Episode 4 BBC Proms

Tonight, the revolution WILL be televised with Beethoven's

Tavener's Requiem Fragments will leave you broken,

and there is beautiful tragedy to be had with Mahler.

It is the bitter sweet symphony that can only be Proms Extra.

Hello and welcome to Proms Extra, the show that recalls some

of the highlights of the Proms coverage from the Royal Albert Hall

Tonight in the studio, I'll be joined by three classical

stalwarts, there's Chord of the Week and we spend the day with two very

In a week that saw the sky lit up by a super moon and a meteor

shower, not wanting to be left out, the Proms joined in and showed that

in the celestial Royal Albert Hall there was no shortage of stars.

Just some of the highlights from the past week in the Royal Albert Hall.

Now who's in our studio in the Royal College of Music tonight?

First up we have a soprano who has sung for audiences

all over the world and the muse of one of tonight's featured composers,

Next to join Proms Extra is one of the UK's finest composers,

celebrating his 80th birthday at the Proms this season.

Back in the ?60s he was known as the enfant terrible.

We hope nothing's changed since then.

Our final guest used to be a music teacher, then gave it up

Music education's loss is the operatic world's gain.

He's performing at the Last Night of the Proms and is closing

May I call Umax? You're celebrating your birthday this year, so much of

your music has already been heard. Do you still like listening to

music? your music has already been heard.

Do you still like It was a very strange experience. In the first of

these bronze they did a piece I wrote in 1962 and it was like seeing

a ghost of yourself at a very young age. - Proms. Quite frightening. I

thought although I would have liked to have taken a big red pencil and

done it better, I thought I was quite student! A birthday party to

come as well on your 80th. Yes, September the 8th, the Scottish

chamber August are doing a late-night Prom for my birthday and

they are finishing with a wedding. Patricia, you have been a feature of

many problems, but your debut was at the Last Night Of The Proms in 1983.

What do you remember of that occasion? I felt very, very

privileged to be singing a piece by fon Williams. It suited my voice

perfectly. It was a treat. - fon Williams. How is the preparation

going? I'm intrigued you didn't say you were terrified, where you

terrified? Once I get on stage I really enjoy it. One is always

terrified before. Going out to conduct at the Albert Hall, through

that archway, it is so frightening and you see all those things. As

soon as you turn your back and look at the orchestra, you forget about

everything except the music. It takes over. Even though I hope you

won't be turning your back, you will be concentrating on the music as

well. And you have another problem before that. The Butterworth, I'm

singing is a Shropshire Lad songs. It's an orchestration because I've

sung them many times with piano, but this is the chance to do it with a

different colour. We are looking forward to that very much.

Well, three weeks ago on Proms Extra, we discussed

Tonight, it's all about his third, the Eroica.

Shown on BBC4 last night, the Eroica was dedicated to

Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Beethoven held in the highest regard

That dedication got scribbled out once Beethoven found out that

Napoleon had declared him self Emperor.

And the moral of this story is, never compose for a revolutionary,

until you've seen them nail their colours to the mast.

Conducted by Proms Extra family member Sir Mark Elder with the

Beethoven's 3rd symphony, Eroica, and that was

the 118th performance of the piece in 120 years of the Proms.

Max, you conducted one of those previous performances. It's a

wonderful piece to conduct. You must respect that score absolutely, but

remember how original it is. For instance, that very first tune. The

Diva flat, or C Sharp, intervenes in the line and opens up such

possibilities of exploration through the development, right through to

the end of the first movement. It makes you very aware that you have

to make people understand how revolutionary and how utterly

brilliant that the flat was in that very first tune. Do you feel

sometimes it's music that requires you to listen in a way that

classical music beforehand had been allowed to wash over? Yes, with

Beethoven there is no washing over. Until then music had often been

background music. Something to entertain gently, but this was such

a statement. It made a statement which we've not got over yet!

Tricia, do you feel that sense of revolution when you hear it?

Absolutely. The orchestra is so grand and awful and there are so

many different emotions coming through the music, but I also love

the fact he is strident, but also at times very tender and delicate.

Beautiful. What do you think it shows us about Beethoven the man?

You can get a huge amount of the man in his music. His reluctance to

compromise comes over hugely, particularly in this symphony, over

and above the two previous. The idea that he seems to be seizing the

lapels of his audience and just shaking them and saying listening.

