Lucerne Festival Orchestra from the RFH

[Guest]

The concert has just finished.

What did you all think?

VH

[kernelbogey]

I admit I wasn't giving it my full attention but what I most noticed were several passages where the usual balance between parts of the orchestra was altered, making the passage sound quite different. I think I liked it a lot overall - though it wouldn't be my choice to own, as it were. (I've just vented my irritation about its label as 'live' on the definitions thread.)

[Alison]

It wasnt the Mozart Symphony last night though.

I think this probably was live.

[Alison]

I found the Mozart a little soulless, virtually perfect in delivery

but over polished.

I didnt feel like listening to the Bruckner, recorded for future consumption.

[Nick Armstrong]

. (I've just vented my irritation about its label as 'live' on the definitions thread.)

I've commented there too! I think your irritation might be a trifle hasty...

[HighlandDougie]

Still on a high from being there. No orchestra I've ever heard in the RFH has ever played that well. I feel privileged to have heard Abbado and his orchestra in the flesh

[LeMartinPecheur]

Enjoyed the Mozart and Bruckner very much, though couldn't listen closely enough to say more.

What certainly raised my eyebrows, and those of Mrs LMP, (to the point where they passed beyond elevation and started disappearing down our backs!) were the ghastly bleeding chunks of Beethoven 9 and Mahler 2 in the interval. The speech around it would have been very dispensable even without the music - more stupid investment in telling us what to think about what we've just heard (Mozart) or were still to hear (Bruckner), and how we were guaranteed to reach undreamed-of heights of ecstatic enjoyment. What an utterly ghastly intrusion!

[kernelbogey]

[....] what I most noticed were several passages where the usual balance between parts of the orchestra was altered, making the passage sound quite different.

I meant in the Bruckner - may listen again when less tired to get a better view.

LMP - couldn't agree more about the ghastly interval. I wish Tom Service would slow down!

[Ventilhorn]

I've commented there too! I think your irritation might be a trifle hasty...

I understood from the interviews with the orchestra members that this was, in fact, a live performance; repeating the performance of a few days ago which was the subject of the critics' warm praise.

I say this, because the microphone failure at the beginning would certainly have been rectified before transmission and, for me, what I heard would be most unlikely to have hardened music critics wallowing in ecstasy.

Of the Bruckner symphonies, I like the 3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th and 9th. I find the others tediously repetitive and, frankly, boring. So I yawned my way through last night's Nº 5 and it seemed as though it was never going to end.

The Mozart Haffner symphony was dashed off at breakneck speed, but I did not feel that I was listening to Mozart. The finesse and delicacy was never there.

Obviously a fine orchestra under a distinguished conductor.

All the more disappointing for that.

VH

BTW Yes, I too felt the interval music to be inappropriate and intrusive. By all means let us have a short talk ─ about the composers or whatever, but I just wish the programme presenter would go and have a cup of tea and not be heard again until the commencement of the second part of the live(?) transmission.

[johnb]

I wasn't really in the mood for Bruckner so, although I had high expectations of the concert, I wasn't particularly moved.

The one part of the broadcast that, to me, was a revelation was when the microphone went down and we were left with just the ambient sound from the hall, the applause as the leader came on stage, and then when Abbado appeared. That very much gave the impression of eavesdropping on a live event, to the extent that I had the same kind of feeling of expectation as I do when at a live concert.

Then Louise Fryer regained microphone connection and the atmosphere collapsed.

[Chris Newman]

The beauty of broadcasts (mostly televised) on Arte Live Web is the absence of announcers at concerts. Often the interval consists of the ambience of distant indecipherable chatter mingled with a harpist or piano tuner quietly working.

[Ventilhorn]

I understood from the interviews with the orchestra members that this was, in fact, a live performance; repeating the performance of a few days ago which was the subject of the critics' warm praise.

BTW Yes, I too felt the interval music to be inappropriate and intrusive. By all means let us have a short talk ─ about the composers or whatever, but I just wish the programme presenter would go and have a cup of tea and not be heard again until the commencement of the second part of the live(?) transmission.

And for Pete's sake. Get rid of the stuttering Tom Service

VH

[GrahamMca]

I was there on Moday when M Uchida played the Schumann Concerto very brilliantly. My concentration was rather ruined from the slow movement on by an old guy in 2nd violins. He must have been 80 in that very young and vibrant orchestra. I suddenly realised he must have died / had a stroke / heart attack amd was slumped over his fiddle. Young neighbour gave him a prod and pointed to where they were in the score and he sort of carried on, but like someone deep in treacle. He just managed to stagger to his feet to bow and I thought that was his evening over. But he was back for the Bruckner in the second desk, his young pal banished to the very back. He never looked as if he was making a sound, though the orchestra, of course, went on being stupendous. What a bizarre episode. I'd love to know who he was and how he is - lost his job, presumably, as he was right in front of Abbado. One of the Maestro's Italian compatiots was prominent in the stalls - Fabio Capello, no doubt wishing he could control his gang like Claudio.
Another vote against the appalling interval rubbish on evening two. Sky Arts concerts are free of announcer garble - what a treat that is. If the Beeb can't bring back Cormac Rigby they should dump the whole chat nonsense.

[LHC]

One of the Maestro's Italian compatiots was prominent in the stalls - Fabio Capello, no doubt wishing he could control his gang like Claudio.

Funnily enough, I said to my better half as we took our seats on Monday night "I wonder if Fabio Capello is here?"

He's a regular at LSO concerts at the Barbican as well.

[Alf-Prufrock]

If the Beeb can't bring back Cormac Rigby they should dump the whole chat nonsense.

Since Father Cormac died in 2007, I do not think his recall is likely.