BBC Young Musician 2014

[Barbirollians]

Martin Bartlett's performance is on Radio 3 at the moment, and I find it just as good as I thought last night. Whether a performance is involving or not often depends on one's own mood.

Maybe but I had not heard the piano final and was prepared to be swept away . I wasn't- he seemed overpowered much of the time and mechanical too on others . I was completely unmoved.

[ardcarp]

I agree Mary....I was surprised to find the whole thing on R3 while I was driving to collect someone. There are obviously personal preferences involved here, but Martin's performance could easily have been that of a 'pro' as it came over the airwaves. (Sorry to disagree Calibs!) Someone mentioned lack of power somewhere. I doubt that's the Fazioli, which IMHO, cuts the same mustard as a Steinway. Martin will no doubt develop more power as he matures....but (again IMHO) too many pianists hit the piano too hard these days. No names.

I certainly would not want to detract from any of the finalists' achievements whatever their choice of repertoire, body gyrations, facial expressions or whatever. It's a shame in some ways that the Grand Final could not just be a Grand Concert where those who have made it simply perform without the element of competition.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the Grand Final could not just be a Grand Concert where those who have made it simply perform without the element of competition.

.. .indeed!!

[Lento]

Not a great performance, especially having heard Freddy Kempf's winning performance on Thursday evening again

And Kempf won at 15, I believe, though I'm not in a position to compare.

[Barbirollians]

And Kempf won at 15, I believe, though I'm not in a position to compare.

I know he has had some criticism on here but I think he is a very fine pianist. His recording of the Prokofiev Piano Concertos is superb for a start .

[verismissimo]

Clearly the whole concept of a concerto-filled final needs to be re-thought. I'm not much for Rachmaninov, but the winner's piece seemed to me streets ahead of his competitors. The percussion "concerto" was filled with musical cliché and the poor recorder-player had to make do with a second-rate piece written for another instrument.

There's lots of more interesting music, old and new, for both of those instruments, but not in the "concerto" box (and not needing the BBCSSO).

[Stanley Stewart]

"...Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou was wont to see:
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power..." Oberon, Act IV, Sc 1, MND

[ardcarp]

Well that's shocked us all into silence. Deller or Bowman?

[Mary Chambers]

I checked the details of Stanley's quotation online. How I wish I hadn't! I stumbled on something called No Fear Shakespeare, which 'translates' the texts. Thus "There lies your love" becomes "There's your boyfriend, sleeping right over there". Horrible fascination may lead me to read more.

Off-topic. I know. Sorry.

[Sir Velo]

I checked the details of Stanley's quotation online. How I wish I hadn't! I stumbled on something called No Fear Shakespeare, which 'translates' the texts. Thus "There lies your love" becomes "There's your boyfriend, sleeping right over there". Horrible fascination may lead me to read more.

Off-topic. I know. Sorry.

One wonders what is difficult to understand about the original?

[gradus]

I don't understand how adjudication works in this competition as others have remarked how on earth do you find a yardstick that fairly asseses the relative merits, but I'm not that bothered since all three finalists and many who didn't make the final gave much listening pleasure and will go on to fulfilling musical lives.
By the way, I quite enjoy players/conductors/singers who fail the impassivity test since it mirrors my own reactions to music!!

[ardcarp]

Well said, gradus.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Clearly the whole concept of a concerto-filled final needs to be re-thought. I'm not much for Rachmaninov, but the winner's piece seemed to me streets ahead of his competitors. The percussion "concerto" was filled with musical cliché and the poor recorder-player had to make do with a second-rate piece written for another instrument.

Are you certain about this verismissimo? I found a short Jacob worklist and assumed we were listening to an orchestration of his Suite for Recorder and String 4tet. Indeed, something was said about writing accompaniment parts for orchestral instruments other than strings (quiet ones got the nod...), but I heard nothing about an adapted solo part, so thought this was likely to be right.

Like many others here I found it almost impossible to compare apples, pears and bananas as it were in the three performances. But there was another factor that hasn't IIRC been mentioned here. In the Rachmaninov most of us here will have had a pretty good idea of how the piece goes, and probably some recollection of benchmark performances. So no doubt did the judges. For the other two works most of us lacked any such experience. OK, the judges had the score (studied well in advance?) but probably like us, no experience of other performances.

Not sure which category gave the performer the advantage though. Superficially it should be those playing unknown works (no great performances to fail against), but I felt far more secure in making an assessment of the Rackers. The others were somehow unrooted, literally but not metaphorically 'incomparable'.

Have to admit that I have a serious problem with most percussion concertos anyway - great theatre watching the performance, but little to hold the attention musically. And the recorder work here was only a little better. So for me it was probably always going to be the pianist, even though we're obviously supposed to be rating the performance, not the work played Does this ring bells with others?

[ardcarp]

I know what you mean about percussion, Kingfisher, especially with the 'tremolando' marimba which seems completely to dominate any work of that genre. But the musicianship and incredible rhythmic coordination of all the percussion finalists, and of course of the exceptional young lad in the Grand Final, cannot be denied. I remember being mesmerised by one of the girl percussion finalists who did a truly remarkable side-drum solo...but as you say, how do you compare different fruits ?

[Nick Armstrong]

The percussion performance was the only one which held my attention, most unusually for me. That's how I reached a conclusion.

Also - is it the only time 2/3 of the programme of a concert have included parts for small plastic bird-warblers...??



What are those things called?