Live in Concert 20.03.14 Philharmonia/Maazel - Strauss

[pilamenon]

I thought the performances gripping at home

Seconded. I've never really appreciated this work the way so many obviously do, but was bowled over by the grandeur of Maazel and the Philharmonia's interpretation and the piece finally clicked with me.

I didn't have a problem with it being programmed first either - had more stamina at that stage!

[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.

[cloughie]

Just think Cloughie how you'd carpet Bernie Haitink for going that slow !!

Probably but actually I have got more respect for Uncle Bernie than many on here appear to have for Lorin, who in his 80s is taking a broader, fresh look at these big orchestra RSt works.

[Bryn]

Probably but actually I have got more respect for Uncle Bernie than many on here appear to have for Lorin, who in his 80s is taking a broader, fresh look at these big orchestra RSt works.

I can neither climb not descend mountains as quickly as I used to, and I'm only in my mid-60s. No wonder he takes things a bit more slowly.

[Flay]

I can neither climb not descent mountains as quickly as I used to, and I'm only in my mid-60s. No wonder he takes things a bit more slowly.

Were you a mountain climber in younger days, Bryn? The only way I have ascended an Alpine mountain is on a ski lift.

But if the work is construed as a life from cradle to grave, then perhaps LM was quite reasonably trying to postpone the inevitable.

I have just listened to the closing section again and I still hold that it was spellbinding.

There is much detail in the score that could be lost to the listener in a rushed performance. I look forward to hearing Alpy's summation.

[Bryn]

Were you a mountain climber in younger days, Bryn? ...

Only little ones, like Snowdon, Cader Idris and Pen y Fan. Nothing too serious, more a combination of hill-walking and rock climbing really, but it still takes me a lot longer than it used to, and last summer I had to abandon climbing a fairly easy rock chimney that would have been no problem even a decade ago.

[Flay]

That's still impressive, Bryn.

Anyway I started listening to the Symphony from the start and had to turn it off. This was much too lugubrious. It's supposed to signify an optimistic youth striding upwards (dah dee dah dee dah de daah), joyfully leaping from rock to rock, taking in the magical views and beauty, not some geriatric from a coach tour plodding with his Zimmer!

[edashtav]

55 +/- 10

I have just listened to the closing section again and I still hold that it was spellbinding.

There is much detail in the score that could be lost to the listener in a rushed performance. I look forward to hearing Alpy's summation.

Some thoughts about speeds in the Alpine Symphony, and extraneous matters:

What a shame we don’t have timings from Richard Strauss’s own performances.

The best I can do is some slight evidence of Strauss’s (broadcast) performance at the RAH in November 1926. These are the timings the BBC expected:

8.00 Alpine Symphony op. 64.
9.00 Interlude from Studio (Interval) - a mere ten minutes!
9.10 Part II
Don Juan op 20
Salome’s Dance (from the opera “Salome”)
Festal Prelude
10.00 Time Signal, Greenwich.

Strauss was famous for keeping strictly to his tempi markings. Perhaps, somebody with a score …

However, there is little doubt that Strauss imagined some sections of his piece should be played slower than was humanly possible at the work’s premiere in 1915. At the start, the wind players have very long notes to sustain & Strauss recommended the use of what is now an obsolete mechanism: "Samuel's Aerophon". It supplied top-up air by means of a tube into the player’s mouth, the other end of the tube being connected to a foot pump. These days, I suppose an electric pump could be employed leaving the player’s foot to finesse the rate of flow of air. Perhaps, Lorin Maazel can be persuaded to sponsor the creation of a set of Samuel’s Aerophons. With such freedom, how would Maazel adjust his speeds, I wonder?

These days it’s interesting to recall a time when what serious composers were writing was a matter of interest to the British provincial press. Here’s a note from the Yorkshire Post, June 1911

STRAUSS’S NEW WORK: AN ALPINE SYMPHONY

It is announced from Munich […] that Richard Strauss is engaged on an important work which will be called “An Alpine Symphony”,” and will take about an hour to play. It will have two main divisions. The first part represents the feelings of a lonely traveller ascending a high mountain, withdrawing himself gradually from the world. There will be musical descriptions of the difficulties encountered by the climber on his way: a waterfall, a deep gorge, a mountain thunderstorm. The second division of the work describes the descent. Finally the motif of religious faith dominates the other, and the symphony concludes with a lofty hymn of praise to God.

The symphony’s gestation was long and the Great War was fully engaged by the time of its first performance in Dresden during 1915. Reactions in Britain to the premiere were unflattering towards Strauss and his work but they were coloured by nationalism. The first performance in England was delayed until 1923 when Aylmer Buesst was its conductor. To help his audience to navigate its way to the summit and back, Mr Buesst had 22 placards held up by the side of the orchestra at the appropriate junctures. But, how long did this British first performance take? The Yorkshire Post (14.11.23 just after the f.p.) can help on that score:

THE ALPINE SYMPHONY
[…]
Strauss is reported to have said,” I have for once wished to compose as a cow gives milk.” Perhaps he has succeeded. But if it may be a Swiss milk symphony, it is certainly not condensed for it lasts forty-five minutes.

