Itzhak Perlman on TV Friday

On Friday October 10th BBC 4 TV will be screening a film about Itzhak Perlman. Perlman wanted to be a violinist from age 3 but then he got polio which was often fatal in the late 40's. He survived but was left severely limping, which in those days people couldn't deal with. They assumed he couldn't appear on stage, travel etc. Things were very different then before people became aware of disability. Yet he persisted and went to the Juilliard and then on the Ed Sullivan show, just like the Beatles ! This film shows how he's built up inner resources to sustain a successful career. Perlman is self-effacing, but his warmth and innate decency mark him out. If anything, his modesty restrains the film, for much could be made of his stellar career, his campaigns for the disabled, his numerous awards, his connections with royalty and the White House and so on. But you won’t find them in this film. Instead, we see him as a person first, then as a consummate artist. He has remained true to himself as to his music. That is the achievement of this lovely, intimate film, because it reveals how an ordinary human being can achieve great things through integrity and faith … and talent and hard work. As Perlman says, as a child he often had to play late in the evening, after dinner parties when people weren’t actually listening. It taught him to find ways of getting attention, but to his credit, he learned to do so on his own terms.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Feb08/Perlman_a08cnd.htm

Grace Chang Bizet in Chinese video

Bizet in Chinese ! 50's Chinese movies

Grace Chang (Ge Lan) is an icon of 1950's Chinese movies. She's wonderful, a truly "modern" liberated girl, who dances the cha cha and calypso. The clip below is her take on Bizet's Carmen. It comes from a movie called Wild, Wild Rose where she plays a nightclub singer with brains. So she sings Bizet in Mandarin, dressed in Spanish cape and fedora. The nightclub patrons love it and even the fokis (staff). If ROH wants to know how to snare a hip crowd they should watch the video embedded in the link below (scroll down partway). Grace was a character, charismatic, totally original, but like nearly all the stars of 30's to 60's Chinese cinema, died tragically young. For a short while her movies were available on DVD other than Region 3. Now you have to pray for a retrospective season or watch clips like this :

Janacek - From The House of the Dead DVD

Last June I went to Amsterdam to the great, lively Holland Festival and heard Janacek's From the House of the Dead conducted by Pierre Boulez, directed by Patrice Chéreau. It was fantastic, brilliant, vibrant orchestrally, making Janacek vivid and intense. You can scroll down to see what I wrote then (under tabs for Janacek). Now, you can watch the DVD which has extras, which are just as good. Here's a review of the new DVD ! Recordings are few - Mackerras and Jilek (good) but none come even close to this.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2008/Apr08/Janacek_DG%20004400734426.htm

Matthias Goerne Shostakovich Michelangelo

Two approaches to Michelangelo (Wolf and Shostakovich) and Goerne's trademark Brahms's Vier Ernste Gesange. Definitely a programme for the dedicated ! He's performed all these before in London and this was a fairly short concert (just over an hour). Beautiful phrasing, such rich gorgeous colours in the singing. I particularly liked the Shostakovich - dignified, true Russian bass yet with the supple muscular agility Goerne's voice can achieve. One of the best known Shostakovich specialists was in the audience, looking very happy. It was nice to return to "core repertoire" again after the two earlier mega profile concerts (Hartmann and Larcher) ! But this was not a programme for the faint hearted. No candyfloss whatsoever !

Incidentally several baritones in this audience. And Goerne slipped into the audience after his set at the Larcher concert. Nice to see singers enjoying non vocal music !

Photo by Annette Boutellier

Feisty women musicians, composers

The autumn issue of The Maud Powell Signature, Women in Music is now available on line free at http://www.maudpowell.org/signature/

This issue features women who have been “Lost and Found” or who simply are not as well-known as they should be. David J. Brown recounts his experience of finding the music of English composer Lilian Elkington in a used bookshop in Worthing, England, shares what he was able to learn about her life and tells how his efforts led to a recording of her only surviving orchestral work. Ian Graham-Jones provides a rich portrait of composer Alice Mary Smith whose successful career was cut short by her early death and takes us on his journey of discovery that led him to a leaking garden shed.

