SCO Brahms 4/ Ticciati

[Tony Halstead]

Oh dear, I am a great admirer of the young and very talented Robin Ticciati (that's now off my chest) BUT
why oh why does he have to make 'musical points' only by slowing down or pausing in a rhetorical way?

[RobertLeDiable]

Agreed. Let's hope, as he conducts the piece more, the self-conscious underlinings disappear.

[DracoM]

Can you help me? I listened quite hard and I kept thinking that there was something wrong with the balance. The top strings were at times virtually inaudible while the brass, wind and bottom strings were beautifully in focus. Was that my equipment here, or .....? Help, please.

I thought the orchestra played superbly for him. But yes, there were reservations about the almost endemic rubato etc.

[RobertLeDiable]

It's a chamber orchestra so there would have been at best no more than 10 first violins, maybe even only 8. I don't see how, with modern brass, etc, you can balance a Brahms symphony properly with that size of string section.

[Chris Newman]

Sir Charles Mackerras, who knew a thing or two about music making, recorded these very symphonies with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It is the size of orchestra that Brahms himself would have been most familiar. I find Brahms stripped down rather refreshing without all the layers of varnish that that the symphony orchestras have applied over the last century. Years ago I heard some frightful stresses and rubati committed by the Grand Old Men of today who like wines mature well and now find such things unnecessary.

[RobertLeDiable]

Sir Charles was great, but I've never been all that convinced by the idea of playing Brahms and Sibelius symphonies with chamber orchestras. Brahms just about works that way in a small hall and it's true that the Meiningen court orchestra was on the small side - but did he not say he would have preferred it to be bigger? The problem is when you only have two or maybe three basses and four or five cellos - the weight of string sound isn't there to balance against the trombones. It's worse in Sibelius. You get more clarity, sure, but the sound is wrong to my ears. And in a big 2000 seat hall it's a nonsense.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Talking of Brahms 4 (and I know I'm digressing from the the main topic, which is about performance style), does anyone remember a Desert Island Discs guest in the late 1960s, Sir William Willis?
Sir William recalled his childhood visit to Germany, when he had been lucky enough to meet Brahms. His parents had shown the great man a short piece of music that he young William had written, and Brahms had liked it and incorporated it into his 4th symphony.
This revelation caused quite a stir at the time, until the BBC pointed out that the broadcast had been on 1st April.

[Uncle Monty]

It's a chamber orchestra so there would have been at best no more than 10 first violins, maybe even only 8. I don't see how, with modern brass, etc, you can balance a Brahms symphony properly with that size of string section.

I have a very nice HD film from Japanese tv of Dan Harding doing Brahms 2 with the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and they have only 6x strings! I couldn't believe it when I saw the set-up, but actually it's (somehow) all beautifully balanced and delicate, and you can really hear the parts.

Not for all the time, perhaps, but I'm glad I've got it.

[RobertLeDiable]

Interesting. I'm sure it's possible to balance everything in such a way that you can hear all the parts. However, I'm not sure that hearing all the inner parts perfectly is what a romantic symphony is about. The result can all too easily sound like a forensic examination, but in any case it's the quality of the string sound that to me isn't right when you play this music with very small forces, not the relative volume of individual lines.

[Cellini]

The top strings were at times virtually inaudible while the brass, wind and bottom strings were beautifully in focus.

I think the problem is in part that even with ten first violins the playing, the sound will not get through, due to the strings in the SCO having such a weak sound. Other orchestras (but not all) have better players who can really produce bigger sounds. Even if a small orchestral string sound is re-balanced and you switch the gain up on the mics, it will still sound thin with some string sections.

[Freddie Campbell]

SCO/Brahms 4

...Yes I must say the idea of SCO & Brahms 4 a bit incongruous-
I did'nt hear this Performance,but Sir Charles was Conducting another
piece on R3 yesterday where the 1sts sounded weak- I wondered if
the audio engineers had miked them up quite as well as they could be?
(Cellini-Happy Christmas! Listen to LSE- www.fredjamesc.com)

[RobertLeDiable]

I think the problem is in part that even with ten first violins the playing, the sound will not get through, due to the strings in the SCO having such a weak sound. Other orchestras (but not all) have better players who can really produce bigger sounds

That's an odd opinion. In my experience the SCO has excellent strings. Mackerras would hardly have made all those recordings with them if they weren't. It's not about individuals making a bigger sound in any case. It's the quality of sound that only a larger section can produce that you need in this music.

[Cellini]

That's an odd opinion. In my experience the SCO has excellent strings.

It's not about individuals making a bigger sound in any case. It's the quality of sound that only a larger section can produce that you need in this music.

Are you talking from the viewpoint of being an orchestral string player?

[Flosshilde]

Are you talking from the viewpoint of being an orchestral string player?

Oh dear Cellini, it can be interesting and enlightening to hear the opinions of an expert, but when the expert implies that no other opinions than his are worth listening to it gets a bit tedious. Are the rest of us supposed to shut up when you have delivered your verdict on orchestral playing, string playing, or conductors?

[RobertLeDiable]

Nope - I'm not any kind of orchestral player.....