RAH - Festival of Remembrance

[Martin Cooke]

Am I alone at feeling just a little desperate that in the RBL's major feast of Remembrance not a single piece of classical music or performer from that world featured even for s moment? I fully appreciate that the military musicians who performed are of the highest order, and the military music was enjoyable and splendidly done. But have we really just come down to there being contributions just from celeb-style performers? Is it really seen that nothing from Purcell, Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, Finzi, Ireland, just to mention the obvious ones, might touch the spot at such an occasion? 

[S_L]

I watched it too! I'm getting a bit fed up of society pandering to the 'celebrity' culture. I bemoaned several aspects of the 'service' at RAH on Saturday evening, not least the lack of a contribution by established composers as mentioned by Martin above. I have to say that I thought some of the performances were very good indeed but, and I'm sure that Dr. Colin, will berate me for this, why do they have to have microphones almost attached to their faces - or is it because they don't know what to do with their hands!! It was a shame that, in one piece, the singer, who could make plenty of sound anyway, had the assistance of a microphone whereas the 'cellist didn't! And I couldn't hear the 'cellist! I've played in the RAH dozens of times and I don't understand the need for microphones for a soloist.

I often wonder what the King, who is a cultured man, even a not very good 'cellist, must think of it all! But 'jo-public' seems to like it - which I find a little worrying!! But that is another discussion altogether!

 

[Colin Pykett]

1 hour ago, S_L said:

... I'm sure that Dr. Colin, will berate me for this, why do they have to have microphones almost attached to their faces ...

No, he won't.  In fact I agree, and I find the appearance of what looks like a huge wart emerging from performers' nostrils most repulsive.

1 hour ago, S_L said:

... But 'jo-public' seems to like it ...

I think that's the point.  RBL is a charity which does good work as far as I can judge, so it needs a lot of money, so they have to appeal to as many potential punters as possible.

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

4 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

No, he won't.  In fact I agree, and I find the appearance of what looks like a huge wart emerging from performers' nostrils most repulsive.

🤮🤮🤮

[Barry Oakley]

11 hours ago, S_L said:

I watched it too! I'm getting a bit fed up of society pandering to the 'celebrity' culture. I bemoaned several aspects of the 'service' at RAH on Saturday evening, not least the lack of a contribution by established composers as mentioned by Martin above. I have to say that I thought some of the performances were very good indeed but, and I'm sure that Dr. Colin, will berate me for this, why do they have to have microphones almost attached to their faces - or is it because they don't know what to do with their hands!! It was a shame that, in one piece, the singer, who could make plenty of sound anyway, had the assistance of a microphone whereas the 'cellist didn't! And I couldn't hear the 'cellist! I've played in the RAH dozens of times and I don't understand the need for microphones for a soloist.

I often wonder what the King, who is a cultured man, even a not very good 'cellist, must think of it all! But 'jo-public' seems to like it - which I find a little worrying!! But that is another discussion altogether!

 

When you have seen one you have seen them all. 

[S_L]

15 hours ago, Barry Oakley said:

When you have seen one you have seen them all. 

This is very true but, when you live in a remote area of S.W. France, it's rather like listening to Vaughan Williams - it makes you think of home!!

[Barry Oakley]

I fully understand what you say.

[innate]

On 13/11/2023 at 10:12, Colin Pykett said:

No, he won't.  In fact I agree, and I find the appearance of what looks like a huge wart emerging from performers' nostrils most repulsive.

I think that, whilst this is a common reaction and one I experienced myself, we are just being naturally reluctant to accept new technology. Can you imagine what you would think seeing someone wearing spectacles if you’d never seen a pair of spectacles before? And now we don’t give it a moment’s thought. Same goes for makeup, headphones, eyepatch etc.

[S_L]

3 hours ago, innate said:

 ............... we are just being naturally reluctant to accept new technology. 

Sorry to disagree!

But it isn't new technology. As far as I can see it is actually very old technology!! (I expect to corrected by Dr. C here!!) 'Pop' musicians have been attaching microphones to their faces since 'Pop musicians' and microphones were invented!! It was 1968/9 but I have played, as the soloist, a concerto in the Albert Hall with a orchestra of 70+ musicians behind me. I wasn't 'miked up' and I can't understand why a singer should need it either!!

[Colin Pykett]

1 hour ago, S_L said:

But it isn't new technology. As far as I can see it is actually very old technology!!