In Europe, Annemarie Vogt introduces readers to Berta Geissmar, friend of Furtwangler and Beecham and administrator of that male bastion, the Berlin Philharmonic, while Susan Pickett, writing from Washington State, chronicles the career of Swedish composer and organist Elfrida Andree, a bold woman who dared to defy convention.

On the North American side of the Atlantic, Elizabeth Juliana Knighton recounts the pioneering career of American conductor Mary Davenport Engberg while Anya Lawrence introduces readers to the Canadian-born composer Gena Branscombe. The Children’s Corner features American violinist Rachel Barton Pine whose work in music includes bringing obscure composers back into public awareness and a strong commitment to education. Welsh composer Grace Williams, English conductor Gwynne Kimpton, pianist-composer Teresa Carreno and violinist Maud Powell also play roles in this issue. Columnist Diana Ambache reflects on attitudes towards women composers and her own response to their music while Pamela Blevins tours her own bookshelves for books about women in music.

Goerne - Larcher Die Nacht der Verlorenen

Thomas Larcher's Die Nacht der Velorenen really is an interesting work, which we'll probably hear more of. His publishers are Schott, though this piece isn't available yet. However, his 2002 song cycle for soprano, violin, cello and piano, My illness is the Medicine I need is available. In fact it's being performed at the Wigmore Hall on 24 November with Claire Booth, who's very good indeed – another must-go concert. Böse Zellen, also premiered by the London Sinfonietta this week, will be on at Zankel Hall in May (piano and orchestra).

The texts used are recently published fragments from Ingeborg Bachmann, the poet who fascinated Paul Celan and Hans Werner Henze. These aren't formal poems, but fragments, but it was this very brittleness that attracted the composer, "to transcend their rawness by compositional means". So, not conventional word painting but the opposite. It's as if the music expresses what's beyond the text. The singer listens a lot, the words singing like a commentary on the music. This was written for Matthias Goerne, and it sounds as if it was written "with" him, too, for there's a lot of "listening", dialogue between voice and orchestra, as if they are bouncing ideas off each other. Larcher uses an interesting sub group of piano, double bass and, of all things, an accordion, whose dark timbre reflects the baritone's voice.

The introduction is fairly long - fast, rustling figures shrill but clear, then gently deflating diminuendo that becomes softly pounding ostinato. I thought at the time of a clear stream, like a brook in Schubert churning along, entering a deep, still pool. The "pounding" of piano, accordion and double bass made me think of rocks on riverbeds. So what a surprise to read Larcher's note in the programme later: "Here I was encountering not polished surfaces but instead rough stones, on to which I could hold and claw my way forward." It's certainly not literal, descriptive music, so it's uncanny that such images jumped into my imagination.

The poems blend into the music, and sometimes elide into one another. "Ich habe die Wahrheit gesehen .......verschlungen von einer Riesenschlange die in ihren Bauch sie aufbläht..." the piano beats crazy staccato, the winds swirling, circular figures. The dark centre of the cycle is a simple 6 line poem "Im Lot" It's numb, beyond pain "Du sollst ja nicht weinen". Instead of crying, the sense of tight chested breathing, impassive yet unpeaceful, watching, listening, tense. Suddenly tubular bells from the percussion lifting out of the misery, yet distant, and the "riverbed" ostinato returns – this is literally "rock bottom ".

What';s also striking about this piece is the physicality, the sense of "breathing", up and down cadences like exhalation and inhalation. It gives an eerie sense of presence, like there's someone unseen hidden in the music. So all that listening has a very natural, organic feel, the idea of dialogue again. The final song "So stürben wir um getrennt zu sein" is tantalisingly inconclusive, opening outwards yet again. The clear Schubertian brook, but deceptively so. The poet is trying to sound confident but it's illusion, and she knows it.

An absolutely magnificent performance by Matthias Goerne. Of the three concerts he sang in six days, this was the finest, exceptional, perhaps closest to his heart. Audience ecstatic – a wonderful piece of music, so original and distinctive.

Kings Place opens with a bang !

Kings Place opened with a bang – literally – as the builders were still about hammering, while the first concert took place. Melinda Maxwell was playing Simon Holt's world premiere, Disparates, a work he'd written for her. It's beautiful, complex and contemplative. Definitely not oboe solo with "improvised percussion". Pity, but she deserves credit for perserverance.

