Proms Extra: Episode 3 BBC Proms

Tonight, it's all about the harmonies as Beethoven shares

centre stage with Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie

And across the week the Proms was buzzing.

And that's all in South Kensington, London.

Here in our studio with me tonight, I have three guests who I expect

I have soprano Ailish Tynan, the choral director Ken Burton,

and the opera tenor and Proms 2017 star Stuart Skelton.

I know a lot of you make a lot of effort to get here. More of that in

a minute. Ailish, we last met a year ago and much has changed.

Congratulations on little Daisy. I actually was pregnant on the last

show but I wasn't telling anybody yet! And here she is. What a

sweetie. She got her first tooth, with only realised downstairs. So

we'll forget this day. Congratulations. Ken, you took part

in the gospel Prom last year. Never happier than when you are here. You

also took a special session before the singers in the Ella and Dizzy

event. We did, and members of the public, those who consider

themselves singers and those who don't, they came and had the

opportunity of learning a number of Ella Fitzgerald pieces, and a bit of

technique, so I produced a few Ellas and Eltons. It looked huge fun.

Stuart, we saw a lot about your life, your progression and your

singing of Fidelio last week. Your last shot was your taking Proms

Extra off into the night, and what happened next? Lee I don't recall.

It all goes hazy! You have flown into this. It's a pleasure to be

here. And I be singing later. Is there anything you can't do? Yet! I

hope you'll enjoy the next half hour or so and be yourselves, have fun.

Well, have some fun and be yourselves, as we start

with Beethoven's best known choral work, the 9th Symphony.

Now, Ailish, you performed this at the Proms back in 2013.

A good while ago. What about that makes it speak and resonate? It's

the energy, you're just in your chair, waiting to jump up and join

in, because the solos are so little to do and you have to wait until the

end, and it's an energy, the whole thing. If I could put it into words,

I'd be as clever as Beethoven and I'd probably be sitting in a jet,

flying over, I'd be so rich and famous! It's the energy of it, I

feel. That's what gets me. Here's an excerpt from

Beethoven's 9th Symphony, MUSIC: Symphony No.9, "Choral"

by Ludwig van Beethoven Last week's sofa guest

Xian Zhang conducting the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus

of Wales and CBSO Chorus in Beethoven's last complete

symphony, his 9th. So wonderful scene that, Stuart. At

choral element. But that was towards the end. It comes at the end of an

extraordinary symphony. It really is. One thing that sets the 9th

Symphony apart is that choral element that you don't have been any

symphony preceding it. But it is, and as Ailish was saying, there is

this incredible fitting energy to it. When these wonderful thematic

developments happen in the fourth movement, with the constant

repetition and slight variations of that wonderful theme, you can't help

but want to jump up and join in. It really is remarkable. My heart did

saw a bit when I saw the cast, out on stage. Absolutely. I thought, we

are in for a treat. It's an incredible piece, it. What is it

that makes this piece by Beethoven, almost what's been described as a

hymn, the end particularly, what makes it so powerful? It's quite

definitive, like an autobiography. Beethoven is pouring himself into

this symphony, like he does into so much of his works. This idea, which

I think was brewing over a period of 12 years, which you put together to

produce this, and I think the palpable thing about this is, of

course, it's him right at the end, which is this ode to freedom, an ode

to Joy. A lot of the music which I do, I do right across the board,

sacred music, a lot of it is gospel music, and in gospel we want to come

to the heart of the music, the meaning, and a lot of gospel themes

are about freedom and joy and expressing yourself. It takes you

through a roller-coaster of emotions. You don't know what's

coming next in the twists and turns. All of a sudden, something different

happens, and you are taken on a massive, energetic ride, especially

towards the end. I listen and I get caught up spiritually when I hear

this music. I know that Beethoven is a favourite of yours. There is a

story about when you are a small boy... Yes, I went on holiday with a

friend and my parents gave me some spending money and, rather than

bringing back souvenirs or rock, I went to a second-hand shop and I saw

a Beethoven piano Concerto record, vinyl, telling my age, and went home

and resident -- listened to that and nearly wore it out. Probably seven

or eight at the time. That's a great story. You were one classy kid!

