Live in Concert 20.03.14 Philharmonia/Maazel - Strauss

[edashtav]

500 British Musicians Make Fuses Whilst Herr Strauss Orchestrates Confusion

Whilst reading about the early, poorly informed reaction in this country to the Alpine Symphony, I came upon this WWI piece, full of the fog of war. With opinion-forming columns like this it's no surprise that the Alpine Symphony was not played in London until 1923.

From the Hull Daily Mail 12.06.1915

Musicians and Munitions

Jobbers on the Stock Market and meat porters in Smithfield Market are not the only people who are lending a hand in the making of munitions. Musicians are also volunteering, and with the closing down of the concert season Sir Joseph Beecham is taking about five hundred of them into one of London’s suburbs next week where their delicate and clever fingers will be trained in the making of fuses and other parts. It is expected that they will readily adapt themselves to their new labour, just as artists and sculptors have distinguished themselves as RAMC dressers at London hospitals. Sir Joseph Beecham is certainly employing himself in a different manner to Herr Richard Strauss who is engaged now in composing an Alpine Symphony. In it the melodies of the European nations are introduced with a good deal of highly-coloured orchestral confusion. But gradually the German folksongs drown out and trample on the others till there is a storm of trumpet and drum, out of which a tremendous noise issues shouting the air of “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles.” You picture triumphant Germany crowing from the top of the Jungfrau as from her very own dunghill and all the other peoples flattening themselves out towards the seas.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wow!

I'm not sure that Joseph Beecham was to blame. The words don't appear to be his - just a misguided journalist.

[edashtav]

Sorry, EA, I didn't mean to imply that - my edit comment related to my initial spelling of Joseph without an "S" .

No doubt, Joseph Beecham was just doing his philanthropic best. Perhaps, his son, Tommy told him that times were hard for musicians in wartime Britain.

[edashtav]

The Greatest Noise Ever Heard" ...

Here's a newspaper clipping about Aylmer Buesst who gave the f.p. of the Alpine Symphony in G.B..

From the Evening Telegraph, Tuesday 25th October 1927

BUESST, AYLMER (Senior Conductor)
A native of Melbourne, he began as a violinist, studying in Brussels and London with the great masters and later becoming a member of the famous conducting class under Nikisch in the Leipzig Conservatorium. He has conducted in Breslau, Aussig, Gorlitz and for the last few years in London. Recently he made a great sensation as conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and was credited with the curious record of having created the “greatest noise ever heard in the Queen’s Hall”. That was on the occasion of the performance of the Alpine Symphony.

I wonder if our Boarders ( including ts & Laurie) who attended the performance in the RFH last week are prepared to award a similar RFH accolade to Lorin Mazel, the Philharmonia and the refurbished organ?

[teamsaint]

Well, I'm not really used to handing out awards....well perhaps some off the cuff ones when I am at the footy .....

Ahem.

Being an RFH newbie, I couldn't compare to any other big moments before the organ was refurbed, but It certainly was a fine noise, and I did really enjoy the sound that the organ produced on the night. It seemed to me to work well with the hall acoustic.
I think LM may have to content himself with"Longest Alpensinfonie European Allcomers " record, and Andrew Smith for" loudest one man timps sound this millennium" for his effort at the start of ASZ.

Two records in one evening isn't too bad.

Laurie (and any others who were there) may wish to add some of course.

[Petrushka]

Listening to this concert now (interval time) and yes the Alpine certainly is slow but once you've got over the slightly disconcerted feeling and slotted into Maazel's conception it works well enough. I wouldn't want to hear it like this every time but I enjoyed it and marvel at the orchestral players for so successfully sustaining the line.

Zarathustra coming up soon. Let's see if Smithy's timps punch holes in my wall.

[cloughie]

Unless I've missed it on another thread there appears to be no comment on the post concert interviews with audience members. I thought (silly ME!) that they were actually going to ask random audience members what they thought of the concert. No it was just a safe ploy of asking a group of school pupils what they thought. I had hoped they would have happened upon ts or someone who might have said something about the interpretation and 'how unusual for the Alpine Symphony to last 66 minutes but it really worked'.

[Hornspieler]

Whilst reading about the early, poorly informed reaction in this country to the Alpine Symphony, I came upon this WWI piece, full of the fog of war. With opinion-forming columns like this it's no surprise that the Alpine Symphony was not played in London until 1923.

From the Hull Daily Mail 12.06.1915

Musicians and Munitions

Good morning all.

