhaps the delayed appearances on iPlayer are themselves a result of the extra editing involved in this surgery.
 
 If you want to view the New Works again (often a good strategy with a new work anyway) you have to search out the special snippet programmes on the iPlayer index page (something that some might find daunting). Since loading these New Works has been so delayed, there have been quite reasonable complaints elsewhere on the internet from users who thought that some of the New Works had been“censored” by the BBC and had been lost for a repeat viewing altogether. They weren't a million miles off the mark, but I prefer the apartheid simile myself – these works have been banished from the city centre to a township in the suburbs. BBC TV has at last caught up with itself in this resettlement process. So the New Works by Quigang Chen, Roxanna Panufnik, Jonathan Dove and John McLeod (new? – published in 2000 and first performed in 2001) are now available if you are prepared to search them out. 

But there is a wider issue. Why? Is the BBC ashamed of these works (some of which it has commissioned or jointly commissioned and therefore paid for, with licence payers' money). Or does it feel that it will drive away viewers if they are left in their original context – perhaps in some instances a concert planned with some thematic coherence? The New Works are of course of varying degrees of quality and accessibility, but the same could be said of many “Old Works” performed at the Proms. If a 14-year-old work such as McLeod's The Sun Dances is considered too challenging to be broadcast in its concert context beyond the first viewing, where  is the line to be drawn? After all, audiences have found much new music baffling when it was first performed: not just Sacre du Printemps, but even Elgar's second symphony, most of Mahler and, presumably, Beethoven. To stray off the main point, all this also perhaps explains why Oliver Knussen's marvellous long succession over the years of BBC SO Proms featuring out-of-the-mainstream and “new” (or newish) works has been broken, with his banishment to Cadogan Hall in 2014.

Some Prom audiences obviously find new music an unwelcome diversion from an easy-listening life. One misguided columnist in a reputable journal recently described it as “the programmers’ equivalent of cod liver oil, the bit they put in every [sic] concert to keep you in touch with new work, which is Good For You and must be taken along with the cake and jam”. Misguided not least because to boost her argument the columnist invented a work that had never been played at the Proms and had indeed never been written: Elliott Carter's Organ Concerto. The BBC shouldn't encourage such attitudes. It has a fine record for commissioning new music. It's time for a rethink on broadcasting strategy"

Good points! Knussen's at Cadogan Hall because he's doing chamber music. But what is "new" music, anyway? There's a huge difference between music thats been recently written and music that is genuinely original . Alas, the BBC seems to go for the former rather than the latter. Maybe they need to placate politicians who think mass appeal is more important than art. Most of the "new" music this season, with a few exceptions like Harrison Birtwistle, Simon Holt and Sally Beamish, has been pretty banal., and I've listened to nearly all, though I could not face Gabriel Prokofiev. (I did hear snippets.) (To be frank, I think that the BBC is doing some composers a favour by not highlighting their work. Some pieces are so bad they should be disowned to save reputations.)

Music is not like mince or ground beef, where any old bits can be mixed up together and regurgitated as new product. Sure, many people like mince. It's successful, whole fast-food chains flourish. But it's not good for you.

This sort of un-new new music only reinforces the idea that anything new is bad. As my friend has pointed out, most people who hate new music have no idea what they are talking about. But if the BBC takes that lot seriously, we're lost.

A few years ago I went to Aldeburgh, where a coachload of elderly people had come for Bach Mass in B minor. They were early, so many of them sat in on a masterclass with Pierre Boulez. He won them over. He was the same age as most of them, and started by talking about how grim the post-war years were when there were paper shortages, no printed scores, no LPs, no concerts. Then he explained why he got into music. He listened to everything he could, from early music to Webern. He didn't like it all, but he listened.  The main thing, he said, was not to create barriers. Then he went on to explain the piece of the evening in simple human terms. The Bach Mass crowd listened with rapt attention. Perhaps it was different to what they were used to, but they listened. Some even found that they liked it. Afterwards, some came up and warmly shook Boulez's hand.  

The Forgotten Soldiers of Empire

If you do only one thing to remember the First World War do this : watch David Olusoga's powerful documentary Martial Races on BBC i-player (link here)  This opens up a whole new dimensions which many British people know nothing about. We're never going to appreciate the magnitude of 1914-1918 until we appreciate its world-wide significance.

Did Empire save Britain and France? Could they have won the war without using colonial nations?  A million African, Indian, Black American and Chinese people took part, some fighting front line in the trenches, others supplying the back-up labour without which no army can survive. Hundreds of thousands died, and each man left behind a family and a community. These men didn't march off to war cheering. They were not volunteers, but men trapped by circumstances. In Africa and Asia, people were so poor that men would join up from sheer desperation.  Many of the Africans were rounded up by agents and chained. Slaves, not jolly volunteers fighting for a cause.

These men were simple peasants who didn't know much past their own villages, far less about the world. Thousands had never worn shoes in their lives. Suddenly they had to wear heavy, ill-fitting army boots and live in damp trenches.Nowadays even in remote areas people have TV, internet and mobile phones, even a smattering of education. A hundred years ago, these peasants might as well have been rocketed into space, so alien was the environment they found themselves in. Even now there are dozens of different language groups in Africa and Asia. A hundred years ago men from diffrerent villages might not speak the same dialect. Suddenly they're all thrown together, with hardly anyonen to talk to.