Hall One at Kings Place is without doubt the most elegant concert hall in London, small but classically proportioned and blessed with an extremely clear acoustic. Ideal for chamber music and song. Hall Two is more spartan, but the concerts here turned out to be the biggest surprise of the whole opening day. Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan Centre is the biggest Indian culture centre outside India and is based in humble West Kensington ! Founded by Mahatma Gandhi himself, it's the Indian equivalent of RCM, RAM, Guildhall, Kings and the Juilliard put together –producing seriously dedicated performers. Indian culture stresses the unity of the arts – music, speech, dance, visual. So we saw dancers, heard musicians and took part in a workshop about tala, Indian rhythms, and how they can be infinitely varied and extended. There I was, beating time merrily, but it's OK, Indian music is interactive, audiences are part of the process. Since so much new western music uses ideas from Indian form, it was a surprise that there weren't many western musicians or composers present. They could have learned so much. Messiaen, for example uses tala and variations, Indian "form" created by tempo changes and directional plateaux rather than formal western symphonic structure. The musicians themselves are articulate, highly enthusiastic about sharing their art. They took over the workshop from the scheduled speaker and wow ! They could demonstrate, counting time as they played. Number sequences are part of Indian rhythm because basic sets are multiplied for melody : no wonder Messiaen heard in it the "music of mathematics". Fantastic ! See link below – they do regular concerts and courses all year round.

As for Kings Place, it's strikingly beautiful, all glass, chrome and marble. And surrounded by canals, so a good place for a drink. Whether it will make money, I'm not sure. It's too small for celebrity names, though excellent for small, intimate music. Innovative programming, too. Each week will be "curated" by different people so there's always an eclectic mix of ideas. Consistency probably doesn't matter so much as long as most of it's exciting. Two days are set side for regular things like talk and new music, but will these be enough to sustain a venue without regular paid-for outside concerts such as support the Wigmore Hall ? Maybe having offices upstairs will bring in steady, predictable income so it will work. It deserves to !
http://www.bhavan.net/
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/kp-day1_1008.htm

Hartmann Gesangsszene Goerne

"..and in this storm, these thundering waves, this war of wars, nothing survives but bankruptcy and disgrace, the face of a child, distorted by hunger, the cry of a madman - and Death"

Karl Amadeus Hartmann's rarely-heard Gesangsszene is a powerful vision of a proud society that seemed to have everything: prosperity,progress, even a cure for the common cold. Then, suddenly it's destroyed by "the sickness of great empires". (For my more recent piece on this work, please see HERE) It's horrifyingly prophetic because there are references to banking and economic collapse, even to "God's mortgages". Hartmann was writing in 1961, when the Americans were pitted against the Russians, and the Berlin Wall was built. He knew all about the flaws of even the greatest empires; he'd resisted the Nazis, not by emigrating like so many others, but by "internal exile", refusing to make music while the regime lasted. Then came Hiroshima (Hartmann specifically refers to the empire "finding atoms in cells") unparalleled material wealth, the "German miracle"and the Cold War. As a lifelong socialist who'd seen the Great Depression and war, Hartmann notes that Empires crumble, "especially the ones with apparently the most secure guarantees of stability".

Gesangsszene starts with long, haunting solo flute melody which gradually becomes tonally ambiguous as blasts from trumpets and trombones interrupt. Crescendi build up in the orchestra, richly, the flute's warning barely heard above the tumult. Then, suddenly, baritone Matthias Goerne materializes from within the orchestra: "Das ist derschönste Spielbeginn". It is beautiful and all the more terrifying for that. The text has a difficult, wordy syntax, so Hartmann sets it like speech, making the most of the solemn pace. At times, it feels like quasi-sermon for there is moral indignation behind the simple, matter-of-fact setting. When Goerne sings the third verse "Wir alle haben Reiche sturzen sehen", it's like a chorus.

At first voice and orchestra alternate, then gradually combine. Angular ostinatos underline the voice "Das Übel der Großen Reiche ! Das

Tödliche Übel ! It's horrible, horrifying. Huge swirling figures in then orchestra, like windstorms, crashing cymbals - and very quiet drum beats and single notes on harp.

