Episode 3 BBC Proms

Tonight we're all about the 3 Bs - Bernard, Bowie and Berlioz.

You just need to learn the 3 Rs - relax, reflect, and rejoice -

We're the semi-skimmed companion to the full-fat Proms.

Tonight's show is brimming with romance, nature and stardust.

The Olympics have just started in Rio but here

in London's South Kensington, the Athletic Proms is

It's been an eclectic week at the Hall!

Things will be a little quieter in our studios at the Royal College

My first guest is a rising star of the conducting world.

She's worked with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

She is about to make her Albert Hall Proms debut conducting

the BBC Concert Orchestra at the end of August.

This promises to be one of the Proms highlights of the season,

with top household names appearing such as Mr Bloom and

To be honest, we think it's the Prom to go to - especially

if you're 8 or under, or a grateful parent.

My next guest is a composer, singer and arranger.

She's one of the creative brains behind the David Bowie Prom.

A former student here at the Royal College of Music whose

work has been broadcast both here and in France.

She's sung on Radiohead's latest album, and with Proms

Please welcome Josephine Stephenson.

And our final guest is an award-winning soprano.

Her huge range of repertoire includes the works of Mozart

to Mahler also Irish folk songs to name but a few,

so we're delighted she is also going to perform for us

We read that Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights is her karaoke song

of choice, which was a surprise to us, as we had her down

Jessica, the CBeebies Prom, are you ready for the toddlers? I can't

wait, it will be the most exciting thing to have the entire Albert Hall

full of young people and I heard that it was sold out within an hour

of going online so I think it will be pretty electric. Josephine, you

have had an amazing week. The Bowie Prom was something else. It's been

nearly a week now. Just about. It has been everywhere since online. I

am taking a bit of time to come down. The Royal Opera House beckons

in the autumn? Yes, great excitement. Except that I've just

been looking at the score and one of the last line is that the lead

character says, losing his nose during the Opera, that I will refuse

to marry that ugly woman, in relation to me! I have only just

realised and I would never have taken the role if I was going to be

characterised as ugly! You have already signed the contract? I'm

only joking. I would never pull out. Shostakovich's the Nose. We are

delighted to have you all here. It is the 400th anniversary

of Shakespeare's death, and of course the Proms is marking

it in its own way with numerous Last Sunday's Proms concert

on BBC Four was an evening filled with love and romance,

with Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting the choral

symphony of Romeo and Juliet From the Royal Albert Hall that was

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, aka Jiggy, conducting Romeo

and Juliet by Berlioz. You can't underestimate what a God

Shakespeare was to Berlioz. He fell in love with his future wife

when she was playing Ophelia He didn't speak a word of English,

couldn't understand a word of what was going on,

but was utterly smitten. It's a wonderful piece, isn't it?

Gold -- it is interesting how he called him the supreme creator,

second only to God. There was a link for him between his great love,

Harriet Smithson, and Shakespeare, his works encapsulate the world, the

best and worst. And he saw Harriet playing Ophelia and then Juliet. His

love was sublimated in the Symphony Fantastique. It is a crazy piece,

there is this huge orchestra, and I thought John Eliot Gardiner, he is

such a poet in the way he brings these colours and these emotions out

from all of his players and singers. You know, the hairs on the back of

my neck were well up when I listened to it. Josephine, you are half

French, does that make you feel close to Billy 's or does it give

you a different relationship with the music? -- Berlioz. He is better

treated here than in France, people like Debussy criticised him. I

admire him in having come from nowhere, really self-taught in his

composition, he knocked on the door of the consummate -- of the

conservatory and decided he would be a composure. It is bold. I should

feel patriotically my feel a fondness for the character, and the

idea of him, but for some reason I've never quite fallen in love with

the music. There is that obsessive quality? It is like Beethoven, you

have the sense that he's banging his head against a wall constantly. It

is the same with Berlioz. Finding his way forward with the melodies

that he writes. It's amazing, it is amazing that he got to Rome and all

of these amazing achievements. Maybe he is held in more higher steam over

here but I'm not sure about that, I did a performance at the Opera

Comique, and the director added English dialogue. Everyone was

talking in French and he had extra dialogue added that was superfluous

and the first night, I love the bit of controversy and I would rather

have a bit of controversy than having everything going swimmingly,

but when the artistic team came out the audience went mad, billing and

everything. It was great craic. They seemed pretty passionate about

Berlioz in Paris when I was there. Is this a work that you know? This

was new to me and I love the dedication of the instruments and

all of those unusual instruments, the work that people have to put in,

it is a lights work getting those instruments to sound, so much can go

wrong. I have been in performances when people have had disasters with

natural horns and things. It is very demanding and it brings up the whole

idea that as musicians we do have to kind of play with danger in order to

find that excitement. Exactly. When I listened to it I felt those

instruments almost gave it a raucous and rustic feel that added to it.