Let's go back to that ode to Joy, so well-known, we all know it and you

can sing along, and that's almost part of the point. It's quite a

simple tune. It is, but you can't think, why is it so famous, and you

couldn't put it into words. It's the that is Beethoven. You know,

especially, when Simon Tansley came out, I thought, we are in for a

treat. I wouldn't like to see Yewtree on a night out! We predate

social media. -- I wouldn't like to see you two. My husband has bought

Simon O'Neill a tube because he used to play the tuba. He bought it on

Christmas Day for him on a website. You bid for things on it. He was

lucky because he proposed the night before and there would have been big

trouble if he was buying tubers! Simon, get that out of my cell! I

want rid of it! You paint this picture of your life which is more

and more fabulous. Shall we see a bit more of... Well, if you want to

revisit it, you can go to the iPlayer and sing along to your

hearts content. But we're not done with Beethoven's

9th Symphony just yet as our resident musicologist,

David Owen Norris, explains why Beethoven is playing a waiting game

in tonight's Chord of the Week. The Chord of the Week is D major.

Play a perfect cadence, the base does this, and we have all three

notes. But, in his 9th Symphony, Beethoven has a special jump for

that cadence, so he avoids using it until well into the fourth movement.

There are plenty of places where they might have been a perfect

cadence in Lee, but instead -- in D, but instead the bass just trickles

down, or the bass is all right but there are only two notes in the.

There is even one place where the third is permitted. At last, we hear

the famous ode to Joy theme in D major. Perfect cadence is here. What

about this baseline? No, how perverse. Or this one. No.

This has to be deliberate. It isn't until 166 bars into the last

movement that we get our first proper, perfect cadence in D major.