The first radio broadcast by a professional singer is usually credited to Dame Nellie Melba, the Australian soprano, on 15 June 1920, singing into an experimental microphone in an old packing shed at Marconi's works in Chelmsford, England.  This was some two years before the British Broadcasting Company (note, not the Corporation it became later) was set up with a capital of £100k.  She was photographed at the microphone clutching a handbag which perhaps contained the reputed £1000 fee she had demanded for the occasion.  Her improvised concert was heard as far away as Paris, Rome, Warsaw, Madrid, Berlin, Stockholm and Tabriz (then in Persia), as well as by ships out at sea.  The audience was largely made up of amateur radio enthusiasts, of which there were by then a considerable number worldwide.  It is said that the Savoy hotel, where she was staying in London, concocted the Peach Melba dessert to celebrate the occasion (though some sources predate its invention to the 1890s).  Outraged by the publicity for some reason, the British Postmaster General withdrew permission for Marconi's to continue broadcasting in November that year, though this was later restored partly owing to the resulting public outcry.  A box had been opened which it was impossible to close thereafter.

[Hebridean]

I am probably going to sound very ignorant here but are we not missing a key point?  Isn't the reason that the RAH performers for the Remembrance Day festival were using microphones the same reason as Dame Nellie Melba was using one, i.e., because the performance was being broadcast?  On radio in the second instance, on TV in the first?  I am assuming that S_L's performance was not being broadcast - broadcasts of the Proms, for example, use (orchestral )microphones.  I have no idea if this article is correct or not, but it certainly suggests the complexity of recording the Proms in the RAH https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/bbc-proms#:~:text=The Radio Tree%2C comprising a,from a single catenary wire.  I may be well out of my depth ...

[innate]

1 hour ago, S_L said:

Sorry to disagree!

But it isn't new technology. As far as I can see it is actually very old technology!! (I expect to corrected by Dr. C here!!) 'Pop' musicians have been attaching microphones to their faces since 'Pop musicians' and microphones were invented!! It was 1968/9 but I have played, as the soloist, a concerto in the Albert Hall with a orchestra of 70+ musicians behind me. I wasn't 'miked up' and I can't understand why a singer should need it either!!

I wasn’t addressing the necessity of microphones; merely the *relatively* new technologies of wireless mikes attached to the head or ear. What instrument were you playing with an orchestra in the RAH? I’m often amazed to think that there were political meetings in the RAH in the late 19th/early 20th century and the orators were heard in that acoustic, before the mushrooms were installed. The same goes for the Music Hall artists, Marie Lloyd etc. I’ve worked in Musical Theatre most of my life (the last 40 years) and I think I’ve only done one professional production where the singers weren’t individually miked—I don’t think there is much chance the tide will change in that area.

[DQB123]

.

[S_L]

3 hours ago, innate said:

 What instrument were you playing with an orchestra in the RAH? 

As an organist I am a rank amateur, a very poor ARCO standard! I began my life as a 'cellist - I played in the AH twice - once the Elgar concerto and, once the 1st Shostakovich concerto. A long time ago!

[S_L]

3 hours ago, Hebridean said:

I am assuming that S_L's performance was not being broadcast ...

I'm not sure why you should assume that but you are correct!! It was not broadcast but it was, however, recorded!!

[innate]

4 hours ago, S_L said:

As an organist I am a rank amateur, a very poor ARCO standard! I began my life as a 'cellist - I played in the AH twice - once the Elgar concerto and, once the 1st Shostakovich concerto. A long time ago!

Congratulations on playing the Elgar concerto in the RAH. Microphones for instrumentalists are still very rare in the classical world of live performance although not unheard of in contemporary classical music eg George Crumb. In pop, jazz, Musical Theatre, “cross-over” and most other forms of popular music, live performances are almost always amplified; not always to increase the overall volume but to allow the balancing of softer and stronger sounds and to enable the provision of monitoring so that all the performers may hear each other either through small monitor speakers or, much more commonly these days, via in-ear monitors (similar to the way many organists in cathedrals now hear the choir and their own organ playing through headphones—is that something you disapprove of?). Many, probably most, singers are not trained the way that classical opera singers were trained in the past for projection in large opera houses; in a similar way most public speakers, including clergy and politicians, need amplification nowadays. You can complain that present day singers shouldn’t need microphones but the fact is that microphones are here to stay.

[AndrewG]

One of the first Proms at the RAH I went to had Jessye Norman as soloist in Beethoven 9.  She had absolutely no trouble being heard over a full orchestra and a massive choir.  No mic needed.  

It is still one of the most incredible musical performances I have ever heard.  As a teenager it made me fall in love with live (and affordable) classical music. 
 

[S_L]

 

10 hours ago, AndrewG said:

One of the first Proms at the RAH I went to had Jessye Norman as soloist in Beethoven 9.  She had absolutely no trouble being heard over a full orchestra and a massive choir.  No mic needed.  

It is still one of the most incredible musical performances I have ever heard.  As a teenager it made me fall in love with live (and affordable) classical music. 
 

Jessye Norman - what a voice!!!!

12th of September 1986!! - with Georg Solti and the LPO

[AndrewG]

On 16/11/2023 at 09:24, S_L said:

 

Jessye Norman - what a voice!!!!

12th of September 1986!! - with Georg Solti and the LPO

Indeed!