"In jedes Vogellied hat ein grauenhafter Ton scheingeschlichen..... Und die Bäche sind clar und spiegelblank die Quellen" The orchestra plays "watery" sounds, wavering and insecure"Aber ich habe das Wasser gekostet, es ist das Wasser der Sintflut. " Hartmann didn't finish setting the last strophe, because he died. So it's intoned, unaccompanied. It could easily be done with silly histrionics, but Goerne chose a more dignified, simple style, closer to the numb understatement that runs throughout the piece. "Es ist ein Ende der Welt ! Das Traurigste von allen!". Not just one end of the world - it happens again and again, we never learn.

http://www.musicomh.com/classical/lpo-goerne_0908.htm

New BILLY BUDD Britten Harding LSO Bostridge Barbican

Brand new recording of Britten's Billy Budd. Daniel Harding conducts the LSO at the Barbican. This performance changed the whole way I listen to Billy Budd. Previously it wasn't a favourite as performances usually take the "talking heads" approach to the voices and action. But this performance is radically different. It makes a compelling case for Billy Budd as symphony, an orchestral work that uses voices to extend its impact, not "opera" in the usual sense of singers against a backdrop. Suddenly, Billy Budd is revealed as extremely sophisticated musical writing, where the real action is hidden in the orchestration, not what's happening with the actors. Captain Vere's dilemma "is" the central and absolute drama of the entire piece. "My life's broken. It's not his trial, it's mine, mine. It is I whom the Devil awaits". This opera isn't even about Billy, but about how people respond to difficult ethical situations.Billy Budd was written during the McCarthy era with its hysterical witch hunts. Britten was no fool.. It is significant how much he makes of the political paranoia of 1797, for it is pertinent to the "danger" the ship and its crew are in. Britten was emotionally reticent, knowing it could be dangerous to be too open, unsafe to be candid. So Billy stammers incoherently where he could save himself with clear explanations. Similarly, Captain Vere pulls back from the brink when he could have intervened. Billy Budd is an allegory where Britten expresses unfathomably deep emotions without revealing them except to those sensitive enough to listen.Harding’s emphasis on the orchestra is thus psychologically as well as musically astute. Here the ocean is a protagonist, every bit as much as the singing roles. Indeed, against the wild forces of nature, the 'Indomitable' isn’t indomitable; it’s vulnerable, and can be destroyed by fate as capriciously as Billy himself is destroyed. Through the orchestra, the ocean takes central stage, turbulent and intense. Huge crescendos build up like mighty waves, but even more impressive is the undertow of dark, murmuring sound that surges ever forwards. Above this, currents flowed diagonally across the orchestra, first violins flowing to brass and basses and back, just as ships lurch back and forth. You could get seasick if you focussed too hard, but that is the point, for Britten is showing that the “floating world” aboard ship is unsteady, far removed from the certainties of dry land. Just like the enveloping mists, all points of moral reference are hidden. “Lost in the infinite sea”, sings Captain Vere, a refrain that recurs repeatedly, in voice and in the orchestra.

This ship is in full sail, you can feel the wind and see the open horizon. This is an important to the narrative, because it reflects the sense that supernatural forces are propelling Billy and Captain Vere inevitably towards their fate. More subtly though, this also expresses something about why Billy loves being up high in the foretop, riding the rigging, high up on the mast. He’s such a free spirit that even death cannot extinguish him. That’s why, perhaps, that he moves ahead, always forward, instead of dwelling on past sorrows. “No more looking down from the heights to the depths !” he sings, “I’ve sighted a sail in the storm…I see where she’s bound for.” It's not for nothing that Britten starts the opera with Vere reflecting on the past and ends with him being liberated, at last understanding what Billy meant. Britten has been Harding’s speciality since he was in his teens, when he was conducting the Britten Sinfonia. Most of his career has been spent in European circles, where Britten’s music is perhaps less performed than in Britain, but this is an advantage because it makes his approach feel so individual. He has also worked with the LSO and with Bostridge for over 12 years, so the partnership is deeply rooted. Hence the vividness and cohesion in this performance. Take for example the Battle sequence, which bristled with vigour and alertness. There, extreme tension built up in the orchestra, instruments and voices traversing the music in stark staccato, and disciplined formation. Everything seems to be going on at the same time in different directions, voices interjecting, solo instruments leaping into prominence, the choir at full blast. Yet it’s all clearly defined and distinct. To stretch the maritime metaphor a little further: a conductor is like the captain of a ship and there are many reasons why precision gets results. Conductors, like captains, don’t waffle aimlessly and confuse their players, but lead their crew purposefully into action.
One of Harding’s particular strengths is his ability to focus on the fundamental direction of whatever music he conducts. Thus he understands the Battle in the wider context of the opera: jus as the men are about to board the French ship, mist descends and the French escape. The excitement builds to fever pitch but descends into anti-climax. Nothing is resolved. It’s another parallel to Captain Vere’s dilemma, when he pulls back from saving Billy even though he knows in his heart that he could /should do so, if only he dared.

