Bbcso at the barbican, live r3, 19:30 hrs 24.09.14. Adams, volans, ives.

[jayne lee wilson]

For one night only.... we can't complain at the lack of challenging live programme. In fact it's SO challenging, it even needs TWO conductors...

John Adams My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003)
Kevin Volans The Mountain that left (BBC Commission - 1st Performance)
***
Charles Ives Symphony No.4

BBCSO, BBC Singers/ANDREW LITTON & DAVID HILL, CONDUCTORS.
Pumeza Matshikiza, soprano; William Wolfram, piano.


Recent and lesser known Adams, a world premiere (you never quite know what to expect from Volans...), and a rare live outing for Ives' visionary masterpiece, one of the greatest of all American Symphonies (perhaps it really is, archetypally, The Great American Symphony...).

I hope we have Great Audio Quality too...

[teamsaint]

AND check out COTW, Jayne if you haven't already !!


Posted from my organic blackberry , in a car park,because my broadband has disintegated.

[Bryn]

For one night only.... we can't complain at the lack of challenging live programme. In fact it's SO challenging, it even needs TWO conductors...

John Adams My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003)
Kevin Volans The Mountain that left (BBC Commission - 1st Performance)
***
Charles Ives Symphony No.4

BBCSO, BBC Singers/ANDREW LITTON & DAVID HILL, CONDUCTORS.
Pumeza Matshikiza, soprano; William Wolfram, piano.


Recent and lesser known Adams, a world premiere (you never quite know what to expect from Volans...), and a rare live outing for Ives' visionary masterpiece, one of the greatest of all American Symphonies (perhaps it really is, archetypally, The Great American Symphony...).

I hope we have Great Audio Quality too...

Sorry to say I have no great expectations of this concert, given my disappointment with Litton's SACD surround recording of the Ives with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for hyperion. Still, Litton's 4th is better than his 2nd, where he messed up the final chord, Bernstein style. I really wish Sir Andrew Davis's would conduct more Ives. He is a very fine Ives conductor. His contributions to the Radio 3 Ives weekend some years ago was quite magnificent.

[jayne lee wilson]

WHAT a bizarre evening... at least 10 minutes late starting after much talking about the BBC Singers, then Petroc told us it was Friday night, now at 20:08 we've been told that the Volans is cancelled due to an indisposed soprano... now another long delay while the platform is rearranged for the BBC Singers to perform a new programme of unaccompanied choral music, not a genre I'm a great fan of...

At least audio quality in the Adams was fine... think I'll grab an iced coffee & finish Ian Martin's Guardian article finishing off the Labour Party..

[jayne lee wilson]

OK... 20:40, and now Petroc says, a longer than usual interval of about 30 minutes... this "concert" already feels longer than that Liverpool-Middlesbrough penalty-shootout game last night, and so far somewhat less entertaining...
Oh, the Adams? Sounded better-than-expected to these unfamiliar ears, but I dozed off waiting for it to start and missed an [unspecified duration]...

[Bryn]

I gave up listening 'live' to this concert very early on. I started the Litton recording of the Ives spinning (just in case I might discover I had undervalued it), but gave up soon after the start of the third movement. I then dug out my CD-R of the Radio 3 FM broadcast of the 1999 EIF performance by the Ensemble Modern Orchestra with John Adams at the helm. Superb!

I will access tonight's performance via the iPlayer's on demand facility on the morrow.

[By the way, I note that amazon.co.uk have a copy of the Ensemble Modern's commercial CD of the Ives 4th available for just under £10 (so add something else to the order to get free p&p). To find the listing, search for "ensemble modern 4th symphony". Don't mention Ives in the search criteria. It's a bit pricey for just the one symphony, but it is rather good.]

[Gabriel Jackson]

WHAT a bizarre evening... at least 10 minutes late starting after much talking about the BBC Singers

It was their 90th birthday!

we've been told that the Volans is cancelled due to an indisposed soprano... now another long delay while the platform is rearranged for the BBC Singers to perform a new programme of unaccompanied choral music, not a genre I'm a great fan of...

The Volans was a piece for the BBC Singers, too.

[jayne lee wilson]

It was their 90th birthday!

The Volans was a piece for the BBC Singers, too.

I've nothing against the BBC Singers, Gabriel... they've given me much pleasure for many years...

