Abi's Proms highlights
My head is thick with drama this week (that's thick in a positive, creative way I hope - not thick as if with flu). We're trying to draw up a shortlist of plays to commission for next year. The floor of the room I work in at home is strewn with scripts and novels and long poems and CDs - systematically arranged though it doesn't look that way to anyone else in the house. I was reading for breakfast - not recommended (I'd recommend both Buchner and breakfast but not together
It seems a lifetime ago in some ways but the very first Twenty Minutes sticks in my mind. In the interval of the opening concert, Moving Pianos gave us a gently humorous glimpse into some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into preparing the concerts and a sense of the labyrinthine caverns and corridors hidden from public view in the Albert Hall. Pianos came up again much later in the summer in an unsentimental story by - Wunderkind - in which a young pianist realises she's never quite going to live up to her early promise.
It's hard for me to choose between the broadcasts from the Literary Festival but reading and talking about his poetry with and , which you can still watch, has to be near the top and a passionate discussion of later in the season, both in this year's Victorian series. For longer conversations of course there was another very strong series of Lebrecht Interviews. It's probably cheating to choose a whole series as a highlight so my next choice is a fragment - in the presenter's box with Petroc Trelawny and Sean Rafferty for the opening and closing nights, bringing for me just the right mix of personal comment and expert insight.
And if I can sneak in one of my personal musical high points of the season it would have to be 's Ais. I'd never heard it before and found it deeply absorbing, one of those pieces of music you know is going to wind its way into your life. Unthinkingly I'd asked someone to the concert who'd only just been bereaved and when we opened the programme at another of the night's pieces, 's 'The Isle of the Dead', illustrated with 's dark and lonely picture of a coffin being taken across the water to a mysterious island, I wondered just how tactless this was going to prove to have been. Luckily, for us both, it was an evening that did more to reinforce the power of human creativity than the pain of mortality. It made me think how extraordinary the experience of each concert is with so many thousands of us in the hall feeling and thinking about the music in so many different ways.
Now back to play script reading. It's easier to choose broadcast highlights than it is to predict them.
Comment number 1.
At 17th Sep 2009, french frank wrote:Well, we (I mean one or two messageboarders!) tend to whinge about the adaptation of novels. I was glad to be introduced to Sándor Márai's Embers but on the whole I think it's a shame not to concentrate on plays - radio plays or stage plays - in a drama slot, since there is such a huge range potentially available. But poetry is good to hear spoken too and I think some of these productions have been very successful.
I've been particularly interested in recent French and Spanish classics, and the 20th c. European works (e.g. Brecht and Frisch). Embarrassment of riches?
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Comment number 2.
At 18th Sep 2009, kleines c wrote:I, too, enjoyed many of the Proms Plus Events, Abi, including the second Literary Festival.
/proms/2009/whatson/plus.shtml
My own particular literary favourite was on Friday 4 September 5.15pm (before Prom 65), which I heard on the radio:
Philosophers A. C. Grayling and Roger Scruton discuss how fin-de-siècle Viennese musicians such as Mahler were influenced by their philosopher contemporaries - and what we today owe to these Viennese thinkers. Susan Hitch hosts.
/proms/2009/whatson/literary.shtml
I am grateful that the Proms hosts such a fascinating series of events(for free). In terms of Speech & Drama, I generally like a classic play on Sunday night, for example, Christopher Marlowe's 'Edward II'.
/iplayer/episode/b00mm0l3/Drama_on_3_Edward_the_Second/
Messageboarders seem confident enough to discuss these productions, and how they measure up against what they have seen or heard or read before. In terms of new writing for Radio 3, Abi, I really think that you just have to experiment, and see what works. You could, I think, do a bit more work to explain what new radio plays are about, and why we should listen. A blog entry, for example, might help (in advance of the broadcast). People often ask whether new writing is worth listening to. Perhaps if you were able to put it in some context, more people might listen.
As for french frank, I reckon that radio drama is a good place to experiment, and an adaptation of a classic novel is a bit of a waste. This weekend, I am going to see 'Judgment Day' at the Almeida Theatre, so I shall let you know whether I would add Ödön von Horváth to Brecht and Frisch.
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Comment number 3.
At 18th Sep 2009, french frank wrote:Hello, kleines :-)
It's always good to meet up with you wherever. We enquired after you at the Nag's Head and they looked puzzled, but then, we didn't know what your name was or what you looked like :-)
Anyway, the Böcklin picture above is an example of how the website could be used to link the various arts, visual, literary and musical - it would be good to see that developed in line with the music and literary content of R3.
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Comment number 4.
At 18th Sep 2009, kleines c wrote:I should perhaps explain, if only for Abi(gail) and everyone following the Radio 3 Blog, that alongside the Proms and the Proms Plus Events, including the Literary Festival, I also tend to get involved in a far more informal Proms Drinking Festival, including tea, and occasionally, something even stronger. I am delighted that you finally made it to the Nag's Head, french frank, although alas, I do not think that you were there when we were there, which is a real shame.
Nevertheless, we thought that the NGA weekend at Cadogan Hall was one of the highlights of the 2009 Season, full of youthful enthusiasm, and I have a suspicion that we were standing next to you in the foyer. Patrick OD, too! I should have introduced myself!
/radio3/classical/newgenerationartists/
/proms/2009/whatson/3108.shtml
With the arrival of Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for their two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall this season, the Proms provided a pool of pure pleasure, and I thought that you made something of a connoisseur's choice on the Bank Holiday Monday evening (Prom 61). The second programme, of Haydn and Shostakovich, was even more stimulating (Prom 62).
As for Abi, I, too was interested in your choice of music, painting and prom (63):
/proms/2009/whatson/notes/p63_rachmaninov.shtml
Cheers (afternoon tea)!
;)
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Comment number 5.
At 19th Sep 2009, tony yyy wrote:How about some past plays written for Radio 3, either repeats from the archives or perhaps new productions?
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Comment number 6.
At 20th Sep 2009, kleines c wrote:What an excellent idea, tony.
If the Ö÷²¥´óÐã is facing cuts, mining the archives would be one way to keep Drama on 3 going.
I should perhaps report, if only for Abi, that I do not think that 'Judgment Day' would be suitable material for broadcast on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 3.
The production relied too much on visual elements to make it suitable for radio. We listened to part of 'People Snogging in Public Places' (The Wire) in the car on the way home, which was strange.
/programmes/b00mrx76
Tonight, I am really looking forward to 'Slaughterhouse 5'.
/programmes/b00mrxk1
More later ...
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Comment number 7.
At 25th Sep 2009, AbigailAppleton wrote:I've been really interested to read your comments - thank you. I'm relieved that opinion on adaptations is divided. Though new writing and stage plays will continue to make up the largest part of our drama outout next year I'm planning to commission a small number of adaptations. I hope the radio productions will reveal new qualities in them even to listeners familiar with the works in their original form (and it's easy to over estimate how well people do know them.) The suggestion we put new writing in more context is very interesting -whether it's here on the blog or on the drama pages or even sometimes on air. Archive repeats can be more problematic, partly because of the complexity and costs of rights, but we've a repeat coming up later this year to listen out for - Don Taylor's Don Quixote with Paul Scofield as Don Quixote and Roy Hudd as Sancho Panza.
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