Britten's writing for Vere is the most complex in the whole opera, for he is its true centre. The men call don't call him "Starry Vere", for nothing, and the "God Bless you, Starry Vere" chorus is beautifully transcendant. Like Billy, his natural habitat is way, way above the decks and hold where Claggart and his brutish bullies reign. Britten has him spouting about Scylla and Charybdis, for he's educated, an intellectual, someone who thinks and makes moral judgements. In contrast, the other characters, even Billy, merely act and react without much mental process. Captain Vere represents the finer part of mankind, capable of seeing beyond and above the immediate. Ian Bostridge is a perfect Vere, tortured and intense, utterly aware of the portent of what he must do. Even in old age, he can't find resolution until he realizes that each man is ultimately master of his own fate, and Billy's choice, so beautifully expressed in the song Through the port comes moonshine astray, was a vision Billy could live by and die with, whatever Vere might have done. Nathan Gunn's Billy at first bothered me because his voice is so light : yet why not ? Billy is a symbol, an ideal, and is a counterpart to Vere on a less sophisticated level. This performance showed how he, too, is 0ne of Britten's innocents, doomed because purity itself is doomed by fate itself, rather than by the actions of others, That's why Vere gets deliverance. Billy Budd deserves its place in the pantheon of Britten's most profound work.GET THIS RECORDING !

SPECTACULAR shots of London by Night

From the US I just received some of the most SPECTACULAR series of photos of London, taken from the air at night. Look below at the link We are so lucky, we take things for granted,but look at these photos in awe ! Pity winter is drawing in, and it's dark early. Those of us who commute only see the grime and dirt. This is a reminder !

In summer, it's like magic when sunset lasts til 10pm. On the South Bank, on the river, you can watch the sky gradually transform. The glass canyons of the city lit up as if ablaze, reflecting each other. You can still see the skyline Monet saw 150 years ago - Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, St Paul's. And sometimes the river tides are out, and the banks are exposed. If you scavenge you can still find artefacts of London long ago - clay pipes from the 18th century, shards of Victorian bottles etc. Yesterdays rubbish, but somehow romantic. Here's the link, it really is fantastic !

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/london_from_above_at_night.html?p

More on the Gherkin and London at http://roadsofstone.com a wonderful totally original site ! See links.

Kings Place, King's Cross

Kings Place, King's Cross - remember where the apostrophes go, because we'll be seeing a lot of that phrase. This is the biggest new arts venture in London since the Barbican opened in 1982. Think how that changed things - think what Kings Place might do. Kings Place is an imaginative answer to the perennial problem of what to do about art forms that are too important to neglect yet don't attract mass audiences. Simple ! Build flexible performance spaces that lend themselves to intimate, human-scale events ! Hall One seats 450, a few less than the Wigmore Hall, while Hall Two seats around 200. So at last, purpose-built spaces for chamber music, art song, new music, early music, baroque. There's also a huge emphasis on jazz, world music etc but I don't know enough about that to comment. (I'll never get important, then !) Hall One is completely lined with wood from ONE ancient German oak. In mythology oak spirits bring good fortune, so let's hope ! The acoustic is supposed to be good and very warm, ideal.

