Any Promenaders here?

The world's greatest classical music festival is underway again and available to anyone with a high speed connection; live daily from London's Royal Albert Hall for the next eight weeks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/ and follow the Proms link, Real Player needed. The connection is a solid albeit painfully slow 36 Kbps. Listening quality is fairly decent considering, monaural I think.

Proms 1 and 2 were a gas. Proms 1 Beethoven's ninth, held over from last year, thrilling. Proms 2 a collage of great British movie theme music, delightful. Proms 3 I'm listening to now, sweet Baroque, La Messe Requiem almost brought tears to my eyes.

So much more to come, post your thoughts, yeas and nays, favorites from Proms past...

Rule Britannia! Anyone going to "The Last Night"?

Well, what can I say, after a most PROMising start to this years Proms, prom 4 & 5 (prom 3 I missed) were something of a let down for me. So-called modern classical has always left me cold - short on theme and melody, mostly impressionistic soundscapes. The Berio "Sinfonia" and Hayden "Substratum" (which the orchestra hadn't had time to learn in full so they only played half) were in this category. The Rossini operetta “Stabat matter” somewhat was more satisfying I felt.

Prom 6 got off to a much better start with Tchaikovsky's elegant Serenade for Strings (why do some audiences clap between movements?) with 80 year old Kurt Masur conducting the combined London Philharmonic Orchestra & Orchestre National de France. All was well up until the BBC’s stream rate dropped to a ridiculous 8 to 12 Kbps. A reasonably decent sound became thin and tinny and stayed that way all through Bruckner’s magnificent Seventh Symphony. I have no idea what went wrong with the BBC, perhaps trying to accommodate too many listeners? If it stays this way it will be a short Proms season for me. :(

Would be great if "Last Night of the Proms" showed up on PBS or some other channel this year. Very entertaining stuff. I've got a DVD of the 2000 Proms featuring Hilary Hahn.

Whole heartedly agree BradF. Vision TV here used to run it but haven't for some years now. I taped the 1997 Last Night and played it so often the audio quality is shot. I believe some PBS stations pick it up but I haven't seen it on Watertown PBS which we get in Ottawa.

I have the 2000 DVD and I believe there is a DVD of the 1993 "hundreth anniversary".

The Beethoven Seventh performance today in Prom 13 was superb, except with the abysmal 10 to 15 Kbps bit rate the orchestra sounded like it was playing from the bottom of the Thames river, it was that mushy and washed out. I posted my bit rate beef on the BBC message board and a listener from South Africa chimed in agreement. No response from the Beeb though, don't think I'll see one either.