The concept of  "Lesser breeds" underpinned Imperialist thinking. The West didn't colonialize for love. Social change and modernization were side effects, not goals. Olusoga reads from British Army records which describe the different communities of the Indian subcontinent as if they were breeds of dogs or horses. Unpleasant as these things are, we need to acknowledge them if we're  to move on.

1914-1918 was a world war, with global causes and global consequences. It came about in many ways as a continuation of colonial rivalry. The British and the French grabbed colonies first, excluding the Germans, Japanese and Americans.  1914-18 didn't happen because some Serb shot an archduke. In the Middle East, the Germans (and their allies the Turks) were struggling with the Russians and British for control of oil fields. Then, as now. And so the British and French used their "resources" in the form of human fodder.

Olusoga's documentary is meticulously well researched and presented. This is the kind of exceptional high quality that the BBC was once known for. Most of this material is well documented in academic circles, but there's  material here that's never been seen in public before. Olusoga makes it human and personal.  To understand our present we need to understand our past. This series is very, very important.

Help wanted - BBC

Details of a job at the BBC: Radio 3. Read more here. Anyone who doesn't know the specs shouldn't apply. Chances are, in any case, it's a headhunter deal. As it says in the ad, don't apply to the website but to the recruitment consultants. 

In any case, it's not so much the person as the political climate he or she will have to contend with. Will we get a corporate crawler? Much more likely than someone with flair or imagination. Roger Wright was hamstrung by forces greater than himself. If anything these pressures are even greater now. Good people can't work in environments that place bean counting and political correctness above creativity. The knives after Roger Wright were sharp enough to cut him down but not sharp enough to know how the business really works. Congratulations, "Friends" of BBC Radio 3. Worse may well happen.

Joined Up BBC Arts- Tony Hall's vision

Director-General of the BBC Tony Hall announced today his vision for the "biggest push we’ve made in the arts for a generation. There’ll be more arts on the BBC than ever before.....  I want Arts and Music to be as recognised with the BBC as BBC News is."

Read the full text of hs speech here. There's nothing specially new in this per se. This new statement follows on from the outline Hall unveiled last October (read more here). He's firmed up on specifics, e.g., announcing a remake of Kenneth Clark's Civilization. That was a symbol of the time when the BBC was indeed the arts conscience of this country, leading the way with innovative content and far-sighted commissions. The problem is, society has changed. Perhaps the world has dumbed down: we can't expect organizations to remain unscathed, especially in an economy where many vested interests compete. The BBC must justify itself. Big organizations need scrutiny, but with that comes bean-counting silliness: Look at any big organization, private or public. The odds are against visionary leadership. Hall did good things for the Royal Opera House, but I suspect the age of the Reiths is over. Good luck to Hall for trying, at least.

At least Hall is addressing technological change. The Space failed because it was disastrously mismanaged, but in principle, it could take off.  If the French and Germans can do umbrella arts web channels why can't the British? The BBC is in a better position to do this than anyone else, even if it drives Murdoch and other competitors nuts. It just doesn't make sense to scrap an organization that's way ahead of anyone else. In the US, opera houses and orchestras are in meltdown. So much for the model of private funding. The arts aren't a luxury but fundamentally important to the ethical health of the nation, especially when education standards are dropping. 

Innovation depends on good people. I'm not convinced that creating Arts and Music supremos will do the job, per se, unless they're good at what they do.  The bigger the ambit, the less detail.  Once BBC Radio 3 was serious music. Now, there's no music at all after 10 pm. It's unfair to blame presenters, some of whom are less inane than others. The rot comes from applying Radio One values to a genre that suits people without Attention Deficit Disorder.

One  thing Hall skirts around is the international nature of the BBC. It represents Britain.Whatever any government of the day might do, the BBC symbolizes Britain as a force for good in the world. It does more for foreign policy than guns and bombs. The perceived political bias that so upsets so many is largely irrelevant on a world scale. (In any case cultured minds learn to think for themselves.) Although there's more competition within the UK from other media providers, the realities of a digital, global economy suggest that size matters. Organizations have to be multinational. If the BBC is to fulfil this international role, it might need to rethink its funding base. Now, we're getting really radical.

photo : Deskana

Opera elite? Hampson trounces troll

This letter has gone viral  PLEASE take the trouble to read it in full, because it's the most succint rebuttal ever of the myth that opera is "elitist". Artistically elitist, maybe, but not socially elitist per se. Significantly, the programme the writer (Alexander Robinson) is referring to wasn't on BBC Radio 3 but on a lesser channel.  But why did the BBC let a superstar like Thomas Hampson get mauled in this way ? Really nasty PR somewhere down the line. Fortunately Hampson's exceptionally articulate and intelligent and can fend off trolls.here's a link to the original interview. But don't forget ! read the Open Letter to the BBC  !