As this concert seems to have had its say, I hope nobody will mind if I go off post to repeat a story that I was told about the second world war:

Musicians and Munitions (Part 2)

The instrument makers at Boosey & Hawkes factory in Edgware was converted to the making of munitions and musical instrument manufacture was virtually abandoned, but the RA Band, who were following our troops up through Italy in 1944 were having problems with the excessive heat shrinking the pads on the woodwind instruments and general lack of maintenance facilities for both drums and brass.
So Lt Col O W Geary, MBE psm obtained a War Office directive that some instruments should be sent back to Edgware for reconditioning and two of Boosey's workers were detailed to go back to instrument repair work.

This did not sit well with the loyal factory hands and they were overheard complainig one day:

Syd "This is all wrong. You can't kill Germans with clarinets."

Harry "You obviously haven't heard the RA Band!"

Hs (Gunner Musician, Royal Artillery)

Still firing a few salvos occasionally

[edashtav]

War and Peace

Good morning all.


Musicians and Munitions (Part 2)

[...]
Hs (Gunner Musician, Royal Artillery)

Still firing a few salvos occasionally

Musicians and Munitions (part 3)

MUSICAL WAR NEWS

Burnley Express 26.02.1916

Two local musicians were conversing in a theatre on Monday night, when one of them said, “Yes, at the beginning of the war German musicians were composing three or four victory marches every week, but they’ve stopped now.”
“What will they be composing now?” asked the other man.
“Nay,” replied the first,"I couldn’t say.”
“Aw fancy they’ll be making ‘Peace overtures’," chimed in a man who had evidently been listening.

[edashtav]

Army top brass

[...]

Musicians and Munitions (Part 2)

The instrument makers at Boosey & Hawkes factory in Edgware was converted to the making of munitions and musical instrument manufacture was virtually abandoned, but the RA Band, who were following our troops up through Italy in 1944 were having problems with the excessive heat shrinking the pads on the woodwind instruments and general lack of maintenance facilities for both drums and brass.
So Lt Col O W Geary, MBE psm obtained a War Office directive that some instruments should be sent back to Edgware for reconditioning and two of Boosey's workers were detailed to go back to instrument repair work.

This did not sit well with the loyal factory hands and they were overheard complainig one day:

Syd "This is all wrong. You can't kill Germans with clarinets."

Harry "You obviously haven't heard the RA Band!"

Hs (Gunner Musician, Royal Artillery)

Still firing a few salvos occasionally

Musicians and Munitions (part 4)

Pall Mall Gazette

15.12.1899

THE LAST BANDS IN BATTLE

The short though sanguinary campaign between Bulgaris and Slovenia in the autumn of 1885, witnessed the last instance of the employmrent of bands during active hostilities. […] The third day of the battle of Slinica found the Servians apparently impregnably posted on the steep hills in the neighbourhood of Dragoman. Nothing daunted, the brave Bulgarians formed a frontal attack, and General Bendereff issued the extraordinary order that every battalion of infantry would not only be accompanied, but headed, by its band playing the "Djumi Maritza”, the national air. Accordingly, the charging battalions toiled up the ascent in this formation, the bands never ceasing playing for one instant. A German officer, […] recording his experiences, states that the progress of each unit could be easily followed by the crescendo and diminuendo of the music. In the most exposed places the air became thin and ragged, and the rattle of the bullets on the brass instruments was plainly audible from the valley below. Then, when the crest was reached, and the Servians broke and fled, the “Djumi Maritza” swelled forth again in victorious volume. Strange to relate, though, the casualties among the musicians were nothing like as serious as one would have expected.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm going to listen to this again and put together an analytical review, based on more than a cursory one-off impression. Clearly there are many who appreciate this ultra-broad interpretation.

Philharmonia/Lorin Maazel 20.03.14 66 minutes, 42 seconds.

Lorin Maazel recorded Eine Alpensinfonie with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1998 - a fine, exciting performance lasting a little over 50 minutes.

16 years later, he has embarked on a series of live performances, including this broadcast from the Royal Festival Hall. A recent Maazel performance in Munich was reported to have lasted for over 64 minutes, so there was the expectation of a similarly long mountain climb on this occasion.

