Edinburgh Festival Queen's Hall concerts

[Flosshilde]

For the next three weeks we can look forward to good live music in the morning when the Edinburgh Festival Queen's Hall concerts are broadcast 11.00am - 1.00pm. I don't think that these have been broadcast live every day before - just selected ones, or recordings.

Today we have Nicola Benedetti & friends playing Brahms' piano quartet in G minor & Shostakovitch's piano quintet. On now.

[aeolium]

Thanks for this alert - really good news.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As one who knows little about music in Edinburgh, could I ask how the Usher and Queen's Halls compare?

[David-G]

As one who knows little about music in Edinburgh, could I ask how the Usher and Queen's Halls compare?

The Usher Hall is a full-size concert hall, very traditional in architecture, not very deep front-to-back, with an excellent acoustic (much better than the London halls, anyway!). The upper tier has fine sound and a fine view but is very vertiginous. The Queens Hall is a smaller hall, seating 900; it is a converted church. The outer seating and galleries are U-shaped, wrapping around the rather small central stalls area. This gives the hall a beautiful intimacy. The acoustics are excellent. The decor is a pale blue, slightly untidy and distressed in places, which is very endearing. I always find the morning Queens Hall concerts during the Festival a very great pleasure. Incidentally, last year (and the previous year I think) all the QH morning concerts were broadcast live, except the Saturday ones.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks for that. I thought the Queen's Hall might be smaller.

[David-G]

It has the feel of being smaller, of being more intimate than the Wigmore Hall. The "900" was from Wikipedia, I can't vouch for that. There is a rather extensive gallery over the U-shaped outer seating, that might account for the larger total. The "in-the-round" plan will perhaps give more seats within a relatively shallow space.

[Stanley Stewart]

I used to be a regular visitor to Auld Reekie during the Festival and booked accommodation at the University campus only a few minutes walk from the Queen's Hall. Also, we used to get occasional BBC 4 TV broadcasts, albeit delayed, from the morning concerts until a few years ago. Only last week, I viewed an off-air recording of a chamber music concert, Smetana, Janacek and Dvorak, performed by the Janacek String Quartet on 25 August 2002, introduced by Stephanie Hughes with a sense of occasion!

[pastoralguy]

I was there this morning and thought it an outstanding concert. The Brahms especially was very fine with all concerned making a glorious sound. Of course, young Nicola has a head start over all other performers as she's such a well loved artist in these parts and the audience proved it!

I should mention that we were behind Donald Macleod in the lunch queue and it was very odd to hear that so familiar voice ordering his choices!

[David-G]

Lucky you! But I shall be there for the final week, I am really looking forward to it.

[bluestateprommer]

For the next three weeks we can look forward to good live music in the morning when the Edinburgh Festival Queen's Hall concerts are broadcast 11.00am - 1.00pm. I don't think that these have been broadcast live every day before - just selected ones, or recordings.

I've updated the Forum calendar with 2 additions to the R3 broadcast list of EIF concerts, the delayed relay of the Hebrides Ensemble from this past weekend (set for this coming Friday on R3) and the live Anna Prohaska and Eric Schneider recital on Monday 18 August. I've also added, where available, the url's to the iPlayer sites for each concert (I probably need to go back and added embedded links).

[Flosshilde]

I was there this morning and thought it an outstanding concert. The Brahms especially was very fine with all concerned making a glorious sound.

I'm not a Brahms enthusiast, but I did enjoy the Shostakovitch. It seemed to me to be a happier piece of music than I would associate with him - discussion about his symphonies on the board give the impression that they are all concerned with an oppressive regime, or written to please that regime & against Shostakovitch's real wishes. I haven't really got into the symphonies, but greatly enjoy the string quartets, so perhaps I should spend more time investigating the chamber music.

[Blotto]

I'm not a Brahms enthusiast, but I did enjoy the Shostakovitch. It seemed to me to be a happier piece of music than I would associate with him - discussion about his symphonies on the board give the impression that they are all concerned with an oppressive regime, or written to please that regime & against Shostakovitch's real wishes. I haven't really got into the symphonies, but greatly enjoy the string quartets, so perhaps I should spend more time investigating the chamber music.

This thread has made my day. I saw an ad for the Steven Osborne concert at EIF on Wednesday but hadn't realised it was being broadcast. He's playing the 4th Tippett sonata again after playing it twice this spring in London. I heard it was impressive at the Wigmore Hall.

I wasn't interested in Shostakovich symphonies until I saw one live where the force and strange moods and movement of the music really made itself felt. Have you seen any of them live, Flosshilde?

Now to contradict myself, I heard No.4 at the Proms last week and it left me cold. The effusive responses here afterwards really surprised me but assured by Ferneyhough of the music's greatness, I listened again and found myself impressed again. The music can feel quite fragmentary until you respond to it but once you do - whether or not you detect a programme to it - the contrast and variety of the constituent music seems to carry me; it feels like a journey, sometimes a voyage, on a river. There's a constant change of scene and flow but nevertheless a clear drive forward. I see now why he's the great 20th century symphonist.

[EdgeleyRob]

I listened earlier this evening on catch up (instead of the Prom,Strauss and Nielsen don't do a lot for me).

Superb renditions of two of my favourite chamber works.

Highlights,
The relentless finale of the Brahms,with it's white knuckle ride of a coda,was expertly done.
The poignant fourth movement intermezzo of the DSCH was perfection.
Does anyone else think New York New York a wonderful town,whenever they hear the scherzo of the Shostakovich?

A bit puzzled by the playing of 16th and 17th century choral music during the interval.

[aeolium]

Superb renditions of two of my favourite chamber works.

Highlights,
The relentless finale of the Brahms,with it's white knuckle ride of a coda,was expertly done.
The poignant fourth movement intermezzo of the DSCH was perfection.

Yes, I thought the whole of the Shostakovitch quintet was given a very eloquent and moving performance. I missed the start of the Brahms, not knowing about the concert coverage until I was alerted to it, but what I heard was also very good. Although the draw for not a few of the audience will have been Nicola Benedetti, I was really impressed by the articulation and tonal colour of the pianist, Alexei Grynyuk, whose playing I don't recall having heard before.

ER, can I also draw your attention to the Proms Chamber Music concert from lunchtime yesterday (following the EIF concert): fine performances of Prokofiev and Schubert by Janine Jansen, Itamar Golan and Sakari Oramo.

[bluestateprommer]

Just gave the first R3 EIF relay a listen via iPlayer, and very good work indeed from all concerned in both the Brahms and DSCH, as all here seem to agree. For the record, violinist Susie Chen of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra took the place of the originally scheduled Anna-Liisa Bezrodny in the DSCH. Forum calendar has been retro-updated accordingly. BTW, just so everyone knows, for the EIF R3 relays, it's back to the 1-week availability rule on iPlayer (not 30 days like with The Proms on iPlayer).

Does anyone else think New York New York a wonderful town,whenever they hear the scherzo of the Shostakovich?

To be honest, I don't, although from reading your remark in advance of going to iPlayer, I guess I can hear it with trying hard enough. If you want an instance of Lenny 'appropriating' perhaps more brazenly, he took the main passage of the storm interlude from Peter Grimes for "A Boy Like That" from West Side Story. But to be honest, I'd never noticed that until I heard someone mention it. It then suddenly became so obvious, a case of hiding in plain sight. Of course, in that song, the words and Anita's emotions in the drama rather than the tune take precedence.

Getting back to the matters at hand: as I see R3 calendar listings and links to the EIF relays, I'll try to keep up to date and add embedded links as they come, to make it easier for people to get to them and listen.