Live in Concert 15.03.14 San Francisco SO - Ives, Adams, Berlioz

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the San Francisco Symphony in music from America's west and east coasts, plus Berlioz's opium-influenced Symphonie Fantastique.
7.30 p.m.
Live from the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Charles Ives: The Alcotts (3rd movement) from Piano Sonata No.2 'Concord' arr. Henry Brant for orchestra
John Adams: Absolute Jest
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

St Lawrence String Quartet
San Francisco Symphony
Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor)

Nineteenth-century New Englander Charles Ives was inspired by the countryside, the people and the ideas around where he lived. He wrote that his Concord Sonata was an "impression of the spirit of transcendentalism that is associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts over a half century ago." The Alcotts were leading figures of the Transcendentalist movement, and one of them was Louisa May Alcott, author of 'Little Women'.

The San Francisco Symphony commissioned their local luminary John Adams to compose 'Absolute Jest', a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, first performed in 2012. Adams took the music of Beethoven as his inspiration - as he puts it, he is excited by "the ecstatic energy of Beethoven."

With Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, the San Francsico Symphony can be heard at their energetic and brilliant best. His 'Episode in the life of an artist' describes the inner adventures of a young man who has 'poisoned himself with opium', moving from ecstatic happiness to deep despair in a score full of vibrant colour and sharp sonic contrast.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There is a Beethoven connection with the Ives movement, too, in that the "Fate knocking on the yellowhammer's door" motif recurs throughout, at first incorporated into the gentle Music of the opening and then disrupting it with increasing vehemence. Ives in reflective mode, and from his Piano masterpiece - not sure it needs "colouring-in", though. (Trans: I'm damned sure it doesn't, but don't want to prejudge Brant's transcription, which may well be very effective.)

[Bryn]

There is a Beethoven connection with the Ives movement, too, in that the "Fate knocking on the yellowhammer's door" motif recurs throughout, at first incorporated into the gentle Music of the opening and then disrupting it with increasing vehemence. Ives in reflective mode, and from his Piano masterpiece - not sure it needs "colouring-in", though. (Trans: I'm damned sure it doesn't, but don't want to prejudge Brant's transcription, which may well be very effective.)

I have only heard the RCO/Dennis Russell Davies 'live' recording of Brant's 'Concord Symphony' and though I have ordered the MTT CD in the hope of finding it more convincing, I have my doubts. Brant states that his intention was not to emulate an Ives orchestration. In that I find him to have been pretty successful.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Brant states that his intention was not to emulate an Ives orchestration. In that I find him to have been pretty successful.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

With Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, the San Francsico Symphony can be heard at their energetic and brilliant best. His 'Episode in the life of an artist' describes the inner adventures of a young man who has 'poisoned himself with opium', moving from ecstatic happiness to deep despair in a score full of vibrant colour and sharp sonic contrast.

How do they know this before a note has been played?

[Bryn]

Brant states that his intention was not to emulate an Ives orchestration. In that I find him to have been pretty successful.

The MMT SACD of the Ives/Brant 'Concord Symphony' arrived in the post this morning. I think the SFS/MTT gives a more positive impression of Brant's work that does the RCO/DRD. To be fair, what Brant said, in context, was:

"[M]y intention was not to achieve a characteristically complex Ives orchestral texture (which in any case, only he could produce), but rather to create a symphonic idiom which would ride in the orchestra with athletic surefootedness and present Ives's astounding music in clear, vivid, and intense sonorities".

[amcluesent]

John Adams: Absolute Jest

He's havin' a bubble!

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique

Excellent

[edashtav]

I have only heard the RCO/Dennis Russell Davies 'live' recording of Brant's 'Concord Symphony' and though I have ordered the MTT CD in the hope of finding it more convincing, I have my doubts. Brant states that his intention was not to emulate an Ives orchestration. In that I find him to have been pretty successful.

C'mon lads. Henry Brant was a very skilled orchestrator who did the (unacknowledged) donkey work for several leading American composers. Nobody criticises Marice Ravel or Henry Wood for not sounding like Mussorgsky in their versions of Pictures at an Exhibition. Much better, IMHO , that a composer realises a colleague's work in a fresh light than slavishly trying ( and almost always failing) to copy his idiom.

However, it's slightly sad that Henry Brant's work was represented by an arrangement rather than by one of his "spatially" aware compositions.

By the way does Henry count as a Commonwealth asset ( by virtue of birth) or an American (by parentage)?

I like to class him with the American Experimentalists: Cowell, Partch, Lou Harrison, etc.

[Bryn]

C'mon lads. Henry Brant was a very skilled orchestrator who did the (unacknowledged) donkey work for several leading American composers. Nobody criticises Marice Ravel or Henry Wood for not sounding like Mussorgsky in their versions of Pictures at an Exhibition. Much better, IMHO , that a composer realises a colleague's work in a fresh light than slavishly trying ( and almost always failing) to copy his idiom.

However, it's slightly sad that Henry Brant's work was represented by an arrangement rather than by one of his "spatially" aware compositions.

By the way does Henry count as a Commonwealth asset ( by virtue of birth) or an American (by parentage)?

I like to class him with the American Experimentalists: Cowell, Partch, Lou Harrison, etc.

See #6. Brant also recorded some of Ives's songs with Michael Ingham as the accompanist. I rather like his way with them. The CD will cost you an arm and a leg if you can find one these days. Got mine for a couple of quid in Mr. CD (late of 80 Berwick Street).

[Oh, and you've got Gann on your side.]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Nobody criticises Marice Ravel or Henry Wood for not sounding like Mussorgsky in their versions of Pictures at an Exhibition.

This "nobody" does - at every possible opportunity.

[edashtav]

This "nobody" does - at every possible opportunity.

OMG :From the evidence, Ravel shared this view - producing an orchestration that was so naff that he can only have believed that it would make everyone turn to the original. fhg post.

Yes, nobody was an exaggeration. Please accept my apologies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Nobody criticises Marice Ravel or Henry Wood for not sounding like Mussorgsky in their versions of Pictures at an Exhibition.

Unfortunately they do.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OMG :From the evidence, Ravel shared this view - producing an orchestration that was so naff that he can only have believed that it would make everyone turn to the original.