So, what's special about bar 166? Well, it's here that Beethoven makes

his tune fit the words, just in time for the singers. So far, we've had

long notes. But, to fit the words, that you need a different rhythm,

two syllables. Not... At two syllables. And it's this first full

perfect cadence that shakes the tune into the repeated note rhythm that

Beethoven needs to let the words in. David Owen Norris returns next week

with more chordial activity and a bit of gingham,

we hope, as he explores Oklahoma! Now I'm with my guests,

Ailish Tynan, Ken Burton, We've had Beethoven's greatest hymn

to humanity and now we're having an extra slice of Beethoven

with his only opera, Fidelio, which featured

a certain Stuart Skelton. You can tell us all about it. It's a

rescue opera. Fidelio is the character assumed by Leonora, and

she plays a boy, it's a travesty role. Her husband has been

wrongfully imprisoned by the governor of the prison. And she has

started work or assumed a job at the prison as the assistant to the

jailer as a young chap Fidelio in the hope she might find that this is

the prison where a husband, Florestine, is imprisoned. It turns

out, because there is only joined a half hours of opera, it is the exact

prison where he happens to be in the dungeon, and it ends well and she

resumed -- she reveals herself to be Florestine's wife, and it's all a

big happy ending. In opera, that doesn't often happen, so we are

thankful for that! Shown last Sunday on BBC Four,

here's Stuart in action. The BBC Philharmonic conducted

by Juanjo Mena and we saw Who would have thought an opera set

in a Spanish prison back in the 18th Ken, it was Beethoven's only opera,

is it a tragic loss it was the only one he wrote? I don't believe it's a

tragic loss, he poured his heart and soul into this. In fact, in a letter

he wrote apparently he said, I will gain my martyr's Crown having

written this opera. And in a sense it wasn't the only opera he wrote,

because he actually wrote four overtures to this. But I think

sometimes when it's the only one you have written, this is like a sort of

Martin Luther King moment. There is a value sometimes when it's the only

one. I think he puts so much into it, it was premiered I believe

around about 1804, about the final version, which he was satisfied

with, like a decade later, and that's the verse we have now. So I

think really the fact that it's his powerful statement, I believe, the

fact that it's the only one it gives it more value. Can't improve on

perfection I guess. Let's talk about something that I

often wonder about at the Proms and we hear a concert performance like

that, how is it as a singer preferable in some ways? It's

interesting, I read reviews on this particular opera and I was surprised

that it hadn't done better in the reviews. There was rave reviews for

the singing which was - I listened to it myself, I thought, this is

before I knew I was coming on the programme, I thought this is

wonderful singing. Everyone has it MEP riced. I thought why --

memorised. I thought why has it got a lukewarm response? The singers,

there were rave reviews as it should be. I thought maybe it's because,

for example, in your first entry, that got maybe we are used to seeing

it coming from this dark pit of a stage. Maybe something like Fidelio

needs to be staged for it really to enter our imaginations and grip our

souls. I don't know, I couldn't... Because I thought the orchestral

playing was fantastically tight. The very first line he sings is, God how

dark it is here, if that voice, whoever is singing it, if that comes

out of a completely dark stage and we only hear the voice first, and

then the stage gradually gets light, I think... Mind you, if you are

going to hear it in daylight you would want it sung by you, that's

for sure! I listened to it with headphones and seeing the words and

I like to go into the engine room, what I call the engine room of music

and like to hear what's going on within the orchestrations, how that

ties in with the words and ties in with the sentiment, which Beethoven

is trying to put across. For me it was actually a two-hour spiritual

experience for me watching it. That setting, rather than opera, it was a

conductor who said after a performance I think in Berlin, that

this piece falls into the sphere of the sacred, rather than theatrical

and there's so much in it that draws from the soul and there is a lot of

that, for me, I saw a lot of parallels. It's a story of going

into the deep pit and lifting somebody out of that and rescuing

and saving them. So much of it is a prayer and so much devotion in this,

so it's very powerful. To sing in that setting was very different from

how I remember it 20 years ago when I came across the piece, it's a

different dynamic. The other thing is that all these people, when you

rehearse an opera, you are in a room for weeks and build relationships

with the people and with the orchestra and the conductor and

everything else, it's a long process. Whereas when the Prom is

put together you are in a luxury if you get six rehearsals, let alone

six weeks. I thought of one that actually Bryn and Lisa did with the

Royal Opera House and it blazed, I thought they were going to rip each

other's clothes off at the end of it. That was a concert performance?

It had a concert performance that had come from an opera rehearsal,

that had just done that at Covent Garden and all those months of

rehearsals and maybe that makes a difference. It's interesting picking

up on what you were saying earlier about reviews. Stuart, I would love

to know how you feel as a performer, not asking you int specific reviews

for this performance, but it's so subjective. Yet, there are critics

out there who write and are read by tens of thousands of people and how

do you feel about that? Well, you know, the difficult thing with all

critics, or criticism in general for singers, is that we remember every

word of the bad ones. And not one word of the good ones. If you

believe the good ones, you have to believe the bad ones. But I avoid

the worst of it by not reading any reviews until the entire run of a

series of performances is done. That's sensible. It can mess with

your brain. If you read them during the run of something you might just

be tempted to try and satisfy something they picked out and then,

I don't know, I think it's a dangerous thing. I leave them all at

the end and read them all, good, bad and the ugly. Look, you know, they

serve a wonderful purpose and particularly critics who write

beautifully. That's something that London has, that not everywhere else

does, the well-known, they write beautifully as well, that's an

important thing they do. You can't possibly expect that everyone will

like every performance you ever do. Then you read something ridiculous,

like the woman who sang there, a superb singer, one reviewer said, it

was a pity she didn't wear a trouser suit. You think, what? In the world

of social media and when you have been in the hall that night with

6,000 people, the public loved it. That's what I was listening out for,

the applause. If you like a bit of injustice,

deception and unrequited love in your operas,

then head to the BBC iPlayer where you will find Beethoven's Fidelio

and judge for yourself. Talking of voices, Stuart Skelton

will be singing at the end of tonight's show and,

as we're all about the sounds on Proms Extra, last night

on BBC Four the Proms paid a special tribute to two icons

of jazz and bebop history, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzie

Gillespie. That was a taste of the Proms

centenary tribute to Ella Fitzgerald Accompanied by the BBC

Concert Orchestra, conducted by John Mauceri, you heard the voice

of Dianne Reeves with the spirit of Dizzy as channelled

by the trumpeter, James Morrison. Look at them, that was 1947 when the

two of them played a famous concert together. I mean, there was so much

joy in the Royal Albert Hall during that Prom. Ken, what was it about

Ella Fitzgerald's voice that captivated the world? It was a clear

voice, clear intonation. Clear elocution, clear tone. These were

the days, remember, there was no help from production. Nowadays we

have all sorts of things, dynamics processing, compression, things that

can make your voice sound clear, you have famous autotune. But Ella was

singing on point and you could hear every word. She also had the ability

to really tell the story. And her voice was flexible as well, she had

a three objecting taf range and had that captivating voice -- octave.

She suffered racism in her time, but the voice was appreciated by anybody

and it's the standard by which many singers judge their music and it's a

standard by which they want to aspire to sing like that or have

that same impact even if they don't have the same voice. Ailish, we

heard Ella's famous song sung by a wonderful jazz diva, Dianne Reeves.

One hesitates to compare the voices. Ella, everybody knows her name, she

was unique. That was what made her so special. Nobody can ever emulate

that. It's exactly what you were saying, Ken, all the things Ken

said, they're what made her sublime. Dianne voice was different, heavier

on the bottom, but in that last clip, I felt she came into her own

in the second half, the fascinating rhythm that you played. She's being

herself and is a phenomenal singer. She popped out a top G there, here

she is standing beside James Morrison, and she was like, oh, you

are not going to get the better of me. I think he would have got the

better of me, that's for sure. She sang a top G there. Popped that out.

And it was clearly loving it. Somebody described that performance

as a skat smackdown. I want to ask you singers, skat, the jazz

vocalising impro- is there a classical equivalent? Gosh... I

don't think so. Singing with bad diction. I guess the closest you

would go is in a lot of the Handle repertoire, you are expected to

embellish and come up with your own ornamentation for it, but that's

planned ahead. I don't think there is anything we really get that sort

of opportunity to do what both Gillespie and Ella, one of the

things I thought they both brought to their artistry, they were

spectacularly good in improvising and Gillespie particularly was one

of the great things, the way he could improvise and just go for

minutes and minutes and minutes. And never run out of invention. Dizzy

himself said James Morrison was one of the best, as well. An amazing

tribute. James was fabulous. You performed with him, Stuart. I did, a

long time ago, Theatre Awards in Australia, I think they were named

after an Australian early pioneer of Australian theatre, Mo. There was an

arrangement for a large band with a tenor soloist and James Morrison

trumpet. I was on stage with James Morrison. I was like a kid. He is my

absolute hero. I have been listening to he and his brother and some of

the work they've been doing for as long as I can remember Did you

manage to squeeze in a top G? I did not. Next time! The only thing about

this sort of tribute Prom is when you have characters like Ella and

Dizzy, what do you put in and leave out? You can't satisfy anyone, do

you think they got it right? It's difficult. I mean, when Ella was

under Verve Records, set up for her to record The Great American

Songbook, and a Prom is not long enough to fit a fraction of that.

Everybody has their favourites. You are always going to have somebody

say you didn't sing that and the neck person will say you didn't sing

that. -- next person. I thought it went on, probably in the film you

would have heard a minute-and-a-half, I thought oh. We

did have absolute gems. We did. For the complete Proms concert

tribute honouring Ella and Dizzy, you know where I'm

going to direct you. Yes, that's right, the BBC iPlayer,

and you can watch the talent displayed by Dianne Reeves

and James Morrison's cheeky trumpet, Well, in addition to the packed-out

concert last night there was an event that took place earlier

in the day which was for those wanting to sing

like Ella, led by Ken. Proms Extra went to meet one

of the amateur choirs taking part. I have a jukebox in my head, I don't

know where that's from. It sort of reminds me of who I am a lot. As an

artist I enjoy painting but I get more of a buzz through singing. It's

been a great social benefit to my life. And it helps structure my

week. Even if I am having a bad day I think I have choir to look forward

to in the evening. People that come to the choir, we have all sorts,

people diagnosed with mental illnesses, people who have been

caring for people with mental illnesses, friends and family, it's

all about coming together, building relationships, being able to lose

that stigma, lose the isolation and gain some confidence. And just have

some fun doing it. Perfection is not on the menu.