You get the feeling at the end of this he might not be the most

wonderful dinner guest! Extremely sure of his own opinions and

abilities. There is a sense this was the first piece of music as

political statement, or is that the importance we put on it now with

hindsight? It's difficult with hindsight because you mentioned so

many performances at the Proms alone. For all of us to imagine what

it must have been like to hear that for the first time, I have in my

mind classical symphony performances for the first time where it was very

polite. The count or countess who would have paid for the evening,

nobody would want to unsettle them. There's a feeling from Beethoven

that this is his own piece, it reflects himself, and it reflects

something common to humanity. He would much rather have upset the

dinner table for the count, this is what it is to be human. That's the

impression I get from the music. What kind of human was he? I'm sure

he was a difficult man, but genius often has those extremes. Creative

people do, don't they? We all said, looking at Max! I'm not a genius,

but I am creative and I think I am difficult. Now the Sea Pictures. I

haven't had an opportunity to sing it with an orchestra. How did you

choose to do these? The project came to me as a recording project, along

with other orchestral songs for baritone. In singing them down and

octaves in my range, so the keys remain the same, nothing has changed

apart from the vocal part, nobody in the room, least of all me, felt

there was a mismatch. The poems are not gender specific. Two by women,

three by men. The first one speaks about the relationship between

mother and child, but the sea is speaking, it doesn't necessarily

need to be a woman. I feel really happy in the same way I would urge

all the mezzo sopranos currently throwing their shoes at the

television to take those words for so long associated with men and ask

why. It seems to be happening more and more in the 21st-century that we

are crossing the boundaries. My first singing teacher was a German

and he would have been horrified if I had wanted to sing a man song. Now

one becomes the performer and one can be male or female and draw

something out of oneself. Let's have a listen to some of the Sea Pictures

performed by Alice Coote. That was Alice Coote performing

Elgar's Sea Pictures. You've been inspired so much by the

sea come how do you feel a gold car represented the ocean? - Elgar. He

did very well. In his wonderful portrait of the sea, which she wrote

on the south coast of England, not in France, he puts the arithmetic,

the mathematics, of wave shape in the Fibonacci series, which is a

purely arithmetical thing and he weaves that through his piece. Elgar

I don't think would have ever thought about. I know that living

with the sea, as I do all the time, I go to my door and there is the

sea, when you're that close, it's a part of the fabric not only of your

life, it inspires you even when you hear it through the open window in

the middle of the night, but it almost becomes a part of your body.

I think Elgar is describing sea related emotions and feelings, but

not from that enormous close-up where there total identification or

almost total identification. I hope I'm not saying something naughty

about Elgar when I say that, it's not a criticism, it's a statement of

his relationship, which is descriptive and he obviously

thoroughly enjoyed it and it meant a lot to him.

And if you enjoyed that Prom, you can watch it on the BBC iPlayer.

Still to come tonight, we have a performance by our guest,

Roderick Williams, and we look at concerts featuring the works of

Now, it was Sir Benjamin Britten who said,

?The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting

That was Britten's opinion of a composer, but back in the ?60s,

for a certain young hotshot, as a composer it wasn't the ideas that

kept him awake, but something else. What does keep me awake at night is

the method of expression. The technique of composition. This is

the composer's first concern. So wonderful seeing that piece of

footage of you in the '60s. Max, do you stay awake at night thinking

ever method and structure? Oh, yes, all the time. It's absolutely

fundamental that you question and research your technique. I think a

performer understands that. I think, with a composer it is no different.

