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Home , Andrew Davis (conductor), Barry Manilow, Edgar Speyer, Henry Wood, Jennifer Vyvyan, John Wilson (conductor)

CHINEKE! ORCHESTRA CURIOUS CONCERTOS Chi-chi Nwanoku on her trailblazing BME ensemble Unlikely works for Jew’s harp, trautonium and more!

125th ANNIVERSARY The people who shaped From to Anna Meredith, we reveal the movers and shakers who have defined a great British festival

Also in this issue Scheherazade Music inspired by the Orient A guide to A German Carolina Eyck The theremin’s master player and much more… CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU

26 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE Proms people

The biggest stage: conducts the 2018 Last Night of the Proms

NIVE AN RS th A 5 R 2 Y 1 THE PEOPLE who shaped the THE PROMS To celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Proms, Michael White introduces the extraordinary figures, past and present, who have moulded and changed this august and unique music festival

he Proms have never been a simple concert series: they outgrew that almost from the start, turning into a statement of the nation’s musical credentials – with peculiar status as a platform for what counted as significant at any time from T1895, when they began, through to the present day. It’s a responsibility that hangs (occasionally like a millstone) round the neck of Proms administrators, and it’s why Proms seasons matter. But they matter, too, as a community of people who across the years have been the flesh and blood of this great enterprise. Proms people. From conductors and soloists to generations of audience members, there are thousands of them, so the few I’ve picked to celebrate here can’t be more than illustrative. But they give a sense of how the Proms season has developed over time, shaped by successive personalities into a mighty celebration that survived two world wars and will survive what the world is facing now. Albeit with some adaptation.

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 27 Festival figures: (right) a 1926 cigarette card of Proms founder Henry Wood; (far right) conductor and violinist Paul Beard in 1962; (below) the badly mistreated

Henry Wood (1869-1944) Henry Wood was 26 when, in 1895, he was hired to lead a brand new season of ‘Promenade’ concerts at the Queen’s Hall; and he remained in charge for the next half-century, some 5,000 of them. With 700 premieres and so little rehearsal time it was crazy. When conductor said, ‘I don’t know how you do it: it would kill me’, Wood’s reply was ‘Yes’. And it did almost come to that: in 1902 he had a breakdown. But he was always a larger-than-life character: flamboyant on the podium Park life: Aida Garifullina entertains in 2019 to a degree that few British conductors Proms in the Park before him had thought appropriate, and prompting to ask him How the Last Night moved outdoors ‘Tell me, Mr Wood, are you quite English?’ The idea of a He most definitely was, and always Proms in the championed English music – not least Park event Vaughan Williams, the premiere of whose back in the Fifth Symphony amid the war-torn 1943 mid-1990s was season remains one of the Proms’ most pooh-poohed by symbolic moments and a complete cycle John Drummond of whose symphonies (five to date) was (see p31) who programmed shortly after Wood’s death. suggested he’d Wood, though, also introduced audiences be happier to unfamiliar European repertoire and watching the last Night of stood up for the German classics at the the Proms on telly than sit ‘in a damp height of anti-German feeling. park’. But the old curmudgeon was The initial premise of the Proms was, as money came with the requirement proved wrong, and in 1996, 28,000 expressed, to ‘train the public’ into broader that everything be performed at lower turned up at ’s Hyde Park to musical awareness; and Wood’s training than usual pitch (to prevent damaged watch Sheridan Morley present a programme had a comprehensive reach. voices), and that a fountain be installed mix of classical and popular artists, He taught his audience not to applaud in the promenading area to purify the air with a live link-up to the Albert Hall between the movements of a long work. (the audiences smoked like chimneys). for the second half of the Last Night. He also taught them to accept female But when in 1902 the money ran out, Millions listened on BBC Radio 2. orchestral players, introducing women to insolvency loomed. Things were only Such was its success that an annual his band in 1913 (though he didn’t want his saved by Speyer, who came up with the event was born. By 2005, Proms in the Park had spawned sister events ladies playing trombones). present-day equivalent of £220,000 a year in , , and His credentials as a truly great conductor to underwrite the season. Glasgow, with each ‘region’ celebrating are debatable, but he had no shortage of Speyer’s money came from a family its identity through performances admirers. One was Schoenberg, for whom business whose interests included the of Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Wood was a ‘perfect musician, great creation of the Northern, Piccadilly . Presenters such as Terry educator, great benefactor of music, and Bakerloo lines of the London Wogan (above) and Alan Titchmarsh and most charming gentleman.’ Underground. He lived in a sealed the Proms in the Park as a mansion where he entertained the likes ‘middle-of-the-road’ event, while its Edgar Speyer (1862-1932) of Elgar, Grieg, Debussy and Strauss. broadcast was organised by BBC Live Concerts don’t run without But he was widely generous, Events, rather than the BBC Proms department. Today, Proms in the money, which is where Sir helping to create the Whitechapel Park thrives – last year’s featured Edgar Speyer slips into the Art Gallery in London’s East End soprano Aida Garifullina alongside story of the Proms. When and part-funding Captain Scott’s Barry Manilow, Lighthouse Family and they began, the funding ill-fated trip to Antarctica – for Chrissie Hynde, all accompanied by came from a surprisingly all of which he was rewarded the BBC Concert Orchestra. rich laryngologist whose with a baronetcy.

