Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Happy 120th birthday BBC Proms

In celebration of The BBC Proms 120th anniversary we have created a comprehensive reading list of books, journals, and online resources that celebrates the eight- week British summer season of orchestral music, live performances, and late-night music and poetry.

17 July, Prom 1: Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast will feature at the First Night of the Proms.

Belshazzar’s Feast edited by Steuart Bedford

Belshazzar’s Feast has been featured in an amazing 32 Proms. The earliest proms performance of this work was in September 1946, fifteen years after its world premiere at the Leeds Festival in October 1931. The first proms performance was conducted by Adrian Boult, who also conducted the first London performance of Belshazzar’s Feast with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in November 1931.

William Walton Edition Complete Set
Composer: William Walton & General Editor: David Lloyd-Jones

A collected edition of the works of one of England’s finest and best-loved composers. A definitive and fully practical edition, based on the form in which the composer ultimately wished his music to be performed, and including in some cases both original and revised versions.

18 July, Prom 2: Find out how children in schools across the UK have been working on their own responses to music by Beethoven and others at the Ten Piece Prom.

Hear, Listen, Play! by Lucy Green

Based on over 15 years’ original and world-renowned research by the author and her research teams, the book discusses how popular musicians learn in the informal realm, and then applies many aspects of their learning practices to three main areas within music education.

A New Lydian Theory for Frank Zappa’s Modal Music” by Brett Clement in Music Theory Spectrum

As evidence of a forward-looking approach to diatonicism, Brett Clement presents a theory that Zappa’s modal music is best understood in reference to the Lydian scale.

24 July, Proms Extra: Karen Leeder will be giving a talk on the poetry that inspired Beethoven at Proms Extra.

9780190233273Out of Time by Julian Johnson

If all music since 1600 is modern music, the similarities between Monteverdi and Schoenberg, Bach and Stravinsky, or Beethoven and Boulez, become far more significant than their obvious differences. Johnson elaborates this idea in relation to three related areas of experience – temporality, history and memory; space, place and technology; language, the body, and sound. Read the free introduction from Out of Time, available exclusively on Oxford Scholarship Online. 

22 July, Prom 8: In celebration of 50 years of Asian programmes on the BBC, music from Bollywood will be featured at Prom 8.

Bollywood Sounds by Jayson Beaster-Jones

The first monograph to provide a long-term historical insight into Hindi film songs, and their musical and cinematic conventions, in ways that will appeal both to scholars and newcomers to Indian cinema. Read chapter one from Bollywood Sounds, available exclusively on Oxford Scholarship Online.

25 July, Prom 11: Fiddler on the Roof will be performed.

9780199892839Anything Goes by Ethan Mordden

From “ballad opera” to burlesque, from Fiddler on the Roof to Rent, the history and lore of the musical unfolds here in a performance worthy of a standing ovation. Chapter one from Anything Goes is available exclusively on Oxford Scholarship Online. 

The American Musical Theater (with an Aside on Popular Music)” by Paul Wittke in The Musical Quarterly

Wittke reviews the giants of American Musical Theater and their place in the development of the genre.

29 July, Proms Extra: Poets Jo Shapcott and Sean O’Brien discuss Pound’s poetry at Proms Extra.

Ezra Pound: Poet by A. David Moody

This second volume of A. David Moody’s full-scale portrait, covering Ezra Pound’s middle years, weaves together the illuminating story of his life, his achievement as a poet and a composer, and his one-man crusade for economic justice.

The Shyness of Beauty” by Laurence Binyon in Music & Letters

A poem from the first edition of Music & Letters published in 1920 by one of Ezra Pound’s friends and fellow modernists.

5 August, Proms Extra: J.P.E. Harper-Scott introduces Walton’s Symphony No. 2 in the context of 20th-century British music.

Symphony No. 2 edited by David Russell Hulme

Walton’s Symphony No 2 has been featured in four Proms. The earliest proms performance was in August 1961, just a year after its composition. This proms premiere was conducted by Malcolm Sargent, who was the chief conductor of the proms at the time.