You're always reinventing yourself through your technique. I think you

take it for granted that you've got something to say, otherwise you have

no business being a composer, but you always try to refine and

improve. And, I still work regular office hours at that desk. It's a

lifetime's habit. The opinions there of Max and Tendai Biti. Proms Extra

spent time with two composers. I'm a composer and I live in Brixton. My

music is very direct and immediate. It tends to be fast, colourful and

rhythmic. There is quite a sparse clarity to my music. I don't like to

stuff too much into a score. I like the feeling that anyone listening

can hear everything that is happening at once. That means

possibly not having too many instruments playing at the same

time. When I sit down, I think I can get going on this new piece. Is

probably to write a very small bit of melody. It might just be three

notes. If I have the three notes on paper I feel pleased. I feel at

least I get started. I put them down randomly. There must be a reason for

them being there. I'm thinking of the melody that will lead me from

the beginning to the end. The process of composing is like having

stuck in your head, it won't leave. You become obsessed by certain

things. Possibly for several months while you try to relate these little

bits of tune to each other. While some people would find that not good

to have an ear worm you can't get rid of. I like the feeling there is

a trace of melody in my head going round and round. That is the

beginning of a piece often. When I start music it tends to not start as

music. The it tends to start as words. I have notebooks which I take

around with me all the time. I write stuff down. I might sketch rhythmic

things. Rhythm is an important part of the music I write. That might go

on for a week or so. I go to the keyboard and start working things

out. My first Proms commission was almost a year after the riots that

happened in 2012. I was in Brixton when that was going on. We heard

lots of fire engines and police helicopters, it just felt like the

whole country just went mad for two-days. It was scary that it could

turn that quickly. I was really just trying to explore the idea of how

something can just explode like that. There can be a line of

thinking that composers who live detached from society. Away from

normality. I like to live in the middle of a large city. I try to

meet as many different people as possible. I actively dislike the

idea of these rareified composers. I don't need silence to work. I need

quiet, but sounds outside don't bother me. I live right next to a

train line. They are going by seven or eight times an hour. We see a lot

of the police helicopter around here. I don't mind that too much. It

hasn't got a pitch to my way of listening. What bothers me around

here is ice-cream trucks. They - there is something very insidious

about ice-cream trucks. The worse thing in the whole world for me is

the ice-cream van. It's always outside this house. It has the most

out of tune sound ever. It tries to play a tune. They keep their tunes

on for 30 seconds at a time. I have to stop for a long time after that

has been by. Noises don't bother me. Ice-cream trucks, they do bother me!

Do we have a shared loathing of ice-cream trucks on this sofa?

Definitely. Is that the sort of thing would distract you, Max? Of

course. The where I live now there are no ice-cream vans. I'm glad

about that. When I was 14, I think, I wrote to the Swinton and

Pendlebury Journal, near Manchester where I lived, complaining about the

noise of ice-cream vans which even then I couldn't stand. As a

14-year-old that shows dedication to your art. Yes. We have just heard

from Judith Weir, what the role entails, you gave up that position a

year or so ago? I stopped being MQM a short time ago and handed over to

Judith. I'm pleased she has taken on the role. She will be absolutely

marvellous. I remember when I first went in to see the Queen after I had

accepted the job, I asked her, well, what would you like me to make of

this? She said - you can make of it what you like. ! Philip and I want

to learn. We shall do everything we can to help. I thought that was

marvellous. What I did, all those 10 years, it seems like yesterday I

started, but what I did was write one or two big pieces like big piece

for chorus orchestra and brass band and trumpeters and choruses for the

cathedrals and chapels royal, and whatever else, to mark the

anniversary of the end of World War II. The outbreak of peace. I

invented the Queen's Medal for Music, which has gone to great

conductors, great singers. Went to Judith Weir the composer one year. I

think that is very important. It has raised the profile of serious music

of all kinds a little bit. I'm pleased with that. I wrote them a

Christmas Carol for the Chapel Royal. Will Judith Weir continue

with that? She will continue with the themes and innovate other things

that I hadn't thought of and will do extremely well. I look forward fo

her results of her work. Rod you suppose as well Mostly vocal music.

Not exclusively. It's for me I would count it much more as a hobby.