28 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE Proms people

his song (it was a song, not a hymn) in 1916 Born into modest circumstances was an unequivocally patriotic Queen’s that few would have guessed from the Hall rally for an organisation called Fight aristocratic manner he assumed, he for Right, set up to support the war effort. came to the attention of Henry Wood as a But soon after the premiere Parry grew composer and was invited to conduct his uncomfortable with Fight for Right and own An Impression on a Windy Day at a handed over his song to the Women’s Prom in 1921 (see p6). But the conducting Suffrage movement, with which he turned out to be more impressive than the felt more sympathy. By then the song score, and a career was born. was orchestrated. But it had no Proms He was a fine technician: confident, The only problem was his parentage: the performance until 1942 and didn’t make clear, ice-cool under pressure – not least Speyers were German, which didn’t bode it to a Last Night until 1953. Since then it’s during wartime concerts where he had a well in . Edgar was accused surfaced with robust insistence every year. habit of encouraging his audience to stay of spying, almost certainly without Whether the singing audience give put as the bombs dropped down. And he foundation, then hounded out of Britain. much thought to William Blake’s text is was lucky, conducting the last ever concert Whereupon the Proms fell into penury another matter. It’s ambiguous and could at Queen’s Hall on the afternoon of the day again – saved this time by the music mean anything from an attack on the it was destroyed by an incendiary bomb. publishers Chappell, who agreed in 1922 to Established church (the real ‘Satanic Mills’ All this made him famous, and he underwrite them so long as the second half being cathedrals) to a celebration of free cultivated a profile – partly through the of each concert provided a platform for the love (those ‘arrows of desire’). Blake was a charismatic charm with which he drew popular ballads that Chappell sold as sheet radical free-thinker, not a member of the nimble Messiahs from north-, a promotional deal that literally Women’s Institute. And Parry too turned choral societies, but also through the papered over an injustice. out to be a liberal-progressive whose Proms’ Last Night, which he remodelled rejection of conventional Christianity as a platform for himself. He actively (1848-1918) would never have accommodated any encouraged the disorderly exuberance of Parry’s music always featured in the hope to see the Lamb of God in ’s the crowd, insisting that ‘if people get as Proms, but for more modern audiences his pleasant pastures. enthusiastic about music as they do about connection rests with one piece: Jerusalem, football, it is all to the good.’ beloved of Last Night audiences, though Malcolm Sargent (1895-1967) His players grew less enthusiastic, their understanding of it is perhaps not Adored by audiences and amateur though, finding him aloof and shallow; quite what the composer planned. musicians, Sargent brought undoubted and the sharp-cut suits and buttonhole He was a country-gentleman: Etonian, glamour to the Proms, presiding over them carnations he wore perhaps endorse that wealthy, living in a country pile in as chief conductor for two decades (1948- view. But his nickname of ‘Flash Harry’ Gloucestershire, with all the makings of a 67) with enormous popular appeal. But he has an interesting ambivalence. Hostile or

GETTY, MARY EVANS, ALAMY model patriot. And the initial context for was also a divisive figure. affectionate? Perhaps both.