Please look at these two links. The first is a wonderful video about the building and its setting, surrounded by canals and currently urban decay (but soon will be ultra trendy).
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/media-room/videos

The second link is to a preview on OMH Music about the opening celebration "Five Days, One Hundred Concerts!" Yes, 100 concerts, many free. Everything from Ligeti's 100 metronome installation to baroque ensembles, to South Indian music to "the English Ry Cooder".
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/features/kings-place_0908.htm

Rise and Fall of Mahagonny Brecht Weill

The Rise and Fall of Mahagonny opened the Ediburgh Festival this year, conducted by my hero, the inimitable HK Gruber. It's being broadcast by BBC Radio 3, so log on and listen.

Weill’s contribution to the Brecht/Weill partnership is often underestimated, and Weill is more inventive musically than he’s often given credit for. Here are witty set pieces, mock-ups of operatic aria, fake hymns, quasi-pompous marches and bar-room piano rolls, complete with swooping glissandi. Deliberately off-key, of course. Weill uses catchy tunes, so people hum along, hardly realizing they are singing something subversive. And thus Mahagonny insinuates itself into dance band music and pop song, so when people do hear the full Mahagonny, it's eerily familiar. Sentimental tunes for a decidedly unsentimental opera !

HK Gruber is perhaps the perfect conductor ! All his life he's specialized in uproariously manic satire and in the agitprop of the 1930's in particular. If you listen to nothing else of his, grab his recording Roaring Eisler or the recent release of his own FRANKENSTEIN!!!! which I might write about later as there is nothing in this world quite like it. And Gruber is the great grandson of the guy who wrote Silent Night, Holy Night. He really understands the malevolence of Brecht and Weill. He gets punchy playing from the Royal Scottish Orchestra who probably still don't know what hit them ! But perhaps a less staid orchestra might have raised more sparks. Vocally, too, most of this was a bit polite.

Get the DVD of the LA Opera production for more distinctive singing and superlative acting by Patti LuPone and Audra Macdonald. Mahagonny and Los Angeles have a lot in common, which is uncomfortable and this could have been disturbing but what do you expect ? I can imagine the ghosts of Brecht and Weill snorting sardonically at the LA crowd spending big bucks on an anti-capitalist tirade. "There's nothing but today!" sings Jimmy as he's about to die. It's the good guys in Benares who get wiped while Mahagonny is saved, at least until it self-destructs.

Please see the other posts on Brecht, Weill, Eisler and Ernst Busch - click lables. This is my fach, and Busch my hero.

Jacqueline du Pré on TV Friday !

This time, next Friday evening, on BBC4, Jackie Du Pré will light up our screens again. Jacqueline du Pré in Portrait opens a season of Films by Christopher Nupen, which starts on 26th September. A great reason for staying in Friday evenings !

The Jackie du Pré film was revolutionary. Up til then, filmed music was a stiff, formal affair. Then, suddenly, along comes this vivacious young woman who plays pizzicato on a train, humming a tune cheerfully. The starched suits hated it, but thousands of people came to classical music after seeing how exhilarating music can be. Jackie's enthusiasm and generous spirit adds a whole new dimension to the experience of music making, and to listening. Film captures, like no other medium, the "whole personality". Jackie is immortal through these films. She continues to move, inspire and illuminate.

Because the Nupen films are being shown together as a group, it deepens their impact. All theses films deal with the idea of performer as creative and human. What makes a person become an artist ? How do they develop their unique gift ? What goes into a performance ? With each film, different aspects emerge. The films on Nathan Milstein (to be shown 31 Oct and 7 Nov) are exceptional. Milstein was a virtuoso who eschewed popular success and didn't want to be filmed. Nupen teased him. " I have a film of Paganini." "What !" says Milstein. Then he, too, realized how film could preserve aspects of performance mere audio can never fully capture.

Make a special effort to watch the Jacqueline du Pré film if you possibly can as it's a classic and a masterpiece. But if you do miss it, get the DVD. But most of all, tell other people, especially those who they think they don't like classical music. It could change their lives.

http://www.allegrofilms.com/home/
For details of the TV series, and info on the films.
Photo of Jackie's big, whole hearted laugh courtesy of Allegro Films.