Something I can do when on tour with my singing in a hotel room or

airport waiting to change another flight. I can do some work then in

those quiet moments. So we can see that Judith and Gavin there, you

mentioned you have 9.00am to 5.00pm regime, you work at home. I'm on the

move. Some knit, I like to write if I can. Max, you are a prolific

composer. You keep office hours. What is a typical day like for you,

the composer? I would get up at home. I will take the dog for a

walk,, except the dog just died after 12 years. That is very sad. I

shall take a walk, whatever the weather. In storm weather it is just

so inspiring and vital. You are up in the Auckneys. Yes. The beach

changes all the time. Never the same twice. That gives you lots of... I

think it's a lovely old fashioned world "inspiration" and courage to

go into the house, have a coffee and face your desk. I like to be at the

desk at 9.30am and work through for a break of something light for

lunch. Then through to 6. 30pm. It might sound ridiculous. I'm by

myself, set out the table, put water, two wine glasses and in have

a meal. I don't have a television. I will read, listen to music, play the

piano. I will polish furniture or Cooper or something and relax in

that way. That, basically, is my day. Of course, at the moment I'm

not at home. I'm away I think for three weeks. The I'm having a

wonderful time being 80 all over the place! Birthday celebrations and

getting thoroughly spoilt! Do you think being a composer is easier

these days, has it changed much from when you started in the 6 of 0's? I

think it has. Composers have a hard time of these days because, for a

start, there are so many of them. When I was very young, there were

very few of us. And, the number of composers here at the Royal College,

and at the Royal Academy across town is enormous in comparison. They are

all in competition with each other. Then publishers were actively

looking for young composers to publish. These days they are

overwhelmed. They are not publishing much anyway because a lot of them

are run by accountants, not people looking to the future, they are

looking to the next five minutes worth of profit. I think they really

have a fight. We talked a little bit about the competition between

composers and how many young composers there are. The do you feel

the audiences are clamouring for new classical music. What is your sense,

Roderick? That is a tough one. I have spoken to audience members who

love the things they know. So I think often - I've had that

experience, certainly from a performer's eye view on the stage,

singing a new work. You look into the eyes of the audience. When the

first chord goes down you see a look on their faces. I have spoken to

other audience members who are excited by the prospect of hearing

something new. I don't know. I find it very difficult to speak for them

as a whole. I find the younger generation are really into modern

music. They understand it immediately. I think for older

people it can be challenging. My mother used to come to England every

year. I would take her to all the performances I did. Sometimes she

would say - that didn't make any sense. It was just too long. She was

listening fortunes. It isn't always the case. Do you allow yourself,

Max, to be swayed by that sense the audience may not appreciate or

understand what you have written? I think that... That has happened a

lot in my life. Audiences have found what I have done very difficult. In

1969 a third of them walk out. It made the BBC News. There was a

scandal at the Albert Hall last nightment when you are young it is

something you have to go through and put up with. You go on. The lovely

thing is now, that piece and other pieces I wrote then, which caused a

great scandal they are done and done and done. People enjoy them. And I

think that's a very good reason for living until you are 80. You see all

those things which caused such problems with audiences, they go

full circle. They are family favourites. Even in the time of

Beethoven, you know, when a new work was performed, some of their first

performances were badly received by audiences it challenged them. Yes.

The more we hear music the more we get to understand the sound and

enjoy it. If you would like to find out more about new music you can

unlock a treasure trove in the new works collection which can be found

on the BBC iPlayer. I urge you to check it out. We will turn now to

the late John Tavener whose work Requiem Fragments was shown last

week on BBC Four when it had its world premier.

The world premiere of Requiem Fragments by Sir John Tavener, whose

music has become the soundtrack to national, emotional occasions,

He composed Requiem Fragments shortly before his death.

You knew Sir John the best, you worked with him so many times, tell

us about the man behind that beautiful music. He put across a

very sombre image in public. He did look very frail towards the end, but

knowing him privately, he had a wicked sense of humour and he was

very widely read, when I first met him he played Indian classical music

to me and he was giggling about it. He said, this is your music, and he

took me back to my roots. In the first opera of his that I did, he

studied my voice and after that he wrote many pieces for me. They got

harder and harder progressively, but they seemed to fit like a glove

after I'd done a bit of work and the high notes were just there. It was

always difficult, but exciting. You met him. We did a piece together in

about 2005. We went to Istanbul and it was also done in London. I

remember specifically when Sir John came to rehearsals, I was having a

real problem with the style. It was Arabic and very high line. I

couldn't get it. Eventually he was just sitting in the stalls and he

said, no, like this! He did this extraordinary thing. It made sense!

I was trying to sing it, that was my problem. Max, does his work speak to

you? I like some of the shorter pieces very much. The longer ones,

I'm afraid... I don't take to them so kindly. I do recognise he's a

great composer. He has one thing which can be an example to us. He

makes one note, two notes were very, very hard over time and in space.

That economy produces an intensity, a spiritual awareness, between

perhaps just two notes, which is quite extraordinary. I have

difficulty with some of his work, but enormous respect and some of the

smaller pieces I really do like. He was a wonderful choral writer,

particularly. Do you know if you enjoyed your work? He didn't like my

work at all! I remember him being quite abusive in public, saying some

of my work was like laundering dirty linen in public! I didn't mind.