I make no conclusions but I sense that over the last 99 years Strauss's Alpine Symphony has matured.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What a shame we don’t have timings from Richard Strauss’s own performances.

But we do. Staruss's 1936 recording lasts 46 minutes, and his later one in 1941 is just 43 minutes long. However, I am the last person to give too much credence to stopwatch performances. If a conductor can give a convincing performance at slower or faster tempi, I see no harm in that.

[edashtav]

The Putative Impact of 4 minute Aliquots on Performance Times

But we do. Staruss's 1936 recording lasts 46 minutes, and his later one in 1941 is just 43 minutes long. However, I am the last person to give too much credence to stopwatch performances. If a conductor can give a convincing performance at slower or faster tempi, I see no harm in that.

Thanks for those timings, EA: their evidence that Richard Strauss desired faster speeds (overall) are, I fear, undermined by the ticking tyranny of the 4 minute 78rpm side duration.

An anomalous feature of the recent Maazel performance is that one expects performance times to increase in big acoustics - where overfast figurations blur - but Maazel was performing in the dry[ish] acoustic of the RFH - a hall that some argue has a resonance too short to do justice to its King of instruments.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks for those timings, EA: their evidence that Richard Strauss desired faster speeds (overall) are, I fear, undermined by the ticking tyranny of the 4 minute 78rpm side duration.

This could be the case with the 1941 recording, but the 1936 Munich performance was live in concert.

[Petrushka]

Thanks for those timings, EA: their evidence that Richard Strauss desired faster speeds (overall) are, I fear, undermined by the ticking tyranny of the 4 minute 78rpm side duration.

An anomalous feature of the recent Maazel performance is that one expects performance times to increase in big acoustics - where overfast figurations blur - but Maazel was performing in the dry[ish] acoustic of the RFH - a hall that some argue has a resonance too short to do justice to its King of instruments.

I'd guessed from your earlier comment about Strauss's performance timings that you were waiting for someone to fall into the trap of mentioning the recordings

We cannot know for sure how the 4 minute quota for recording a 78rpm side impacted on the finished product. I'm sure that in some cases it did, just as the omission of repeats impacted on LP recordings.

However, we do have the correspondence that exists between Elgar and his HMV producer, Fred Gaisberg, published as 'Elgar on Record' by Jerrold Northrop Moore (OUP 1974), and nowhere in the 20 years of activity is there any mention of an alteration in tempo in order to accommodate the restrictions of a 4 minute side. This is compelling evidence, at least in Elgar's case, and it may well be so with Strauss as well. Perhaps his correspondence will be/has been published or perhaps it all perished in Hitler's Armageddon. Does anybody know?

An interesting side line on this concert and I'm looking forward to hearing it this evening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

However, we do have the correspondence that exists between Elgar and his HMV producer, Fred Gaisberg, published as 'Elgar on Record' by Jerrold Northrop Moore (OUP 1974), and nowhere in the 20 years of activity is there any mention of an alteration in tempo in order to accommodate the restrictions of a 4 minute side. This is compelling evidence, at least in Elgar's case, and it may well be so with Strauss as well. Perhaps his correspondence will be/has been published or perhaps it all perished in Hitler's Armageddon. Does anybody know?

Yehudi Menuhen stated categorically that there was no compromise whatever by the composer in in his recording of Elgar's violin concerto.

But, thinking about the Struass, it might account for the slightly shorter 1941 performance.

[richardfinegold]

Yehudi Menuhen stated categorically that there was no compromise whatever by the composer in in his recording of Elgar's violin concerto.

But, thinking about the Struass, it might account for the slightly shorter 1941 performance.

Perhaps he just felt differently about the music in 1941 and felt it should go faster.

[LaurieWatt]

Here's Colin Anderson's review. I thought the performances gripping at home - must have been quite an occasion in the RFH, certainly judging by the enthusiastic reception.

I was there and knew from discussions beforehand that we were in for a long evening. And, it was very very long but it seemed to work because the orchestra was on top form - the brass were spot on and the right bits always came through (the bass trombones particularly), the horn section was incandescent and my only real disappointment was the completely pathetic piece of tin which passed for a thunder machine. At those speeds that moment could have been awe inspiring - I remember the TWO huge thunder machines the BBCPO used in Manchester a few years ago. The last section after the storm actually was not much slower than it is usually. It was the beginning with the rather close 'off stage' horns having to play so slowly that any resemblance to a hunting party was lost. So, on the whole I enjoyed it. I know Alison is a big fan of the Philharmonia tympanist but, Alison, isn't he just a bit unsubtle at times? He looks at times as though he is trying to smash a hole in his drums and sometimes sounds as if he has succeeded!