R3 in Concert one-stop shop

[teamsaint]

Is it me, or is the sound on tonights Sibelius 2 particularly lush and lovely ?

( Listening on trusty old FM.)

Edit: well yes, I thought the sound was terrific,and a fine performance overall. A somewhat understated final movement, something of a less is more approach, which worked well.Rather gripping IMO.

[Bryn]

Is it me, or is the sound on tonights Sibelius 2 particularly lush and lovely ?

( Listening on trusty old FM.)

Edit: well yes, I thought the sound was terrific.and a fine performance Overall. A somewhat understated final movement, something of a less is more approach, which worked well.Rather gripping IMO.

I have not listened yet but will be checking out the binaural options at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hbk (scroll down).

[oddoneout]

Is it me, or is the sound on tonights Sibelius 2 particularly lush and lovely ?

( Listening on trusty old FM.)

Edit: well yes, I thought the sound was terrific.and a fine performance Overall. A somewhat understated final movement, something of a less is more approach, which worked well.Rather gripping IMO.

It sounded good on my rubbish set-up(blessedly free of interference which has been a real trial for many days now - even my car radio has been bad) so I think on something halfway decent it would have been excellent. I'm not a great Sibelius fan but enjoyed this performance. Thought the interval music was an interesting choice to fill the gap between the Walton and the Sibelius.

[bluestateprommer]

Listening now to the BBC Phil's concert now with Ben Gernon and Jess Gilliam. The orchestra sounded on very fine form in Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin suite, albeit with some odd-sounding slaps from the percussion in the penultimate chase music. JG did very well with both the Debussy and Glazunov works (even if her final note in the Glazunov was a border-line squawk just now). Tom Redmond said that the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham is packed out, no doubt assisted by her LNOP star turn.

Other recent listening of R3 in Concert presentations:
(a) NYOS SO & NYO Canada: good concert, where the big surprise was at the end, where the NYO CA "did a Budapest Festival Orchestra" and sang in their encores. RVW 3 went well, a few modest brass blips aside. I did have to remind myself, given the generally high quality of the playing, that "wait a minute, these are kids".
(b) Aurora Orchestra, with their Frankenstein-themed multi-media program. Given all the stage business, it clearly would have been more enjoyable to be there live in person. They did LvB 5 from memory, the latest "stunt" in that part of their repertoire. As with their other from-memory readings, it was generally unmannered, with the standard minimal-vibrato HIPPster feel.
(c) BBC SSO & Dausgaard, the first night of their new season: while, as I've stated multiple times elsewhere, I still have mixed feelings about the chemistry between the BBC SSO and Dausgaard, TD does deserve points for programming Bernstein's Songfest on this season's opener, as well as the Augusta Read Thomas work. One aspect of this concert which may set even the pro-"happy clappers" crowd on edge was that in the Bernstein, there was applause after every section. Keep in mind that Songfest has 12 sections. Granted, LB himself might have approved up to a point ("oh, you like it?"), since Songfest is a very neglected work, for obvious logistical reasons of having to book six vocal soloists in addition to a chorus.

PS: Nice solo encore from JG, "In a Sentimental Mood" by "the Duke of Ellington", as Bugs Bunny might have said.

[aeolium]

I thought the recital by Andras Schiff from Wigmore Hall last Wednesday evening was one of the best concerts I have heard all year, and one of the best keyboard concerts I have ever heard. It was a highly ambitious programme containing three of my very favourite Schubert sonatas, the D845, the D850 and the D894, all sonatas which are much less regularly programmed than Schubert's three final sonatas. Schiff was performing on his own fortepiano, one made by Franz Brodmann in Vienna in 1820. He has made a Schubert recording (on ECM records) with this fortepiano but I don't recall hearing him play Schubert on a HIPP instrument before - I did go to one of the concerts in his Schubert cycle at Wigmore Hall many years ago when he played on a Bösendorfer.

These are three very different sonatas and Schiff brought out the different qualities of each superbly. He coaxed wonderful sonorities from the Viennese instrument, with both a singing quality in the upper register and strong dramatic effects where required. The climax to the first movement of the A minor sonata D845 was very powerfully done, though if I had the slightest quibble it was that the tempo for the Scherzo of this sonata was a bit halting for an Allegro vivace and the Trio was hardly "un poco piu lento". The "Gasteiner" D850 sonata was a delight, with its beautiful slow movement and the metronome joke in the finale, and the hint of Alpine horns particularly in the slow movement. The G major sonata D894 provided a contemplative contrast (albeit with the dramatic development section in the first movement).

