13 August

13th August 2007 Twenty Minutes: The First BBC Prom At approx 8.20pm on Monday, 13 August, during the live relay of the BBC Promenade Concert from the Royal Albert Hall in London, Sean Street presents a radio feature the mark the 80th anniversary of the first BBC Prom, exactly 80 years on. It is hard to imagine now but in 1927 the Proms were for the chop. The Times reported that Sir Henry Wood had received a letter from Chappell and Co., the music publisher which ran them, informing him that it ‘proposes to give no more symphony concerts and (what is more serious) no more promenade Concerts in the summer’. But the BBC, only 5 years old, hungry for music to broadcast, and somewhere to broadcast it from, stepped in. After lengthy and labyrinthine negotiations, the BBC took on the Proms and Sir Henry Wood, and the first BBC Prom was broadcast 80 years ago tonight from the Queen’s Hall. The radio historian Sean Street explores the significance of this moment of musical and broadcasting history. Jenny Doctor, who has edited a new history of the Proms. Tells him how certain Cassandras, including Chappell’s, wailed that broadcasting would be the death of live music: no one would go to the concerts if they listen to them at home – an argument still heard today. The first BBC Prom proved otherwise. The Queen’s Hall was besieged and the police, turning Prommers who couldn’t get in away, were heard urging them to hurry home so they could hear the concert on the wireless. One listener in Liverpool was so grateful for the broadcast of a concert he couldn’t possibly get to that he sent the BBC 25 shillings. The BBC building Henry Wood House now stands on the site of the Queen’s Hall which was destroyed in the Blitz. The Proms office is exactly where the prommers stood and here Sean Street talks to the Proms’ director, Nicholas Kenyon, about the music that was played that evening. The programme was eclectic, including Elgar’s overture Cockaigne, the Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt and Mowing the Barley, a traditional song arranged by Cecil Sharp. Kenyon considers what this reveals about musical taste then and now, and the way concerts as events have changed – and remained the same. And Sean Street scours the papers of 14th August, 1927 to see what the music critics had to say. ‘Handel’s Largo in G …was greeted with hand-clappings and cries of enthusiasm loud enough to be heard far outside the building’ wrote the Special Representative sent by The Sunday Times. He looks to editorial comment and letters to gauge public feeling about the BBC’s initiative. ‘If the BBC have any money to spare I suggest that they use it in an endeavour to have the microphone installed in our music halls…’ Tom Eadie suggested in the Glasgow News. The BBC broadcasting the Proms…now, is that a programme idea with legs? Is it viable in the long term?