Moving with the times

It is inevitable that a festival the size of the Proms should become a showcase not just for the artists taking part, but also for the way classical music is perceived more generally. There would be no point in a public services’ provider such as the BBC launching such an enterprise every year if it didn’t deliver what people wanted. And indeed it is clear that it matters very much to the BBC how many people do actually attend these concerts: the blurb is as full as ever of figures showing how last year was a ‘record-breaking’ year; and now how this year there were ‘376 tickets sold every minute during the first hour of BBC Proms booking’. Buzz, buzz, buzz.

There has been a trend over recent years towards preferring what is new and shiny — young people, recent repertoire, media personalities. One notices, for example, that the presenters on TV and radio are given as much hype in the publicity as the people who are actually giving the concerts.