When my marriage broke up I basically was completely lost. I

would go from thinking I am either lazy or mentally ill and the truth

is none of that applies. I am just someone that struggles.

When I joined the choir, it was mainly because there were so many

good cakes! I was at a very low ebb. I was so

sort of... I couldn't express myself at all. I was very introverted. And

it was as if I needed to cry, but I couldn't cry, and the lady next to

me, Carol, she put her arm around me. I'd never met her in my life,

and I don't even know why she did that. I wasn't speaking. I was just

there. She must have sensed something. But it was like an

amazing release. We are more than just a quiet. We are on our way to

the optical to see the Ella Fitzgerald Centenary Prom and,

before that, there's a public sing along with Ken Burton, the

conductor, we're going to sing some fantastic Ella Fitzgerald songs. --

we are on our way to the Albert Hall. It's a great chance to let in.

OK, we're going to cheat. We're going to change it. I'm going to try

and say, speak, saying, speak the # I can hardly speak!

OK, together... # I can hardly speak...

The guy that was taking it was really getting people in the spirit

and I found I was really getting to move with the music and it was quite

exciting. We are amongst equals. There is no discrimination or

distinction, there is no noticing whether somebody has been in a choir

for 150 years or they have just sung today for the first time. Everybody

is singing their hearts out. I loved it. I just feel thrilled to be here.

# Embrace me # You irreplaceable you ...

Spectacular. It was a wonderful experience. One word, the inspiring.

An amazing day. -- one word, pretty inspiring.

The transformative power of music in display there.

The sofa has been reduced to just two guests, because Stuart Skelton

is getting ready to perform for us at the end of the show.

Ken, pretty heart-warming, lump in the throat stuff, seen the effect

your work had on the members of the group you are teaching yesterday.

Yes, there is something about singing which is like no other

activity. I think it's because, when we are born, we are born singing.

She has two singers in the house, doing a full-time opera. A baby will

cry for voice, and then it will do the same thing tomorrow and not

complain about a sore throat. Evening! I should be so lucky! I'll

have to tell her that immediately. If you think about the most extreme

ways in which we express ourselves, it's the connection of the diaphragm

to the abdominal muscles with the vocal chords and, when we want to

express ourselves as something funny, I can just say ha-ha or

whatever. Just sounds, elongated sounds, and that connects with the

voice and this. It gives so much expression. When we are singing, we

are doing the same thing, so it's an outpouring of the soul, because you

are doing the same thing when you cry. When you're young and you are

going, I'm hungry, it's the same the same muscles. I often think that,

somebody like you, you have the best job in the world and you get to see

the faces and the joy you are bringing to people in the audience.

Are used to think, I should have done some useful, being a brain

surgeon, but the more I see it in the faces of people, the man on the

clip who was mesmerised, I just think, that's the power of music.

You couldn't have put it better. Do go ahead to the iPlayer where,

you will find Beethoven's Fidelio, his Choral Symphony,

plus the tribute to Ella and Dizzy Besides the iPlayer,

you can get further Proms takeout from the Proms website,

every concert is broadcast live All that remains now is for me

to thank Ailish Tynan Join me next week, where gingham

and the elixir of youth is the order of the night,

as we're talking about Oklahoma and the National Youth

Orchestra of Great Britain. NYO is on tomorrow evening

and Oklahoma is next But right now, l'll leave

you with You Are My Heart's Delight, from the operetta The Land Of Smiles

by Franz Lehar. Accompanied by Kate Golla,

here is Proms Extra # That dreams of mine

may at last come true # And I shall hear you

whisper, "I love you" # And 'neath a magic spell

hath bound me # A wondrous air

is your beautiful hair # Bright as a summer sky

is the night in your eyes # Soft as a sparkling star

is the warmth of my love # That dreams of mine

may at last come true # And I shall hear you whisper,

"I love you". #