This was glorious music, spellbindingly played on an instrument of Schubert's own time, and a testament to Schiff's constant search to explore different perspectives on the music. I was so taken with the concert on first hearing that I had to listen to it again and found new delights and new surprises throughout the performance.

[bluestateprommer]

Just caught up with the BBC Phil's 20 November concert before the 30-day deadline:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00016vc

Very fine program of 4 rather disparate works, but which went together very well to make a very well-balanced program. I can't recall the last time that I heard Rudi Stephan's Music for Orchestra on the radio or the web, and it was a rare treat to hear a live performance of Herbert Howell's Elegy. The last definitely is much like the "first pressing" of RVW's Tallis Fantasia, with dollops of the Pastoral Symphony, but none the worse for that. The snare drum bits in the 1st movement of DSCH 9 sounded a bit more like machine gun fire than usual, if that means anything.

Lawrence Power did his usual excellent job in the Walton Viola Concerto and as soloist in HH's Elegy. Moritz Gnann is a new name to me among conductors, and he did a fine job with this program.

[bluestateprommer]

Just before hitting the road for the holidays, caught this Philharmonia concert on iPlayer with Simon Trpčeski and Jakub Hrůša:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00019fx

Fine, fine concert indeed, where the big discovery was Miloslav Kabeláč's The Mystery of Time. From hearing it (admittedly only on one hearing), its processional and ritualistic character made me think initially, although the contemporary music experts will most probably shoot me down on this, of a "tonal Harrison Birtwistle", if that makes any sense. Martin Handley went slightly SM-P in his ringside commentary on how the audience seemed to appreciate the work, especially as probably a miniscule number of people in the audience knew the composer's name, never mind the work. The interval selection, also from Kabeláč, and for percussion ensemble, also had that ritualistic character.

ST clearly had a good time with DSCH PC # 2, as it is a good-time concerto overall. I've read of late that ST likes to do encores in his guest concerto appearances where he includes one or two musicians from the orchestra in the encore, and that was the case here, with a movement from a DSCH piano trio as the encore. Just a slight stretching of the box in orchestral concerts, but a nice gentle kind of out-of-the-box thinking.

JH mentioned to MH that there is a Czech classical concert tradition to perform Dvořák's two sets of Slavonic Dances as the Czech version of a New Year's Day concert. He also noted that there is a tendency for these works to be "overplayed and under-rehearsed", i.e. just to perform them as "rock 'em and sock 'em" encores without any particular subtlety. No danger of that here, with pretty straightforward and no-nonsense readings guided by JH. JH was a pupil of Jiri Belohlavek, and seems to have kept JB's overall ethos, with just a touch more pizzazz and/or "cheap thrills" when called for. If the Philharmonia has JH in their sightlines as its next principal conductor, JH strikes me as a good choice,

[bluestateprommer]

Heard this BBC SO concert recently on iPlayer, with a conductor of some interest here directing the orchestra, namely Karina Canellakis:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002cth

The Thomas Larcher work brought some memories of his symphony that the BBC SO and Bychkov played at the Proms 3 summers back. Parts of the newer work were OK, but others felt like generic noodling to me. It was interesting to note Larcher's use of poems of Ingeborg Bachmann, given that Hans Werner Henze had also set some of her poems back in the day.

KC's reading of LvB 7 brought some thoughts of Petrenko's recent Proms LvB 7, in its take-no-prisoners aspects. KC pushed pretty hard along in the finale especially, with shades perhaps of her Dallas Symphony mentor Jaap van Zweden and even Nikolaus Harnoncourt. She took repeats all throughout. The BBC SO sounded on very fine form for her, so she clearly knew what she wanted and how to get it from the orchestra.

BTW, for anyone who wants to plan ahead, KC and the BBC SO are back together again at Aldeburgh this June 15: https://snapemaltings.co.uk/whats-on...ony-orchestra/

[Constantbee]

R3 In Concert 12 March 19:30. Lawrence Power (Viola/Violin) and his ensemble Collegium Battling Baroque and Buenos Aries Tango.

An invigorating and wide reaching programme from Biber to Piazzola with plenty inbetween, including an atmospheric modern piece ‘Still’ for viola and chamber orchestra by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher.

Good to hear acclaimed violist Power displaying his versatility on violin. He’s currently working with Pavel Kolesnikov on the three Brahms violin sonatas and two viola sonata for the Southbank International Chamber Music Series 12 May 2019, if anyone's in the area at the time.

[bluestateprommer]

Caught just before the 30-day deadline (as is BSP's wont) the CBSO/MG-T Nordic-themed concert of Salonen, Rautavaara, Sibelius, and Grieg:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002l1m (not the most flattering picture of MG-T there, to be sure; not sure what the R3 folks were thinking there)

Definitely another example of MG-T's flair for programming, even with something as familiar as Peer Gynt on the bill. MG-T included Hardanger fiddle in the Act I Prelude, for one. Maybe the "Arabian Dance" was a bit stolid in pacing, but that was the only major 'blot' on the interpretation. Very clever to juxtapose the opening Salonen choral work and Sibelius' choral version of Rakastava with the surrounding orchestral works. With En saga, MG-T seemed to take the closing portion very spaciously, but I think that she and the CBSO pulled it off, if by the skin of their teeth. I admit to a soft spot for En saga, so I managed to hear both that and the Grieg twice before the 30-day period.

[antongould]

Just finished catching up on last night’s Bridgewater Hall Concert - Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic with Sibelius 6, the Tippett PC and Stravinsky Symphony in C .......

I enjoyed it and found the PC, which was new to me, right up my alley .....

[Andrew Slater]

I was there. The audience members who were sitting either side of me are now Tippett converts, thanks to the performance. It's a pity the audience was so thin.

Sounds page is here. (Mysteriously it's just appeared in the 'Now iPlaying' section of the For3 site.....)

Tippett's fourth symphony next week - also live on R3 - might be a tougher proposition!

[bluestateprommer]

Mini-mashup that could easily go into the "What Are You Listening to Now?" thread, namely the 2nd half of this Radio 3 in Concert presentation from last night, with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Karina Canellakis, from the Nobel Prize concert last December, Tchaik 4, which was itself the 2nd half of that concert:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006swl

FWIW, KC Tweeted about attending the Nobel Prize dinner and meeting her compatriot, Frances Arnold, who graciously Tweeted back in reply about the concert:

https://twitter.com/kcanellakis/status/1072574912647360512

[bluestateprommer]

For Karina C. fans and fans-in-waiting here, her recent BBC SO concert from Aldeburgh is available for a few more days, so you shouldn't lose the chance while The Proms swamp everything else:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00066qb

[bluestateprommer]

One bit of recent R3 catch-up listening was this BBC Phil concert with John Storgards, a "Midnight Sun"-themed concert:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bg2h

Kalevi Aho: Theremin Concerto, "Eight Seasons" (UK premiere; Carolina Eyck, theremin)
Outi Tarkiainen: Midnight Sun Variations
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12 ("The Year 1917")

The Aho made for pleasant, if rather rambling listening, with CE doing both vocal and theremin duties well. While I don't claim to have been blown away by Tarkianen's work, at least when I heard it again after hearing it earlier this year via the iPlayer Proms relay, my first reaction of "OK, I do recognize this" says something of the impression that I got of the work at the time. DSCH 12 is very sub-par DSCH, though still potentially great soundtrack music for a Sergei Eisenstein film (as I've commented elsewhere). John Storgards definitely did all that he could for the work.

This kind of enterprising program would be extremely hard to sell in the USA, if not impossible. Maybe Osmo Vanska with the Minnesota Orchestra, and even then it would be tough. The point here, of course, is that this is the kind of left-field programming that is rare and to be treasured. It put me in mind of a statement from William Glock to the effect that: "The BBC's job is to put on programmes that others can't." True, the world is very different now, and it's far from practical to program the above kind of BBC Phil concert all the time. So it's especially gratifying when such a program does happen.

(This also puts me back in mind to wonder why the BBC Phil didn't choose John Storgards as its next chief conductor. He would have seemed the logical choice, at least IMHO. I guess that the BBC Phil wanted a fresh face. Plus, JS is at least still chief guest conductor with them.)