I've just watched the finals of this year's competition on BBC TV.  Five
finalists, one from each orchestral section plus a pianist, played the
following concerti:

Piano - Rachmaninov - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

Euphonium - Concerto by someone whose name I forgot to write down,
re-arranged for full orchestra by the composer from the brass band
original version

Oboe - Strauss Oboe Concerto

Percussion - Jimmy MacMillan's concerto "Veni, Veni, Emmanuel"

Cello - Shostakovich Concerto No.1

The piano was OK but failed to hold my attention fully.  The euphonium,
oboe and percussion were all excellent - difficult to choose between
them.  The cellist broke his top string only a minute or so in, and had
to re-start.  He obviously played very well, but to me he didn't seem to
project enough or dominate in the way the soloist needs to all the way
through this marvellous concerto.  I couldn't decide if it was him or if
the BBC sound engineers (who must have had some rapid readjustments to make
after the MacMillan) weren't doing him justice.  The audience reaction
suggested strongly that the BBC were at fault.

The cellist began with a broken hair dangling off his bow.  When he broke
the string and had to go off to change it, he came back with the broken
hair still there - strange that he didn't find a moment to tweak it off.
At the end of the first movement there must have been twenty or thirty
broken hairs dangling off each end of the bow - more than I think I've
ever seen.  Cellists among us - is a new string harder on the bow than
a well-used one? What - if anything - does all this tell us about the
player's preparation or the state of his equipment or the way he plays?

The vox pop interviews afterwards suggested strongly that the cellist will
win it.  The result isn't announced for another half hour or so.

Curiously, the BBC broadcast the performances on TV and on Radio 3 - but
not simultaneously.  The TV was running approximately one concerto behind
the radio.  As I was cooking dinner during the percussion concerto (fillet
steaks, oven-roasted Mediterranean vegetables, stir-fried cardamon and
lemon flavoured curly kale, baked potatoes and a madiera sauce) and moving
between the kitchen (TV) and dining room (radio), I found this rather
confusing (and suggestive of Charles Ives).  I can't imagine why the BBC
couldn't manage a simultaneous broadcast.

Not all that many years ago, BBC TV showed heats and section finals in
full as well as the concerto final, and all at early evening times.  This
year, they showed section finals only, after 11pm, and the final from 5.30
to 8.30.  The section finals don't show the players' full programmes any
more, just edited extracts, and even those are broken up by interviews and
film clips about the musicians' home lives and hobbies etc..  And the BBC
aren't dumbing down, no, of course not, how could you possibly suggest such
a thing . . .

As predicted, the cellist won.

Watch out for the name: Guy Johnstone.

Ian Crisp
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