Proms postmortem

The Proms are alive and well, but post
mortem is a better term than "de-
briefing" or whatever the buzz word may be. This has been an excellent season, much better than expected. Hooray for Roger Wright – if the next ten years are like this the ghosts of the past will be well buried. No institution survives without growth. The key to growth in classical music, and in the Proms, isn't broadening out and dumbing down, I think, but raising the bar. Listeners who genuinely like music are open-minded enough to listen intelligently. People do continue listening before and after a Prom and gradually expand what they know. Hence total immersion in Messiaen and RVW might have been a lot to take in, but for some it was a good and thorough introduction to be followed up in more detail later. Though the message of St Francis of Assisi to "be humble, listen !" will never work for some ! Hence things like Bach Day and Stockhausen Day worked so well because they assumed a certain degree of dedication from audiences.

What are Proms audiences ? They are amazingly diverse. The point I think is to target sub-groups rather than aim for bland one size fits all. Last year the Michael Ball Prom drew masses of new listeners but they went to other concerts expecting more of the same, and of course they were disappointed as they thought they knew everything. Same with the Gergiev Mahler series at the Barbican, many who went to those came away thinking that's how Mahler "must"be like. So seats may sell, but in the long term will they benefit real musical appreciation ? I don't care if it's elitist, but music isn't a spectator sport to me, it involves something more than passive thrills. Think back to Sir Henry Wood and all those high-minded Victorians (Like Prince Albert) who believed that to be fully human one had to be civilized, and that learning and culture were part of the process. They might have hated Stockhausen but they would probably know why the BBC featured his work so prominently. Instead we seem to live now in times where a blind troll mentality prevails . Kulcha! not culture. Down with what takes thought.

And where are Proms audiences? Lots of people hated the Lang Lang concert, some because they don't like his music, some because he is successful, famous and Chinese. Yes, racism does exist, even if it's covert. So he had a small boy play with him. Again, the critics couldn't understand. But somewhere, in outer Mongolia, or in deepest Manchuria, maybe there's some small kid watching the Proms on TV and thinking "I could do that!" Or even, "I love that music !". In London we can hear any big name pianist any time, but for people way out in the middle of nowhere Lang Lang represents an elusive dream. Of course not all the kids in China will become virtuosi, but they will grow up knowing things like classical music exist and that they are cool, acceptable activities no one will sneer at you for pursuing. In 30 years' time that's where the really astute audiences will be. Thank goodness that there are countries where kids look up to people playing Chopin rather than to drunken footballers abusing women.

The Proms do have the capacity to change the way we listen. Belohlavek's and Boulez's Janacek, for example ! And the idea that we have the stamina to take long concerts with extras after. I also appreciated the Prom's refusal to cave in to insularity – some people may have objected to hearing L'Histoire du Soldat in French but that's their problem, not ours.

New music has always been a Proms tradition, and this season we may/may not have had more, but it was much better presented, backed up often by talks etc, some of which were good, others less so, but at least they were there to help. Some premieres were of course better than others - my favourites Pintscher, Lindberg, Carter, Harvey and even Holt. Things may take time to percolate but they need to be heard in the first place. The point is that really important stuff, like Carter and Boulez, can reward high profile given the chance. And this year new music was taken seriously, backed by talks etc. rather than feared. Henry Wood and co. always supported new music - without them, Elgar, and many others, might not be as prominent as they are today. What the BBC does year round for music in this country is remarkable : it is an industry in itself, supporting composers, musicians, music schools, students and all those involved in music as a living art form.

To my main disappointment: It is important to include popular as well as good quality, but I wonder if we're going too far with Dudamel. His first concert with a grown-up orchestra was awful. I thought at first he was moderating his style to counter criticism but anyone who can make Symphonie fantastique that dull has a problem. I missed the encore, nationalism and flag waving, which was just as well, since that's exactly why I have problems with him . All style, no substance. He's the Sarah Palin of classical music. It's not his inexperience that's worrying but the sort of mob mentality that's propelled him to the top. For years he raised no waves, then suddenly everyone was caught up in a tsunami of euphoria connected in no small way to the emotive connotation of El Sistema and his youth orchestra. In front of a grown-up band, he's nothing. The "Dudamel effect" was created by youtube, downloads and gossip on the internet, not through actual, systematic listening. Often people who don't even know the music "know"! his is the only way to play it. The fervour is like that in a Party Rally – dissent and doubt not permitted. Forget the issues ! Feel the fever ! This in the long term is far scarier than just his conducting. But he'll do well and will establish himself in LA as the new Messiah. At least that's "just" music not international politics.