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 29 (1908-2000) Glock is someone else whose reputation see-saws – in accordance with the kind of repertoire the Proms are seen as there to serve. He was a polymath administrator/ critic/pianist (studying with ) who became the BBC’s controller of music and ran the Proms from 1960-73, taking charge at a time when many thought their programmes had subsided into safe predictability. Glock was a modernist. Asked what he had to offer audiences he replied, ‘What they will like tomorrow’ with unspoken Dressed to impress: Prommers at the Last Night acceptance that they might not like it today. And to begin with, they didn’t. Meet the Promenaders Proms audiences fell in the early 1960s, The Albert Hall’s standing army and Glock was seen as a hardliner, purging the Proms of pleasure, forcing people to Promenading was a feature of concerts long before Henry Wood launched his sit through Stockhausen and Boulez and festival, when wandering in and out black-listing English composers who mid-performance was deemed perfectly dared to write tunes. acceptable. Today’s Promenaders – Only some of this is true. There were who, in a full house, make up roughly no blacklists. And though European 1,400 of the ’s near- modernism certainly ranked high on his 6,000 capacity – tend to stay put, agenda, so did medieval music, chamber either standing (or occasionally sitting music, Indian ragas and (starting or lying) in the central Arena or in the with a that he imported from Gallery at the very top. Glyndebourne, semi-staged, in 1961). The heart and soul of the audience, Glock opened out the Proms in every they certainly like to make themselves heard. Whether it’s shouting ‘heave!’ way – extending their reach to new venues, (Arena) and ‘ho!’ (Gallery) when the late-night events, and foreign orchestras including the aria from Dyson’s Canterbury piano lid is lifted before a piano and conductors. Above all, he began the Pilgrims that marked her Proms debut concerto or applauding the A played to practice of commissioning new works in 1950 and became a calling-card. tune the orchestra up, the Prommers’ every year. And though it generated Throughout the 1950s and ’60s she turned pre-performance rituals have become anguished statements in Parliament up year after year at the Albert Hall, part of tradition. In more recent that ‘this man will ruin the Proms’, he singing everything from Mozart arias to seasons, the end of the interval has didn’t. Audiences rose. The seasons felt Gilbert & Sullivan. been marked by a chorus of season invigorated by a spirit of adventure. And Her speciality, though, was Handel ticket-holding Prommers serenading even if the listening public failed to love – and not just in but playing a the audience with details of how much they have raised for charity through what it was introduced to, it became more significant role in the stage revival of the collections at the door – a tradition that tolerant, appreciative and informed. composer’s . She was also taken up itself has been going since 1967. by Britten who wrote major roles for her, To get the best spot as a (1925-74) not least the Governess in Turn of the Screw. Promenader, you need to be a hardy Not everyone remembers Vyvyan And so you find Vyvyan at the Proms beast, as queueing outside for the today, but through the mid years of singing his Academica in 1961, his most popular concerts begins as early the 20th century she was exemplary realisation of Purcell’s Fairy Queen in 1971 as eight in the morning. Queuing can of the successful British singers who and his 60th-birthday performance of be a bit of gamble, though – many were mainstays of the Proms during an in 1973. a potential Promenader has era of transition – from variety-style That she died the very next year, lined up for up to two hours, programmes to the more coherent prematurely from a chronic lung six pound entry fee at the ready, only to find themselves statements we expect now. condition, cut short a career that should disappointed by the ‘no more Born into a landed family who owned have given her a spotlit place in music room’ announcement large chunks of Cornwall, she was an history. It almost did. And in the process by the red-coated outstanding soprano who it helped to take the Proms through their stewards. began by doing whatever came her way – mid 20th-century change of style. Proms people

