A few things give changed since the Proms began back in 1895. Fifty years ago, only two Proms were televised. This year, there is a prime time slot every Saturday on BBC2, and regular broadcasts on BBC4. And 50 years agone, there was a great deal of concern about the front of the thing - sometimes more than the music itself. In 1958, an internal BBC memoranda about the opening night broadcast noted that a mezzo soprano's "dress was unanimously cordially disliked - has the Television Service not the right of discussing the matter of dress with soloists in order that they should look as well as possible on the screen? The cutaway shots to members of the audience should be handled with care. While the thoughtful girl made a most attractive picture and interfered in no way with the music, the shots of the youth in the gray topper and of the shop-girl wagging her head in clock time to the music ar frankly not conducive to concentration on the euphony, and I think bettor kept to the intervals between items." It was observed that some of the first-night promenaders wore "comic hats", and that the orchestra and conductor were greeted with streamers. This year's first-night audience was much better behaved.
One of the biggest changes we've seen has been the broadening of entree that radio, TV and interactive services now proffer. When Henry Wood and Robert Newman came up with their original vision for the Proms, of introducing new audiences to high-quality classic music, they could not have imagined the size and hand of today's global audience. Fifty age ago, the season ran for iI months - but not every night, as now. Then, in that respect were but 49 concerts (compared to 76 this year), and only pentad orchestras employed (33 in 2008). There were ballots for the first- and last-night tickets, and the programme usher (simply a list of concerts) was sixpence.
But the biggest difference was in the concerts themselves, which were unlike whatever concert you would wait to find out today. I am spell-bound by the art of putting a programme together, and so last month we presented a Prom from 1958 - an overture and a philharmonic by Mendelssohn, and a piano concerto and a symphony by Brahms. The hall was packed, and it prompted a riveting debate about the nature of today's programming. Are modern concerts too short? Is it too much for players to execute such a long program? And - most interestingly, given that we now have so much music available to us, all of the time - are audiences still weaponed to take in a concert of this distance? We did allow one concession to modern times and gave the audience a second interval. Did they really drink much less in 1958, or did audiences have stronger constitutions?
I am often stricken by how formulaic so much of our concert life has become. Is 7.30pm really the best time for a concert - and wherefore are they usually in two parts? Why execute a concerto in the first half, and a symphony in the