BBC Proms 2012- Looking Back

"It's not a timpani orchestra, dear" said a lady at a Prom some years ago. "It's a symphony orchestra". A line to cherish!  I loved that couple. Whenever I come across pseuds and snobs, I think of "timpani orchestras" and it restores my faith in the value of music.

Tonight is effectively the real Last Night of the Proms. Tomorrow night is party time! But tonight, Bernard Haitink and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra wind up the musical side of things with Hadyn and Strauss.

Everyone's got highs and lows. For me the best Prom was the last, the superlative Bernard Haitink/ Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Haydn Richard Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie (more HERE)  Also outstanding, Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Mendelssohn and Messaien/Mahler and Rattle/Berliner Philharmoniker Ligeti/Wagner/ Sibelius. Also loved Andris Nelson's CBSO Shostakovich (didn't review)  and Martyn Brabbins Howells Hymnus Paradisi. Some seriously awful Proms. It's wrong, I think, to dislike a Prom because you don't like the composer. I hadn't heard Bernstein's Mass in 10 years but listened anyway. I'd forgotten how mesmerizingly awful it is. Perhaps it will serve as an inoculation.

This year there's been much less "serious" music and much more feel-good filler. Top seller was the Wallace and Gromit Prom. Politically it's correct that the Proms should be all inclusive, but artistically that kills the very spirit of the Proms, which is classical music. Are the BBC that desperate?  Hopefully, they'll find ways to limit the percentage of money spinning filler and increase serious classical music. A few years ago there was a Michael Ball Prom (popular crooner).  His fans loved and sneereed at the rest of the Proms. If you run a business, you lose it if you change the product.  If the BBC wants to grab a share of the West End market, the West End will fight back. Then what, if classical music lovers have been driven away?

BBC Proms organizers have plans for years in advance but like any good business they probably have the next 5 years sorted. But there's still time to change trends.

On a more domestic front, a Big Thank You to whoever told the door staff to let people in much earlier than usual. It makes complete sense, raises bar sales, shortens the queues for the toilets and makes things altogether more civilized. This year they even clamped down on latecomers, because latecomers disrupt things for other people. Hooray !

The BBC got flak during the Jubilee for bad presenting, but there's really very little anyone can talk about while small boats float slowly up a river for hours on end. The Proms however, are intrinsically more highbrow. Presenting is more difficult to do than it seems, because your mouth has to function independently of your brain. But it helps a lot if the brain is basically in the right place. This year we've been spared the worst excesses, and the female presenters are generally reliable. But then one of them starts to praise the idiot who disrupted the magical Mendelssohn Prom, and cheer the guy with flag-painted giant hands? Such things are fine for the Last Night of the Proms, but not otherwise. If the BBC is serious about serious music, they shouldn't be encouraging that sort of thing.

Les Troyens online, but the real story is the medium

From tomorrow 5th July, the Royal Opera House Berlioz Les Troyens will be available live, then available online and on demand until late October, after which cinema screenings start and presumably a DVD release will follow. And for free, too, if you pay UK TV licence fees. In the rest of Europe, it will be available on Arte TV. It will be available internationally from Monday 9th July on http://thespace.org/  HERE is a link to my analysis ofthe film.

Rarely has any ROH production been given such  exposure. My review is HERE. But even more significant is the medium through which the broadcast will be delivered. It's a new website thespace.org, a joint creation of the BBC, The Arts Council of England, the British Film Institute and various different partners.  In Europe, comprehensive website broadcasting like this isn't new, Mezzo.tv and Arte.tv and Medici.tv have been around for ages. But there hasn't beem any similar site in the UK. So the potential for thespace.org is huge. It reaches far beyond the BBC. Sadler's Wells, the Globe Theatre, the BFI, art galleries etc can participate, creating a huge umbrella for the arts of all kinds. Strength in numbers, economies of scale. I don't know if thespace is experimental or permanent but it's a good idea. It could be a treasure trove. If the French and Germans can do such things, why can't we?

At the moment there isn't a lot of content, though there's masses and masses of Shakespeare, not only from the Globe Theatre but also international productions and a rare 1910 silent film of King Lear, painstakingly hand-tinted. The BBC's archives will be available. At present there's a very well made film-length documenatry called From the Sea to the Land Beyond, using historic footage of British life.  Highly recommended.  More to come, as well, like John Peel's sound archive and broadcasts from festivals. The problerm is that much of the content seems to have been written by technology geeks, so there's little consistency in what's being offered. Perhaps it's early days, but the possibilities are vast. From a business, legal and political perspective, there all kinds of angles and complications. But vision was never easy.

Then  there's the problem of public perception. Remember the hysteria when it was claimed that we couldn't see Britten's War Requiem  at Coventry Cathedral ? Since it was available as normal on i-player what was the fuss about? And it was live on thespace and is still available online for the foreseeable future. I-player generally has a 7 day limit, thespace seems indefinite. But maybe it's a British tradition to moan and whine, whatever happens. So you need a TV licence? That's the law. So you have to pay for viewing from Arte? So what, it's cheaper than travelling. At the end of the day, no broadcast is ever the same as the live experience. Everyone seems to want everything free, but the arts are not cheap to produce, and audiences should take some responsibility. In Europe. we're lucky. We could be stuck with the US model.