You listen to it differently and I love that.

You can find the complete performance of Romeo and Juliet

From the romance of Shakespeare, to the loves and passions

of a puppet - it could only be Stravinsky's Petrushka

which was shown on BBC Four last night, and is also online

in the early 20th century, this is one of three Stravinsky

ballets being played this weekend, with the remaining two,

The Firebird and The Rite of Spring being broadcast live

This feels like the right moment to bring in David Owen Norris,

who has a thing or two to say about the Petrushka chord

That chord is actually named the Petrushka chord. As so often with

Stravinsky you can see exactly how he found it as he was composing at

the piano, his right hand is playing a C major. His right hand plays F

sharp major. Together they make this fascinating noise. C And F sharp.

Stravinsky gives them an important part all through the ballet. The

Russian dance ends in C. And then it comes then bring in on an F sharp.

When Petrushka first appears the piano plays an F sharp and then

decorates a C major chord. That is when the clarinet 's first slyly

suggest the famous chord. And the chord also underlies the trumpet

tune. Even the peasant and his bear are represented by the chords of C

and F sharp. At the very end when the trumpets are playing the

Petrushka chord, the piece ends not on that C but on this F sharp. You

end on a question? David Willey back again next Saturday. -- David will

be back. Still to come is a performance

from my sofa guest Ailish Tynan performing Strauss, and we catch

a glimpse of Bernard Haitink Now, 2016 had barely begun before

the news came in that David Bowie had died from cancer

at the age of 69. His influence spanned more than five

decades across music, fashion and art, and shows no sign

of waning even after his death. His last album Black Star has just

been short listed for the Mercury music prize.

This promised to be one of the Proms highlights,

according to some of the masses queuing up on the night.

# Oh you pretty things. # Don't you know you're driving your

mothers and your father 's insane. Electrifying. Please stay in the

queue. I have grown up with his music all my life. Everything he has

done always has meaning. We came out because we are fans of David Bowie

and we wanted to see what the Albert Hall was about. I would like to see

life on Mars. Change is my favourite. It will not be quite like

a rock concert or crackle -- classical concert, just a bit

different. It is all orchestral, a bit of a twist to it. People are in

there are now listening to Mahler and then David Bowie and they like

both. It will be an amazing performance. Very emotional, I have

eyelash glue in my bag but it will be good crying! That was a taste of

the reaction before the concert. For British people especially he is

someone who came from Brixton and decided what to do with his life and

I think he is such an inspiring person and has been for so many

people. All generations and all backgrounds. Even within the music

itself he is explored -- he explored some in a different genres.

Let's have a look at the David Bowie Prom

with the conductor Andre de Ridder and his ensemble stargaze

# Fame, makes a man think things over...

On the night there was a roll call of people coming

Laura Mvula, John Cale, Marc Almond, Anna Calvi,

Paul Buchanan, Amanda Palmer, Neil Hannon, Phillipe Jarrousky,

Conor O'Brien, Jherek Bischoff and a House Gospel choir performing

a range of David Bowie tracks with Stargaze

Josephine, you were one of the Rangers, how did it come about? I

got a call from Andre de Ridder asking for help and asking free to

arrange a track. I said yes, of course. And how did you set about

arranging the tracks for this famous environment? I listen to the songs a

few times and then put them away and tried to write down what had stayed.

I had some ideas already from Andrea De Ridder and we exchanged ideas. I

needed not to go too far away from the original songs, they needed to

be recognisable for the fans and for the singers who were not

necessarily, would not have much time to get used to the new feeling

of them. And switched tracks did you arrange? I did three, the man who

sold the world, then from Blackstar, the last of his whole discography

and that was sung by Paul Buchanan. After all is well. I'm just trying

to imagine how you felt when you realised you had this musical legacy

on your shoulders. I tried not to think about it too much! That is the

best way to do it. If I started thinking 5000 people in the Albert

Hall plus radio and television, it might not have gone anywhere. So I

just sat and did my thing is that it was just for the two of us. It got a

mixed response. Some positive feedback, someone said that it was

riveting and inspiring, experimental, a little bit chaotic

and David Bowie would have approved. A lot of people saying maddening,

brilliant. And another which made me laugh, I'm not saying that the prom

is bad but Mike Catt has tried to ring the RSPCA three times! Other

things of that ilk. Not everyone got it I think. I went straight to the

airport to fly somewhere and I had this time that you have before a

flight and I thought, let's look it up and I saw on twitter this huge

list of negative messages. I thought easy for people to sit at home and

think, this is rubbish without thinking about the amount of work

that has gone into it. And I think perhaps the most difficult thing has

been the expectations that people had or did not have from this

concert. Perhaps it was a bit vague as to what exactly was going to be.

