Tippett Piano Concerto; R3 in Concert, Weds 14/6/17

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In our media soaked world It's hard to get big audiences for many events.

But in our "Listen Again"-available world, there are thirty other opportunities of listening to a broadcast of a rare programming event; judging by the number of replies actually about the performance (about six) on this Forum - where the interest in Tippett is presumably greater than on most other social media - then there simply isn't enough interest in his work to encourage the greater number of performances that is oft requested here. This is one we cannot blame on "defensive", "narrow, unadventurous conservative" programmers: it's down to those of us who complain when it isn't programmed, and who don't listen when it is.

I don't particularly prefer the Tippett PC to the Sibelius VC, but I'd jump at the chance to hear it, whereas I pass up at least a couple of chance each year to hear the Sibelius.

But your lack of any post on this actual broadcast performance (available to hear for thirty days after the broadcast) suggests that you didn't "jump", ts - of all the comments on this Thread, only Pulcie, Edgey, bsp and myself actually gave any indication that we actually listened to this broadcast. With that level of expressed interest, it would seem that Tippett's time has been and gone, and his Music is of interest only to too small an audience to warrant live performers. The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

[teamsaint]

But in our "Listen Again"-available world, there are thirty other opportunities of listening to a broadcast of a rare programming event; judging by the number of replies actually about the performance (about six) on this Forum - where the interest in Tippett is presumably greater than on most other social media - then there simply isn't enough interest in his work to encourage the greater number of performances that is oft requested here. This is one we cannot blame on "defensive", "narrow, unadventurous conservative" programmers: it's down to those of us who complain when it isn't programmed, and who don't listen when it is.


But your lack of any post on this actual broadcast performance (available to hear for thirty days after the broadcast) suggests that you didn't "jump", ts - of all the comments on this Thread, only Pulcie, Edgey, bsp and myself actually gave any indication that we actually listened to this broadcast. With that level of expressed interest, it would seem that Tippett's time has been and gone, and his Music is of interest only to too small an audience to warrant live performers. The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Actually your assumption is wrong, I did listen to it.I just didn't feel I had anything useful to contribute to the discussion of the performance, or perhaps I was too busy or whatever at the time. Following the discussion can sometimes be more useful , personally, than contributing.

I was talking about the chance for me to hear a live performance, as compared to the endless oportunities to hear, for example,the Sibelius.

Schnittke doesn't raise much interest round here, yet a performace of Symphony no1 at the RFH a couple of years ago played to a very big audience apparently. And the performances of the following symphonies? We're still waiting.

just to reiterate,plenty of London performances of core rep play to modest audiences, and concerts of less frequently performed music, ( like the Ligeti / Takemitsu concert at the RFH a couple of years ago), attract decent attendences.
You may be right about the audience for Tippett. But fashions come and go, and programmers ought to attempt to lead, and not just follow. Some of them do, some of the time I guess.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Actually your assumption is wrong, I did listen to it.I just didn't feel I had anything useful to contribute to the discussion of the performance, or perhaps I was too busy or whatever at the time. Following the discussion can sometimes be more useful , personally, than contributing.

My apologies.

[teamsaint]

No worries. TBF,I do usually stick my oar in if I have listened.......
Anyway, a glance at the schedules on Bachtrack does illustrate how out of favour he is at the moment.

There's a performance of symphony #4 from the BBCSSO next January......

[Pulcinella]

There's a performance of symphony #4 from the BBCSSO next January......

They are recording the symphonies for Hyperion, ts, as you probably know!

[Richard Barrett]

on some recordings the forward balance of the soloist can obscure the fact that the part is accompanying solos and ensembles from the orchestra, which misses what I like to think is the point in these passages.

Yes, I see that might be the case, although I wonder whether that might not imply that note-spinning magically becomes something else when it's an "accompaniment"...? and I say that as someone who would very much like to find a way to enjoy this music.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, I see that might be the case, although I wonder whether that might not imply that note-spinning magically becomes something else when it's an "accompaniment"...? and I say that as someone who would very much like to find a way to enjoy this music.

Well - I don't hear it as "note spinning", so I didn't mean (to imply) that; I think that, just as Mozart transforms the various types of Alberti accompaniment into something rich and subtle, so Tippett makes the piano roulades a welling support for the orchestral material above/around them. But in both examples, that material is nonetheless "accompaniment" to more important/interesting thematic material appearing simultaneously. If a recording shifts the balance to focus on the subsidiary material, (something that doesn't happen in the concert hall) then it can make it sound as if the composer has confused the roles - rather than a more egalitarian (and more interesting) sharing of roles.

[Pulcinella]

Out of interest, ferney, which of the recordings do you rate in the top tier, to use Alpie's system?
I'm guessing the latest Osborne.

I have it, as well as the Ogdon, Tirimo, and Shelley; have never heard the Frith.
Grew up with the Ogdon (who didn't?), so undoubtedly have listened to that one most.
Must dig out the Tirimo (with Tippett conducting) again, especially if it gets your thumbs up: I have dim memories of a televised broadcast (from Coventry?) of a Tirimo/Tippett performance, presumably at about the time the recording was made.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I only have the Ogdon, Frith, and Tirimo discs - each offering their own insights and each with their own flaws (Frith - like Osborne, another Kemp student - is superb, the orchestra a little less so; the composer takes his Music a little slowly, as was his wont in his eighties when he got the opportunity to record his own work; the Ogdon is probably my "favourite" - mebbe because it was the "onlie begetter" for so many years - but the orchestral sound quality is a smidgen muddy/boomy).

I have been alergic to Hickox's conducting, and listened to the CHANDOS discs when they first appeared without having my prejudice wiped out (ah, the joys of being on friendly terms with the local Classical Music Shop owners! - not the same with Amazon ) so I can't fairly comment on it - and I haven't heard the Osborne recordings -
a bit pricey for me; I can only afford that sort of expenditure on repertoire I don't already have in my collection.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think that there is a sufficient number of recordings of the work to make a "tiering" feasible - all three that I have give good accounts of the work.

[BBMmk2]

Not one of his strong works?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not one of his strong works?

Could go eight rounds with Mike Tyson and have him blubbing like a kid, Bbm. (As you might have heard if you'd listened to the broadcast/i-Player?)

[BBMmk2]

O. Haven't Ferney. Must do really. Just taking of the hearings I've had heard. Just struck me as not classic Tippett.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

O. Haven't Ferney. Must do really. Just taking of the hearings I've had heard. Just struck me as not classic Tippett.

Well ... for me it's as "classic Tippett" as Beethoven's 4th Pno Conc is "classic Beethoven" = very different from (say) the Fifth Symphony, but showing the fuller range of the composer's expressive arsenal.

[Serial_Apologist]

My only hearing of the PC was back in '67 when the Ogdon performance was relayed, and sadly I've missed the oppo to listen again as the programme under discussion is now defunct. So like others critical of the work I've gone and deprived myself a chance to reassess - as indeed I really should Tippett's work as a whole, being among those who followed the line that in his bid to sound more "contemporary" this composer lost his way sometime around the time of its composition. As Richard Barrett has pointed out, a strong Hindemith influence* seemed to invade Tippett's music around the time of the "Midsummer Marriage", though I don't think it was that which bothered critics at the time, more the growing eclecticism being evidenced in the music of one who had once seemed so recognisably himself, as in the first two string quartets, "Boyhood's End", the Double Concerto and first symphony, in the process becoming over-abundantly detailed: the Piano Concerto being, for me, an instance in point. Gone seems to be the natural lyricism, freshness, clarity and welcoming memorability of the "Trotskyist period", and in place of it an impenetrability of means and aesthetic aims. I wonder how easy it would be, given the weight of importance many advocates place on the later operas - a particular bugbear of mine (but there again I've never been an "opera buffer") - to offer a rarely representive exposition of Tippett's career as a whole by having him as Composer of the Week.

*As a maybe not very interesting aside, that Hindemith influence - never that prominent in the overall evolution of 20th century classical music: I immediately think of his pupils who adopted the Hindemithian harmonic method, like Arnold Cooke and Franz Reizenstein, and parts of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra - has worked itself into the approach of a good number of, especially, British, or British-domiciled jazz musicians, probabily beginning with Kenny Wheeler (who openly acknowledged it in his compositions, and it is certainly apparent in his big band settings, starting from "Windmill Tilter"). I could go into greater speculative depths on why this might have been the case, maybe it deserves its own thread, but don't want to draw too much attention away from this one.