Taking control: (clockwise from left) former BBC presenter and head of music Humphrey Burton has a go with the in 2001; soprano Jennifer Vyvyan; William Glock, who inspired mixed feelings

of the arts world: grand, imperious but managing to stockpile choice positions – as director of the Edinburgh Festival, BBC controller of music, controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms during the 1980s and ’90s. All were jobs in which he proved formidable. Drummond fought for serious music at the Beeb in times when it was under threat. He programmed without compromise. He had an instinct for commissioning successful works like James MacMillan’s Confession of Isobel Gowdie or ’s Protecting Veil. And he enlarged the vision of the Proms to a degree where his final season, in 1995, could boast 35 orchestras, 50 conductors and 112 composers. Undeniably impressive. At the same time, though, he had a vicious tongue that made him enemies (a standard compliment was ‘Good to see you back on form at last’). He name-dropped comically (losing his spectacles, he’d tell you that they must have fallen down the back of the Queen Mother’s sofa. Well of course). And he could be an intellectual bully, though the intellect was sharp. Despising his required association with the Proms’ Last Night, his parting gesture was to take revenge on it with a notorious commission: Birtwistle’s relentlessly hard-going which, at Drummond’s absolute insistence, went into the second ‘ arrived to conduct half where Promenaders usually expect a bit of fun. In truth, it was fun if you his concert absurdly late, about 7.28’ understood the joke. Not everybody did.

Humphrey Burton (b1931) warn its readers “This programme will Sarah Walker (b1943) When the BBC took over management of be televised” – probably as a courtesy to One of Britain’s best-loved mezzo- the Proms in 1927 (after Chappells walked errant husbands at risk of being spotted sopranos and a favourite at the Proms away), it wasn’t universally applauded. with their girlfriends.’ across the to ’90s, Sarah Walker Thomas Beecham, for example, castigated But while two-timing Promenaders made a deathless contribution to the broadcasting as ‘devilish work’ that would were at risk, performers could be curiously culture (more particularly couture) of the destroy live concerts. But the Proms and indifferent to the massive audience they Last Night by appearing onstage to sing radio turned out to be a good match. And were reaching. ‘There was one occasion ‘Rule Britannia’ in a crazy frock. in 1953 came television where, a few years when Leonard Bernstein came to conduct In fact she did it twice: initially in later, Humphrey Burton made his mark: his Songfest and arrived for the concert 1985 when, as she says, ‘I got the Last initially as a presenter, then as head of absurdly late, about 7.28,’ says Burton. Night invitation on a day I happened to music and arts during the 1960s and ’70s. ‘John Drummond (see below) was beside be rehearsing with [the accompanist] As the viewing figures grew, you might himself with rage when LB muttered “But Graham Johnson, and we decided I’d need have thought they’d give the TV team it’s only radio”.’ something impactful to wear. So Graham more power – though Burton says he was wrote a letter to , never allowed any input into planning. John Drummond (1934-2006) asking for advice and the name of her ‘We were renegades, kept in our place and Blessed with what someone called an dress designer.’ required to make our broadcast choices ‘unlimited capacity for indignation’, John The result was a dress that, on release

GETTY, SHUTTERSTOCK, BRIDGEMAN well in advance so the Proms Guide could Drummond was a sort of Lady Bracknell of a button, turned into a Union Flag.

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 31 Put out the flags: Sarah Walker sings at the Last Night, 1989