Actually it was something a bit more personal and special and really

one-off. And it was a work in progress pretty much until the day

of the performance. You were told one month before, tickets went on

sale three months previously. Hugely popular in that sense. When I

suddenly tuned in and I literally was mesmerised by the whole thing.

I'm not sure what I'm made of it to be honest, I spent 15 years of my

career getting used to an orchestral sound. And it is a different sound

and something that you have got to tune into. Suddenly there were

people from a pop singing background with all these classical

instruments. It is kind of hard to make sense of that. The Blackstar

stuff I think was more successful because perhaps it was far out. I

felt people were a little bit enslaved to the music but then when

I spoke to you, Josephine, and you said about Conor O'Brien, and I

thought that was quite successful, he only just received the music the

day before. I could not do that in a million years. I think the fact that

it was not curated, we need a number that makes people cry, to dance to,

it was personal and heartfelt and it was a melting pot. It was always

going to be divisive. And David Bowie would have loved that because

he was always divisive. What I also loved, Amanda brought her baby on

and that for me set a great president because I have got a hairy

baby at home, a Jack Russell, and when I'm next at the Proms, he is

coming with me! And if the conductor asks I can say that the president

has been set. My dog would not be as good as that baby! What division! --

at vision. It was a hugely on task for Andre de Ridder, being

conductor, Jack of all trades. The whole concept of a David Bowie Prom

I find fascinating because as artists we have two engage with the

audience. It brings into question for me what we do and how we can

play with this idea of genius. And David Bowie was a genius, he

encapsulated so much about life and what it means and the philosophy of

life and how then we can bring that into a different setting now that he

is no longer alive. I think it is such a big task. And do you feel

from that perspective that it was a successful and creative endeavour?

There were many things that were exciting onstage and many people

coming together with a lot of energy and love as well. And that is what

music is often about. For me, with my background, I would have loved to

have heard say a massive symphony orchestra. Let's just go full hog

with all of this. And have something really kind of big. Big for the

Albert Hall, big for this massive musical mind. That perhaps would

have been my preference. So we could revisit! Definitely worth

revisiting. Josephine, would you do it again? Any time!

Do go on to the BBC iPlayer and take a look at the David Bowie Prom,

Now the David Bowie Prom was one of several concerts from the Proms

season so far, that audiences had earmarked for their diary,

and had people queuing in their droves on the night

Many people plan in advance to buy their Proms tickets

However, if you're one of the many hundreds

who like to be more impulsive, then coming to the Proms

as a Prommer might just be the ticket.

Well Gospel Prom saxophone star, YolanDa Brown asked herself

She made her debut at the Proms this year and witnessed the mosh pit up

close and personal! So we asked her to get

in line and find out more. I'm on my way to the Royal Albert

Hall to join the legendary Proms queue. It is my first time at the

Proms, I have got my lunch, my blanket and a bag full of supplies.

I'm good to go and so excited. See you in there.

Excuse me. Hello. I'm interested in coming to the Proms tonight and I'm

not sure where to go. I will give you a raffle ticket and you join

this queue. You are welcome to leave for half an hour but only that. And

when I get inside is there an order, do we push forward? Do not push

forward! Gently nudge! I have got my space in the queue, got

my lunch and my blanket. I'm going to set up on the wall, everyone

seems to be here. Then I will go into my bag of goodies for things to

keep me entertained while I'm working. My trusty book. When that

gets too much, I do not go anywhere without my Rubik 's cube. I'm not an

old lady but I'm going to do a bit of crochet. So I'm ready and set up.

Lunch is here, ready to prom. We are in prime position, first in

the queue. Is it easy to get towards the rail when I enter the arena? You

have got to stride across. You look like a chicken! We have moved from

our original position and just about to go through the door. There is a

sense of anticipation with everyone reading their programmes, I can hear

discussions about the music and the composers. Really exciting. In we

go. We have now entered and ticket scanned, we are waiting in the wings

to go into the main arena. I have seen the walk, by the way! One, two,

three, go. Now running, please. -- no running.

We can get to the rail when we go quickly. I have touched the Holy

Grail! We are here at the rail. What do you most like about being here? I

like to be on the front obviously because you can see everything and

hear everything so well. How do you deal with standing up? It is so

lengthy. You do not really think about it. You get taken in by the

music and you do not think about your legs hurting. When you get out

you might want to have a stretch! One thing that is interesting is

people then sit down when they're in here. I never thought about setting

on the floor of the Albert Hall! It is about begin.