The long “night-to-sunrise” opening achieves full impact with an unrushed approach and Maazel does not disappoint, though some uncertain ensemble suggests that the unusually slow tempo caused some confusion with some of the players, even though it appeared to work musically. Lorin Maazel sometimes holds back when approaching climactic moments, an appropriate comparison being the sunrise in Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe. Here it works less well, almost grinding to a halt, losing some of its mighty splendour. The risen sun is not quite the moment of glory that Strauss may have envisaged. To make matters worse, the ensemble shows some scrappiness, with obtrusive timpani strikes sounding more like interruptions than a integral part of the grand gesture. (This may well be a result of broadcast technical issues.)

Conductors vary in their approach to the “ascent” section. Some are very energetic indeed. Here Maazel resembles Karl Böhm’s Beethovenian view of Strauss’s vision – not inappropriate when the thematic material is so evidently based upon part of the finale of the earlier composer’s fifth symphony – by projecting a strong, lean, moderately paced view. It is musically convincing at first, but begins to sound ponderous after a while, particular the passage with the off-stage band.

Suspicion that there were technical issues surrounding the broadcast, are reinforced by the ugly-sounding tam-tam crash at the opening of “entry into the forest”. Musically, there is much to commend here, the slow tempo adding to the mysterious, dark effect. Subtle rubato adds to the warmth of the playing. Solo strings (at fig. 32 in the score) are so often artificially prominent, due to over-enthusiastic engineering; but happily there are no such problems in this live performance.

Strauss’s musical image of wandering by a brook is lost by the sluggish tempo, but Maazel picks up speed slightly for the waterfall sequence, and the “flowery meadow” section is almost up to the “norm”.

What follows is one of the most magical “mountain pasture” sections I have heard, with superb, subtly balanced interplay between woodwind (playing with perfect flutter-tonguing) and cowbells – a high point of this performance. Momentum is maintained during the powerful “glacier” section with some fine playing from the Philharmonia’s brass section.

By contrast, “dangerous moments” are not dangerous at all., so that when the summit section is reachedt, there seems to be little sense of achievement, either musically or pictorially. Maazel’s summit does indeed have some grandeur, though he and the timpanist don’t quite agree about where the downbeats occur, and the conductor’s rubato becomes so extreme that momentum is in danger of being lost altogether.

The “vision” sequence that follows benefits from a slowish tempo, and the lovely oboe countermelody is delightfully subtle. But the brass interplay from figure 91 becomes unacceptably sluggish, sounding more like a rehearsal than a performance.

All conductors face a challenge with the “rising mists”, “elegy”, “darkening sun” and “calm before the storm” sections, but this is essentially the slow movement of the work, so the tempi are appropriately measured. A few conductors scamper through this section relentlessly as though they fear the audience will become bored. Not so Maazel, who controls the entire sequence admirably.

Then a remarkable thing happens. Just before the storm breaks, Maazel picks up the tempo, and any fears that this might be a dull thunderstorm are pushed to one side. Some might wish for a slightly quicker tempo, but there is much to admire here. Similarly, in the “sunset” that follows, there is dignity and majesty. Some conductors rush this section, as though viewing the sun setting in time-lapse animation.

Eine Alpensinfonie has many great moments, but Ausklang (Epilogue) surely ranks among its finest. But it is perhaps the section requiring the greatest degree of judgement in terms of orchestral balance and tempo. Maazel’s is predictably slow, and is beautifully played, but it does sag a little in what must surely be one of the greatest moments in all Strauss. It may well have worked better in the hall itself, which could account for the audience’s wild appreciation of the performance as a whole. Here Lorin Maazel is far more satisfying than Sir Andrew Davis is in his 1981 recording, which has a similarly slow Ausklang.
By the return of the “night” music, it is evident that the orchestra and conductor are finally at one.

Overall, a performance with some great moments; an interesting experiment, but not, I fear, one that should necessarily be repeated by others.

[PJPJ]

Overall, a performance with some great moments; an interesting experiment, but not, I fear, one that should necessarily be repeated by others.

Thank you for that - certainly extraordinary, though not capricious.

I did hear the Munich PO's concert from 28 Feb given in Vienna's Musikverein before hearing the London performance. It is similarly broad but seemed to me less successful on the single listening; I'm not sure whether that was due to my mood or to the orchestra's seeming lack of involvement compared with the Philharmonia's depth and power.

[edashtav]

A very detailed, cogent analysis, EA. Excellent work. Congratulations.

[pastoralguy]

A very detailed, cogent analysis, EA. Excellent work. Congratulations.

I second that emotion...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thank you both.

"It's a funny old forum." Only two days ago I was becoming its pariah.