Job done: Kissin leaves the Albert Hall in 1997 Me, myself and I Solo performers at the Proms With a capacity approaching 6,000 people and a huge space to fill, the Royal Albert Hall is not a venue one instantly associates with intimate solo recitals – large orchestral and choral concerts, plus the occasional semi- staged opera, tend to be its forte. A select few musicians have, however, been invited to come and share the Proms stage with no one but themselves. In 1997, the 26-year-old made history when he gave the first ever Proms solo piano And when she did the Last Night again, hardly a night passed without the St John recital – at the end of his Sunday in 1989, there was something even more Ambulance Brigade carrying someone out afternoon concert of Haydn, Liszt and spectacular involving four Union Flags. of the arena on a stretcher, suffering from Chopin, the Russian took advantage of It set a precedent. All Last Night soloists, the heat. his single status by giving no fewer than male or female, now dress to impress. And On this occasion, though, the casualty seven encores. as for those originating frocks, they had was on the platform. During Carmina Kissin’s fellow pianist András Schiff an afterlife. ‘I paid for them myself,’ says Burana Allen felt faint, roused himself and has given three solo Proms recitals, Walker, ‘so they had to earn their keep. I then collapsed (with an appalling thud that playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations in wore them all over the world, at Last Night many will remember, listening on radio Well- 2015 and the same composer’s concerts in Australia, South America… But and wondering what was going on). Tempered Clavier in 2017 (Book 1) and 2018 (Book 2). Bach was also I eventually sold one to a man who worked Patrick McCarthy, a young singer in the composer of choice for solo Proms in the accounts department at the Royal the audience, seized his chance and to by violinist (below) in Opera House. He wears it for a drag act in a the obvious surprise of everyone onstage 2011 and cellist Yo-Yo Ma in bar in Soho.’ rushed up to save the show. Which was 2015, the latter playing all particularly brave as it was being televised. six of the cello suites in a (b1944) It didn’t bring McCarthy lasting fame, but single evening. And, along As one of the truly great British baritones, it secured him a small mention in Proms with Liszt, Widor, Saint- Thomas Allen was a Proms regular for history. And a rousing cheer from several Saëns and various others, almost 40 years, starring in many of the thousand people on the night. JSB was also part of the full operas that the Proms have taken programme performed last in, like Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Peter Andrew Davis (b1944) year by Olivier Latry. In this instance, however, filling Grimes and Billy Budd. For the record, clocked the Albert Hall with sound But there’s one date he’d probably up 44 Proms appearances, was not an issue, as Latry rather forget, although no one will let 69 and 142. But at 131 and was at the console of the him. It was 1974, in days before the counting, Andrew Davis can claim the venue’s vast organ. Albert Hall had and most of any living conductor, partly

32 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE Proms people

A clean performance: Stephen Hough (vacuum cleaner) and (floor polisher) play Arnold’s A Grand, Grand , 2009

thanks to his years in charge of the BBC (b1949) the troubadours, but they emerged and Symphony Orchestra from 1989-2000. When Henry Wood admitted women disappeared like a sine wave. Which His desert island dates, he says, included into his Proms orchestra in 1913, Thomas is how it still is. As a conductor I faced Tippett’s Mask of Time and a concert Beecham complained that ‘if they are challenges, but I got on with it.’ for the 50th anniversary of Vaughan pretty, they distract men, and if they are Martinez went on to do half-a-dozen Williams’s death. The horrors were an ugly, they distract me.’ It wasn’t a winning Proms in the 1980s and ’90s, culminating Elgar transcribed for viola argument. But it took half a century for the in a performance of ’s opera and ‘the worst new piece I’ve ever had to Proms to welcome a woman to the podium ; and she remains a champion premiere. Immense. With Wagner tubas. of women in the music world. But change, God knows why.’ as she perceives it, has been slow and But something he invariably made a circular. ‘We seemed to be opening a door great success of was the Last Night. He’s ‘I always promised but then it shut again – until very recently. done 12, approaching them with ‘a mix The only answer is to keep on pushing.’ of eager anticipation and utter dread’ but I’d do a draft A significant step in the right direction touching just the right note and delivering was at least taken when, in 2013, Marin the best end-of-season speeches on record. speech, but never Alsop became the first woman to conduct These days, the conductor’s speech the Last Night of the Proms. So popular tends to be vetted by BBC executives. got round to it’ did the US conductor prove that, two years ‘But they didn’t get the chance with me,’ later, she was invited to do it again. he says. ‘I always promised I’d do a draft for an entire concert; and when that the week before but somehow never got happened, in 1984, the woman in question Stephen Hough (b1961) round to it.’ So the result was largely was Odaline de la Martinez. With 28 Proms under his belt since the spur of the moment, and one moment in She was conducting her own ensemble, mid-1980s, the pianist Stephen Hough particular was difficult – in 1997 when, Lontano, in a programme of new music is a firm audience favourite. And though just days beforehand, there had been three that in itself might not have drawn so his repertoire has largely stayed with core conspicuous deaths: , Mother much attention. But with Martinez in concertos (Mozart, Rachmaninov and Teresa and Princess Diana. charge, the press had a field day. She the four Tchaikovsky works for piano and Davis handled the occasion perfectly: looked like a trailblazer – although she orchestra given as a series in 2009) he has so well, in fact, that two weeks later he insists she wasn’t. also made a distinguished appearance at received a letter from a vicar asking him to ‘There were always women in every the Last Night playing a vacuum cleaner