What an exhilarating experience! To hear the full choir, the orchestra

pulled up my goodness, you really feel a part of the music. Every

dynamic, you can hear every breath that the singers take, everything I

heard this morning so true, is amazing to be a Prommer and even

more amazing to be at the rail. I had a fantastic time and I will be

back again. Saxophonist YolanDa Brown being

a Prommer for the first time and, Sometimes I would go really early or

sometimes I would risk it and go quite late. I had amazing musical

experiences, I'll whiz went to the gallery because I like to feel the

collective energy of that many people. -- I always went. You can

sit or you can lie down if there is enough room. You have no excuse

because you only had toward the hundred yards. I went so many times,

it is such an amazing thing. And for a fiver, it's incredible. But I

always go downstairs. Interesting. Now you have made me want to go

upstairs. Just to see the performers up close and feel connected. Would

you do the funny walk to get to the rail? I've done it. Yes. It does

look very funny. I am looking at the height of your heels. I'm five foot

tall if I've been to see three Osteopaths and I have two where

these heels everywhere, there is no way I could stand for all of those

hours. I would need to bring three burly men to hoist me up to sit up

there before it starts. I buy a ticket and I sit down. A velvet

seat, a bit of plush? I love that. That is a Proms Extra insight into

promming. And once you've made it

inside the Hall you might come away feeling inspired to pick up

an instrument in your own time. BBC's Get Playing could just be

the thing for you because it is an initiative to encourage

you to get playing. and you can join the BBC

Virtual Orchestra on the Last Now last Friday BBC Four showed

Mahler's Third Symphony. This mighty work, an hour

and a half long, was conducted by the 87 year old Bernard Haitink

who made his Proms That was Sarah Connolly performing

Mahler's Third Symphony, with the London Symphony Orchestra,

conducted Bernard Haitink. Another spine tingling moment, I

think. I can tell that you are a big fan of Mahler. That is heaven for

me. I love Mahler anyway. Sarah Connolly singing like a goddess, and

Bernard had all of these orchestral forces and the whole thing felt like

an epic journey. I was just in heaven watching this. And the

trombone solo, Dudley Bright, it started sinister and menacing almost

and then it gets so mellow and mellifluous. Everything about it I

loved. The LSO, they are spectacular. The little clip, the

oboe player is a friend of Jo. Every single person... Playing those

beautiful melodies, and it is full of young players, they are really

supporting young players. Phil Cobb is only a young guy, leading the

trumpets. The whole brass burst movement was exceptional. The whole

thing blew me away, monumental. The way that he paced it, Haitink he

said the music speaks for itself, and I love that about him because so

many conductors, sorry Jessica, won't stop talking! Come on, let's

just make the music. I love that about him. I've never worked with

him but he sounds like heaven. That is the thing with Haitink on it is

like he conducts with his aura. It is so minimal. It is so seeped in

life and all of life's experiences and struggles which are so deep

within his bone marrow that he just stands there, this incredible work,

extraordinary work, that is about struggle and life, it encapsulates

the world. All of these tiny things that he does, it is there in the

ether. And the energy around him. The only thing wrong with Mahler 3

is that there is no Sopranos part! I have seen a bit of an opening for

myself, we could do an experimental piece like David Bowie. A little

song at the beginning of the third movement, a little song about a

cuckoo who is going to fall out of the tree to his death. Hopefully we

have a nightingale to serenade us in the summer. I could seriously join

in. If you head to the BBC iPlayer

you can find Mahler's Third Symphony as conducted by Bernard Haitink

along with many more Proms delights. Talking of delights,

ahead of their performance from memory at the Royal Albert Hall

last Sunday, which you can watch later in the month,

the Aurora Orchestra did a surprise performance, a flash mob,

inside a London shopping centre, playing to enthralled shoppers -

have a look at this. That was the Aurora Orchestra,

giving the captivated audience of shoppers

there a surprise bargain. In our opinion that definitely beats

a 'buy one get one free' offer. And that is almost it,

but whilst there's some major sporting event happening somewhere

in Rio, there's a bit of a change So tonight after Proms Extra you can

watch the National Youth And for the next couple of weeks,

Saturday night is Proms stockpiled as a pentathlon

equivalent of Proms offerings, on BBC Four for a week

after the Olympics have finished! And don't worry Proms

Extra is going nowhere. Next week, Proms Extra has got

a pass out to do the show from the Royal Albert Hall

for one night only. It's a night of Gershwin

with the John Wilson Orchestra, and Proms Extra is the warm up act -

we're even going to So please join us as we'll also be

taking a look at Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, Holsts' Planets

and Jamie Cullum's Prom. My thanks to my guests

tonight, Jessica Cottis, good luck with the CBeebies Prom,

and Josephine Stephenson. And my thanks to Ailish Tynan

who is accompanied by pianist, Ian Tindale, performing

Strauss' Zueignung. # heilig, heilig an's Herz

dir sank, MUSIC: Toreador Song from Carmen

by Bizet It doesn't matter what level you are

or what you play.