BUT talking about how wonderful the BBC Singers are, how wonderful it is to sing for the BBC Singers, how wonderful it is to conduct the BBC Singers.... don't make for much good radio, I'm afraid...

***


Anyway.
Certainly in terms of sheer sound, this Ives 4th came across extremely well.

The bizarrerie continued in a bustling of hurried footsteps and platform noises off between the 1st and 2nd movements, but the contrasts in the innocently-named allegretto, between three-brass-band uproar and whimsical, cafe-chamber-music delicacy were brought off with a vividly dramatical éclat - and dynamically were almost overwhelming. Not a hint of level boosting, even in the threshold-of-audibility pianissimos. Then, gorgeously full textures from strings, horn and subtly enriching organ in the fugal andante...

I wasn't quite sure whether Litton maintained focus on texture or argument clearly enough through the complex choral and orchestral juxtapositions of the final Largo, but the fine audio quality via the HDs webcast allowed it to create a very powerful and atmospheric effect as it sank into silence.

So as a live event, the Ives 4th was a success... just a shame it came at the end of a slightly disjointed, loosely-presented evening....

[Hornspieler]

For one night only.... we can't complain at the lack of challenging live programme. In fact it's SO challenging, it even needs TWO conductors...

John Adams My Father Knew Charles Ives (2003)
Kevin Volans The Mountain that left (BBC Commission - 1st Performance)
***
Charles Ives Symphony No.4

BBCSO, BBC Singers/ANDREW LITTON & DAVID HILL, CONDUCTORS.
Pumeza Matshikiza, soprano; William Wolfram, piano.


Recent and lesser known Adams, a world premiere (you never quite know what to expect from Volans...), and a rare live outing for Ives' visionary masterpiece, one of the greatest of all American Symphonies (perhaps it really is, archetypally, The Great American Symphony...).

I hope we have Great Audio Quality too...

... and I hope, Jayne, that you will have also had more than the TWO listeners who have responded so far.

Not my taste of programme I'm afraid, but I'm sorry that you were so disappointed.

HS


BTW If perchance any forumites wish to contact me direct, I have a new email address : hornspieler@virginmedia.com which I shall use only for R3 forum messaging.

[Bryn]

I have now listened to the Adams and Ives via the iPlayer. Sorry, to my ears the Ives had none of the gusto, elan and sheer involvement Sir Andrew Davis brought from an earlier version of the same basic forces. The comedy movement was more like a wander through a corridor adjoining a series of practice rooms in a music college than ribald interplay of competing and combining musics I associate with the movement. As with his Dallas recording (from concert performances) the fugue from the 1st String Quartet was too polite, lacking the ecstatic one gets from the likes of Davis or Adams. The largo maestoso I again found underinvolved. Still. I was expecting no more, even though the BBCSO and Singers gave so much more with Sir Andrew Davis.

[Mary Chambers]

I listened to parts of all the programmes. I'm not very keen on the BBC Singers generally, but I'm quite interested in their history. Petroc Trelawny had said that they were going to play that 1936 recording of Peter Pears, and I thought there might be some mildly interesting comments on it, which there were.

I still don't like their sound much, but they certainly proved they can sing difficult music.

[mercia]

to me Pears's voice was unrecognisable in that extract.

I was interested in the comment made at some point in the evening (I think possibly by "our" Mr Jackson) to the effect that he appreciated that some works were so difficult to perform that only the BBC Singers would touch them, and that therefore such pieces would only infrequently be heard (or words to that effect)

[Bryn]

to me Pears's voice was unrecognisable in that extract.

I was interested in the comment made at some point in the evening (I think possibly by "our" Mr Jackson) to the effect that he appreciated that some works were so difficult to perform that only the BBC Singers would touch them, and that therefore such pieces would only infrequently be heard (or words to that effect)

Hmm. That rather puts me in mind of a claim by a certain flute player that he was the only person capable of playing the Concierto Pastorale composed for him. It was not long before others took in on, and with rather more musical results, to my ears.

[Mary Chambers]

to me Pears's voice was unrecognisable in that extract.

I think it sounds exactly like him! Totally recognisable on several levels, but of course he was only in his mid-twenties.

[mercia]

Totally recognisable on several levels

...... so you probably disagreed with the member of the current BBC Singers who pointed out the differences in the voice as it was then and how it became