5 August, Prom 26: Walton and Vaughan Williams are part of the British Composers programme.

Prelude and Fugue: The Spitfire edited by David Lloyd-Jones
Concerto for Violin composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams

The first ever proms performance for both Walton’s Prelude and Fugue: The Spitfire and Vaughan Williams’ Concerto for Violin (also known as Concerto Accademico).

“Orchestral Music” by D. Kern Holoman in Oxford Bibliographies

Where do British composers fit into the Western orchestral tradition? Holoman provides a variety of resources and guides from treatises on orchestration to examinations of conducting.

9 August, Prom 32: Hear Rhapsody in Blue at Prom 32.

9780199978380Arranging Gershwin by Ryan Banagale

Ryan Banagale approaches George Gershwin’s iconic piece Rhapsody in Blue, not as a composition but as an arrangement — a status it has in many ways held since its inception in 1924, yet one unconsidered until now. Read chapter one from Arranging Gershwin available exclusively on Oxford Scholarship Online.

11 August, Proms Extra: Alyn Shipton will be discussing swing and its influences at BBC Proms Extra.

Nilsson by Alyn Shipton

In this first ever full-length biography, Alyn Shipton traces Nilsson’s life from his Brooklyn childhood to his Los Angeles adolescence and his gradual emergence as a uniquely talented singer-songwriter. With interviews from friends, family, and associates, and material drawn from an unfinished autobiography, Shipton probes beneath the enigma to discover the real Harry Nilsson.

11 August, Prom 35: The BBC will be showcasing current UK jazz talent at Prom 35.

Some of These Days by James Donald

This book extends beyond pure dual biography to recreate the rich community of actors, architects, poets, directors, and musicians who interacted with—and were influenced by—each other.

Mahalia Jackson Meets the Wise Men: Defining Jazz at the Music Inn” by Mark Burford in The Musical Quarterly

Mark Burford on the division between black and white audiences for jazz, and how that informed the definition of jazz that emerged in 1951.

Jazz” by Matthew W. Butterfield in Oxford Bibliographies

Essays, discographies, and histories will help place the current UK jazz and big band scene in context.

16 August, Prom 41: The BBC will pay homage to the world of Sherlock Holmes at Prom 41.

Kerr_Conan DoyleConan Doyle by Douglas Kerr

From the early stories, to the great popular triumphs of the Sherlock Holmes tales and the Professor Challenger adventures, the ambitious historical fiction, the campaigns against injustice, and the Spiritualist writings of his later years, Conan Doyle produced a wealth of narratives. He had a worldwide reputation and was one of the most popular authors of the age. Read the free introduction from Conan Doyle, available exclusively on Oxford Scholarship Online.

17 August, Proms Chamber Music 5: Sondheim’s renowned works will be performed at Proms Chamber Music 5.

The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies edited by Robert Gordon

This collection of never-before published essays addresses issues of artistic method and musico-dramaturgical form, while at the same time offering close readings of individual shows from a variety of analytical perspectives. Read a free chapter from the Handbook, ‘Sondheim’s Genius’, available exclusively on Oxford Handbooks Online.

21 August, Prom 48: The BBC Singers and the Academy of Ancient Music will celebrate Bach at Prom 48.

9780198739265The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Volume I: 1695-1717 by Richard D. P. Jones

The first volume of a two-volume study of the music of J. S. Bach, covers the earlier part of his composing career, 1695-1717. By studying the music chronologically, a coherent picture of the composer’s creative development emerges, drawing together all the strands of the individual repertoires (e.g. the cantatas, the organ music, keyboard music).

Johann Sebastian Bach” by Stephen A. Crist in Oxford Bibliographies

The versatility and historiography of one of Europe’s great composers is examined from a variety of perspectives, whether biographical, musicological, and contextual for Baroque music.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: a tercentenary assessment” by David Schulenberg in Early Music

A look at the work of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, son of J.S. Bach, on the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Do you have any Proms reading materials that you think should be added to this reading list? Let us know in the comments below.

Featured image credit: BBC Prom by Paul Hudson. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr

Recent Comments

There are currently no comments.