The Proms
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
The Proms are concerts which are part of a big music festival. “Proms” is short for “Promenade Concerts”. The Proms are organized by the BBC, so they are called the “BBC Proms”. They take place in the Royal Albert Hall, in London from July to September every year.
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[edit] Why are they called “Proms”?
The Proms started more than 100 years ago, in 1895. Concerts were expensive in those days, and not many people had enough money to go and hear good music. Most people only heard music when they went for walks in the London parks. Orchestras and bands played in bandstands in the park. Most of the music was popular and easy to listen to. People could enjoy the music while they walked about.
In the centre of London there was a building called the “Queen’s Hall”. A man called Robert Newman organized concerts there. He had an idea. He wanted to start a series of concerts which ordinary people (people who were not rich) could afford to go to. He wanted to start a series of “promenade concerts” (in French “se promener” means “to walk”). The idea was that people could have standing places which would not cost much money. There would also be seats for people who could afford to pay more.
[edit] The early years of the Proms
Robert Newman knew a very good young conductor, Henry Wood. He asked him to be the conductor of the Proms. A man called Dr Cathcart gave them enough money to get an orchestra together. On 10 August 1895 the first Promenade Concert took place in the Queen’s Hall. The price of a promenade ticket (a ticket for a standing place) was one shilling. In modern English money that is 5p.
The Promenade Concerts were a big success. Henry Wood conducted lots of popular music, but he also conducted music by great composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Wagner. People got used to listening to this music and slowly their musical tastes got better so that they could listen to longer pieces of music. Henry Wood’s orchestra played a lot of music by English composers. This helped English music to become better known. Some composers like Wallace and Cowan were popular then, but nowadays people have hardly heard of them. Other English composers like Elgar and Delius became very famous, and Wood helped them by performing their music and making it better known.
Wood liked the music of Wagner very much and often conducted it. Wagner was a German composer. In those days most famous conductors and singers were not English. They came from Europe, mostly from Germany. The Germans said that England was the “Land without Music”. They thought that the English were unmusical. It is true that in the 19th century (from 1801-1900) there were far more German musicians than English ones. But English music was getting better. Henry Wood showed that English conductors were just as good as foreign ones at conducting music by Wagner and other German composers.
Some of the music Wood conducted was very new music indeed. In 1912 he conducted a piece called “Five Orchestral Pieces” by an Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Schoenberg’s music sounded very modern and strange and the audience did not like it, so they hissed instead of clapping. Wood kept performing it until they got used to it. He even invited Schoenberg to come to England and conduct it himself in 1914. This time the audience clapped.
Henry Wood conducted the Proms for fifty years, until just before his death in 1944. Most of that time he was the only conductor, conducting every Prom. He helped the orchestras to play better. He rehearsed them very carefully (a “rehearsal” is when they practise for a concert). In those days there was a deputy system. A “deputy” is someone who plays instead of you if you are not free. If a member of the orchestra could earn more money one night by playing somewhere else, he/she would ask a friend to go and play in Wood’s orchestra for that rehearsal or concert. At one rehearsal in 1904 Wood looked at the orchestra and they were all deputies! He did not know any of them! So he stopped the deputy system. The players were very cross, and forty of them left the orchestra and formed their own orchestra: the London Symphony Orchestra. That orchestra is still famous today.
Wood was the first English conductor to allow women to play in orchestras. That was in 1913.
[edit] The BBC
In 1927 the Proms did not have enough money to continue so the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) started to fund them (give them money). The Proms were broadcast on the radio. The radio was quite a new invention then (people called it the “wireless”). At first people said “If you put concerts on the wireless, people will just sit at home to listen to music and no one will bother to go to concerts any more”. But the people who said that were wrong. Hearing music on the radio made people more interested in going to concerts. In 1930 the BBC Symphony Orchestra was formed. From then onwards they were the orchestra who played at the Proms.
[edit] The War and after
In 1941, during World War II, the Queen’s Hall was destroyed by bombs. The Proms continued to take place in the Royal Albert Hall. Then it became too dangerous in London and the Proms were held in Bristol and then Bedford. After the War the Proms went back to the Royal Albert Hall. They have been held there ever since.
[edit] The Proms today
Today the Proms are very different from when they started. It is much more international. The BBC Symphony Orchestra play several concerts each season but there are lots of other orchestras from all over the world who come to play. You can hear different kinds of music at the Proms: not just classical music but jazz and music from far-away countries. In 2005 the famous Indian musician Ravi Shankar played the sitar at one of the Proms.
[edit] The Last Night of the Proms
There is a Prom every night (i.e. every evening) for two months during the summer. The last concert is called the “Last Night of the Proms”. It is very famous and you can watch it on television in lots of countries all over the world. Some people who go to the Last Night dress up in funny clothes and wave flags. They sing famous songs about England: “Rule Britannia”, “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Jerusalem”. The conductor makes a speech.
[edit] How to go to the Proms
You can buy tickets for a seat just like any other concert. But the best way to go to the Proms is to be a promenader. This means that you have a standing place. There are two places to prom: downstairs in the arena and upstairs in the gallery. The Royal Albert Hall is round, and looks like an old Roman amphitheatre. That is why the floor downstairs is called the “arena”, like in an amphitheatre. If you promenade downstairs you are near the orchestra, especially if you are near the front. But it can be quite a squash when there are lots of people, and if you are small you need to be near the front to see properly. You can also promenade upstairs in the gallery. There is more room there, and it is easy to see, and easy to sit down or lie down if you get tired.
A ticket to promenade costs £5. You have to wait in a queue outside and you buy your ticket as you go in. If you want to be near the front it is a good idea to join the queue early. Some people queue for hours. They pass the time by talking or playing games. It is all good fun and part of enjoying being at the Proms.