GETTY, CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU come and give a sermon. aspect of music,’ she says, ‘right back to – in ’s Grand, Grand

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 33 The bigger picture: (left to right) Thomas Allen, Sarah Fox, Seth MacFarlane, and Curtis Stigers join at the MGM Musical Prom, 2009; (below) composer Anna Meredith

Overture, sharing the stage with David was resistance to begin with. so they’ve gone knocking at Attenborough on floor polisher. ‘It took a while to get our the door of Anna Meredith: As someone who admits ‘I don’t do first concert,’ says Wilson, a composer of impeccably much housework’, it was a rare encounter ‘and generated a seven-week classical credentials who with domestic appliances. But rarer still correspondence in the Radio has moved on into the was his encounter with Queen Victoria’s Times with people writing category-free territories of gilded piano, which in 2019 was delivered to say Sir Malcolm Sargent club music, performance art from Buckingham Palace for use in a would turn in his grave. But and electronica. Mendelssohn concerto. eventually people came to Two years ago she teamed ‘It was worrying,’ he reflects, ‘because appreciate that Hollywood up with a video installation I’d tried it out in a Palace room with deep composers knew as much about orchestral company for one of the most dazzling carpets and heavy curtains, and thought: writing as anyone and that we present things ever experienced at a Proms this won’t be audible, the sound is too them with the care and attention we’d give First Night: the epic sound and light thin. But at the Albert Hall it was totally to Beethoven or Mozart. Which is what I show that was Five Telegrams, based on different: luminous and magical. Your actually spend most of my time doing.’ communications from the trenches in the instinct with the Hall is that you’ll have Wilson’s best experience at the Albert First World War and turning the Albert to throw the sound to fill the space, but Hall? ‘Our first Prom when we played I got Hall into a stately discotheque. With actually you don’t: you can play softly Rhythm, the audience burst into applause orchestra and massed choirs. and it carries. And playing this piano mid-performance, and it took the roof off. Busy, bold and strong, it made an which hadn’t left its padded room in 150 The thrill of my life.’ exhilarating follow-up to something she’d years, brought tears to my eyes. It felt like And the worst? ‘Our semi-staged done ten years earlier for the Last Night: releasing someone from prison. Not that Oklahoma in 2017 when all the singers a logistical headache called froms that Buckingham Palace is a prison.’ started losing their voices during rehearsal involved coordinating the BBC Symphony and we couldn’t think why until the last- Orchestra playing in London with John Wilson (b1972) minute discovery that it was due to the performing groups in Scotland, Wales and John Wilson is a Proms phenomenon. hay bales we had onstage as props. We Northern Ireland. Conducting the orchestra that bears his swapped them for plastic ones and were This was asking for trouble, but as name, he’s been a fixture of every season saved. But not without sleepless nights.’ Meredith recalls ‘nothing went more since 2009, delivering classic Hollywood wrong than I expected it to. Not all the and Broadway rep with an exhilarating Anna Meredith (b1978) feeds came in, and there were time delays, synthesis of spark and scholarship. The Proms have never been averse to but it was written to allow for chaos and I He takes it seriously, does it brilliantly, spectacle. And as their grander statements think it worked. Not that I’d want it to be

BRIDGEMAN, GEM HARRIS and audiences go wild – although there have increasingly embraced technology, done again.’

34 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE