Afternoon Concert - general thread

[Ein Heldenleben]

The whole programme brings back fond memories.

This has the bonus of really interesting insights from the BBC SO’s chief percussionist - 2 hour rehearsal sessions with just him, Boulez and an Oboist - and currently memories from Sidonie Goosens

[Bryn]

This Boulez / BBC SO Daphnis and Chloé from 2005 is stunningly good. The subtlety of the orchestral sound - really wonderful.

The whole programme brings back fond memories.

[Ein Heldenleben]

This Boulez / BBC SO Daphnis and Chloé from 2005 is stunningly good. The subtlety of the orchestral sound - really wonderful.

[Bryn]

Two works very with a very heavy emotional load. Perhaps the orchestra was just drained.

It was pretty much just an intro to the RCO contribution to the afternoon's music-making.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not sure if anyone else heard the Ulster Orchestra's 1-hour live concert from Belfast on Afternoon Concert 4 weeks back, with:

Martinů: Concerto for Double String Orchestra, Piano and Timpani
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m6rz

Of the two, the Martinů had a bit more drive and pizazz, IMHO. The Bartók sounded more than a bit careful and safe in pacing, but given that MfSPaC it's a difficult enough score to rehearse and perform under normal, non-pandemic circumstances, the Ulster Orchestra strings and non-string friends did well, with Jac van Steen at the helm, and any quibbles on interpretation are not a big deal at all. Really good to hear them perform live, even if to an empty hall (besides announcer John Toal) and only a radio audience.

Two works very with a very heavy emotional load. Perhaps the orchestra was just drained.

[bluestateprommer]

Not sure if anyone else heard the Ulster Orchestra's 1-hour live concert from Belfast on Afternoon Concert 4 weeks back, with:

Martinů: Concerto for Double String Orchestra, Piano and Timpani
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m6rz

Of the two, the Martinů had a bit more drive and pizazz, IMHO. The Bartók sounded more than a bit careful and safe in pacing, but given that MfSPaC it's a difficult enough score to rehearse and perform under normal, non-pandemic circumstances, the Ulster Orchestra strings and non-string friends did well, with Jac van Steen at the helm, and any quibbles on interpretation are not a big deal at all. Really good to hear them perform live, even if to an empty hall (besides announcer John Toal) and only a radio audience.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I was working in the garden on Monday afternoon - a lot of sorting out in the shed (new) /Compost bin area. I listened to Afternoon Concert using a bluetooth speaker and enjoyed the programme very much.

I'm an admirer of Paavo Jarvi but don't seek out Schumann's symphonies; however, it was (as I said) enjoyable. The surprise was the rest of the programme. My general rule Is to avoid re-arrangements of works often performed in the original forces ("Nimrod", "Lark Ascending" - oh dear…). However the Erwin Stein arrangement of Mahler's 4th really worked, in its own terms, for me and Christine Karg was delightful. Finally there's little chance I would have previously heard the Berio, but I'm glad I did, and will listen again on better speakers or headphones.

Sibelius: Tapiola, op. 112
Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in E flat, op. 97 ('Rhenish')Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo Järvi

Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra play Berio: Sinfonia .

Part of A European Concert for Europe, given in the empty Berlin Philharmonie, on 01/05/2020, after the lockdown. The reduced forces of the Berlin Philharmonic are conducted by Kirill Petrenko.
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G
(arrangement for chamber ensemble by Erwin Stein)
Christiane Karg, soprano
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Petrenko, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mknv

[Serial_Apologist]

This was also broadcast last July and mentioned in this thread at the time.
This orchestration is by Martin Yates

Thanks Edgy - hadn't realised it was a repeat.

[Edgy 2]

I shall have to listen to the Robin Milford. I have a very nice Helios CD (CDH55084) called 'Songs by Finzi and his Friends', which includes 3 of Milford's songs.

There’s a nice chamber music record on Toccata Classics.
This is wonderful

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-that-Breaks-Thee/dp/B00JDCZZBK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Robin+Milford&qid=1591651119&sr=8-1

[LMcD]

Wonderful concert of English music this afternoon - Lord Berners' own Portsmouth Point overture: having switched on I thought it must be some 1920s ballet score by Prokofiev that had passed me by - there were also anticipations of Malcolm Arnold, three years before Arnold's year of birth; the early Stanford VC, Mendelssohn-influenced but substantial for all that; some Vaughan Williams we hadn't heard, written for a Maeterlinck play, of all things, and not particularly Vaughan Williamsy; a well-known Delius tone poem that repeated much of what he had already said 6 years earlier in "First Cuckoo..."; and the second symphony - from the early 1930s - of a composer previously only a name to me, Robin Milford, which sounded like Parry might have had he lived to be a very very old man, and fallen under the spell of Sibelius. I may have missed something - pre-announcements for each of these works was sparing in the extreme - did Ms Gore mention it was Alfredo Casella who actually orchestrated the Berners?

I shall have to listen to the Robin Milford. I have a very nice Helios CD (CDH55084) called 'Songs by Finzi and his Friends', which includes 3 of Milford's songs.

[Edgy 2]

Wonderful concert of English music this afternoon - Lord Berners' own Portsmouth Point overture: having switched on I thought it must be some 1920s ballet score by Prokofiev that had passed me by - there were also anticipations of Malcolm Arnold, three years before Arnold's year of birth; the early Stanford VC, Mendelssohn-influenced but substantial for all that; some Vaughan Williams we hadn't heard, written for a Maeterlinck play, of all things, and not particularly Vaughan Williamsy; a well-known Delius tone poem that repeated much of what he had already said 6 years earlier in "First Cuckoo..."; and the second symphony - from the early 1930s - of a composer previously only a name to me, Robin Milford, which sounded like Parry might have had he lived to be a very very old man, and fallen under the spell of Sibelius. I may have missed something - pre-announcements for each of these works was sparing in the extreme - did Ms Gore mention it was Alfredo Casella who actually orchestrated the Berners?

This was also broadcast last July and mentioned in this thread at the time.
This orchestration is by Martin Yates

[Serial_Apologist]

Wonderful concert of English music this afternoon - Lord Berners' own Portsmouth Point overture: having switched on I thought it must be some 1920s ballet score by Prokofiev that had passed me by - there were also anticipations of Malcolm Arnold, three years before Arnold's year of birth; the early Stanford VC, Mendelssohn-influenced but substantial for all that; some Vaughan Williams we hadn't heard, written for a Maeterlinck play, of all things, and not particularly Vaughan Williamsy; a well-known Delius tone poem that repeated much of what he had already said 6 years earlier in "First Cuckoo..."; and the second symphony - from the early 1930s - of a composer previously only a name to me, Robin Milford, which sounded like Parry might have had he lived to be a very very old man, and fallen under the spell of Sibelius. I may have missed something - pre-announcements for each of these works was sparing in the extreme - did Ms Gore mention it was Alfredo Casella who actually orchestrated the Berners?

[oddoneout]

21st April - Afternoon Concert

Elgar: Sea Pictures, op. 37
Karen Cargill, contralto
Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Søndergaard, conductor

As soon as Karen Cargill started singing, I 'knew' that it was one of those rare moments when it was time to down tools and just simply listen. Gorgeous voice.

And I could listen to Hannah French all day! Such enthusiasm and a joy to listen to.

That's interesting, as I was disappointed with Karen Cargill's rendition - I found her voice inconsistent and at times not very pleasant.
Agree about Hannah French though.

[Anastasius]

21st April - Afternoon Concert

Elgar: Sea Pictures, op. 37
Karen Cargill, contralto
Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Søndergaard, conductor

As soon as Karen Cargill started singing, I 'knew' that it was one of those rare moments when it was time to down tools and just simply listen. Gorgeous voice.

And I could listen to Hannah French all day! Such enthusiasm and a joy to listen to.

[bluestateprommer]

With enforced isolation for work and such, have had a chance to get better acquainted with Afternoon Concert offerings on my non-work laptop, starting with the Lucerne FO's "Rach 3 squared" concert conducted by Chailly several weeks back, which had, if nothing else to recommend it, the first-movement repeat in the Symphony No. 3. MG-T had also taken the repeat with the CBSO in their Lucerne Festival gig several years back. Also heard:
* Berlin PO / K. Petrenko / Pat. Kop. from Lucerne (weeks later, I watched the same program from earlier last year on the Digital Concert Hall)
* BBC SO / Joana Carneiro, where her LvB 3 could almost have been from Klemperer with respect to 2 details, namely no first-movement repeat and no silencing of the trumpet at the end of the 1st movement, i.e. not a HIPPster performance. To be honest, it wasn't a particularly scintillating account.
* Eva Ollikainen and the BBC SO, including Ustvolskaya's Piano Concerto and, perhaps inevitably for a Finnish conductor, Sibelius

Just today, listened to this BBC Phil concert of Elgar's Violin Concerto (soloist Christian Tetzlaff) and, one more time, Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 3, likewise again with the first-movement repeat (!). Good to know that conductors like John Storgards, Chailly, and MG-T know to do the right thing in that first movement of "the other Rach 3". Otherwise, from a mental comparison of a slightly edgy Beethoven 4 on R3 in Concert that Omer Meir Wellber led with the BBC Phil (no 1st movement repeat there, FWIW), with the sound and ensemble that Storgards got from the BBC Phil, I'm seriously wondering again whether the BBC Phil made the right choice of chief conductor in passing over Storgards, albeit with the 'consolation prize' of the chief guest conductor post.

But if nothing else, as long as you're willing to tolerate Kate Molleson and her editorializing as presenter (an admittedly minor irritation compared to the current grand scheme of things), it shows where one can find buried treasure on R3, with the time to look for it.