Finally, he didn't like Beethoven either. You just accept that I'm not

that I would ever claim to be Beethoven. You think, I can learn

from John certain things about concentration and spirituality, but

other things I will just leave aside when he starts talking about me and

my work. Seems to me that a thick skin is a requirement of being a

composer. I think you have to have both a thick skin and are very

sensitive one. Now it's time for our weekly feature

that we know strikes a chord with many of you - yes,

it's David Owen Norris and his Chord of the Week, which tonight looks

into Tavener's Requiem Fragments. D major and be major simultaneously.

I think it came into Tavern's mind when he was thinking about the

residence buildings - resonant buildings his pieces would be

performed. A generous acoustic can make cords overlap and his take on

that idea would run with it. He's writing for double choir and he has

one choir singing a cycle of fifth, D major, down five notes to grams,

down to see and F. His other choir fills in that cycle of fifth with

cords three notes apart. So when Tavener puts those together, he gets

overlapping, echoing cords. Then he gets a completely different

set of overlapping echoes by singing everything backwards. To put it in

the context of contemporary art, you might say he's cut up his shark a

different way. David Owen Norris and

his chords will be back next week. Now, from revolutions to sacred

words to tragedy, or at least a symphony nicknamed

?Tragic'/Tragische, but officially known as the sixth symphony,

composed by Gustav Mahler. Conducted by Valery Gergiev, here is

the World Orchestra for Peace Mahler's 6th Symphony, performed

by the World Orchestra for Peace Can you feel the tragedy in that

music? It's very tragic and the ending of the sixth Symphony was be

one of the most despairing noises music has ever made. He quite

literally takes a big hammer and smashes it onto the platform. A

terrifying gesture. I think that music is a foretaste of the extreme

agonies he was going to go through mentally, spiritually, a little

later in his life. The very fact that he wrote it with all itself

questioning and agonising and despair, what an act of courage,

what an example that is for all of us. We can all have... There's a

lovely old-fashioned word, uplift, his example. I think it's a nap

salute you marvellous piece, wonderful piece. One of my

favourites. One of the things that impresses me about hearing a

well-known piece is hearing it performed by so many orchestras. The

World Orchestra for Peace are a very particular group, hand-picked,

superb musicians who play in other orchestras around the world. There

is a real mission to show how musicians can work together from all

different cultural backgrounds. This is something you feel very strongly

about, Patricia. Absolutely. Music is a force that opens people up and

it gives them confidence. I've been teaching in India for the last five

years and I've been amazed by young people coming to me from all parts

of India. I do this singing, I teach singing. They are just lapping it up

and I've been discovering some beautiful voices. Max, this is a

cause close to your heart, the idea of music breaking down boundaries

and crossing social divides. That has put an end to that orchestra.

All you can do is try to overcome and make music, the healing power

that it really is given half a chance. The orchestra there that we

saw, it's a marvellous gesture in the right direction. There must be

more, there must be more. There will be a huge buzz when Daniel Barenboim

comes into town with his orchestra. Yes, in the next couple of weeks. We

shall look out for that. It's good to see classical music is

doing all it can to bring everyone together,

but sadly Proms Extra is about to break up this party as we're almost

at the end of tonight's show. Something for you to enjoy tomorrow

night on BBC4 is one heck of a singin', swingin' battle

in the Royal Albert Hall. There's nothing else worth watching

because it don't mean a thing An exciting concert not to be missed

tomorrow night on BBC4 at 7pm, And the host of that concert,

Clare Teal, will be joining me on next week's Proms Extra,

along with the king of dad dancing and conductor of the Borusan

Istanbul Phil, Sascha Goetzel, and another bad boy of British

composers, Mark-Anthony Turnage. Just time to remind you that you can

watch Proms every Thursday, Radio 3 broadcasts every Prom live

and you can find this episode Many thanks to my guests tonight,

to Patricia Rozario, Max aka Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and thanks

to Roderick Williams, who has taken Accompanied by Susie Allan

on the piano, here is Roderick # amazing Grace. # how sweet the

sound. # that saved a wretch like me.

# I once was lost. # but now I'm found.

# I was blind but now I see. # was grace that taught my heart to

feel. # When we've been here ten thousand

years # Bright shining like the sun

# We've no less days to sing God's praise

# Than when we've just begun. #