Andrew Manze conducts the BBCSSO tonight 8th March at 19.30

[Chris Newman]

Hello Chris ( Newman) I am somewhat amazed at what you say about Joan Dickson.. "She is still going strong in Salisbury ensembles.".
In the 1960s, when I was in the BBC Scottish Orchestra, Joan played regularly as a ( superb) soloist and I will always remember her Elgar and Dvorak in particular.
BUT, on 'Wikipedia' there is this information:
"Joan Dickson (born 21 December 1921 in Edinburgh; died 9 October 1994 in London) "
so, maybe there is another cellist called Joan Dickson, currently active around Salisbury..?
WH

Oh, whoops. Apologies to Joan Dickson's memory and to you, Waldhorn, for distressing you. Sometimes, the brain cells confuse names and events. I hope the Joan in question will forgive me as well. I shall lie low for a bit.

[Curalach]

Waldhorn is right about the late Joan Dickson who had a long and distinguished career. Her sister, Hester Dickson, is still, at the age of 87, a lecturer in piano accompaniment at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Hester's son is Malcolm Martineau.

[Chris Newman]

As I hope I said before, my deepest apologies for my confusions in an earlier message.

[Byas'd Opinion]

I was another one who was at the concert.

I thought the Purcell arrangements were strangely old-fashioned: I very much associate full orchestra arrangements of baroque music with early 20th century late romanticism. Despite a perverse fondness for the Schoenberg version of Bach's St Anne Prelude and Fugue I've never been convinced they work.

The Britten Cello Symphony's a tough piece. This was one of the less impenetrable performances I've heard, but still pretty heavy-going. The Vaughan Williams was as good as everyone else on here says it was. The finale was definitely louder than some interpretations I've heard, but I thought that let Manze get a bit more sense of structure and development into it. There were definite changes of mood within it, it wasn't totally bleak and static. (Although I know there are those who say it's meant to be totally bleak and static).

[Flosshilde]

I thought the Purcell arrangements were strangely old-fashioned: I very much associate full orchestra arrangements of baroque music with early 20th century late romanticism.

I thought Manze's justification at the beginning was a bit disingenuous & special pleading: with the rise of the early music movement & performance on original instruments meant that they had been lost to the symphony orchestra repertoir & audiences. Well, yes, but perhaps those audiences should widen their horizens & go to the early music concerts if they are missing Purcel et al so much?

But we don't want to embark on digging through that particular can of worms, do we?

[jayne lee wilson]

Very useful on the finale, By-Op., thanks. I was hoping someone who'd been there would comment on the level.

You see, Chris and fhg, as well as the pp (very softly...) marking, VW also puts "senza crescendo" and "senza espressivo", you can see what he was getting at, a bleak, remote, "all passion spent" (sorry to use it yet again) quality.

Giving this great performance its due, I still have to include that one cavil about the level, warmth and presence of the epilogue, which only reached a true pp in its final few bars. Manze is certainly not the first conductor I've heard do it this way. But VW evidently wanted it to challenge the listener's concentration, I think by the sheer lack of all the expressive features we usually find - or take for granted - in other great slow movements. It makes me think of the great Hungarian poet Janos Pilinszky's comment, "I should like to write as if I had remained silent".

Evidently VW couldn't give us some kind of minor-key 4'33, but I think he wanted the merest, slightest, sign of life...perhaps not even that. Not thinking more than twice, only the 4th movement largo of DSCH 8 comes to mind as a distant relative of this epilogue, yet even there that extraordinary horn solo drifts in to, ever so slightly, quicken the heart.

I was another one who was at the concert.

I thought the Purcell arrangements were strangely old-fashioned: I very much associate full orchestra arrangements of baroque music with early 20th century late romanticism. Despite a perverse fondness for the Schoenberg version of Bach's St Anne Prelude and Fugue I've never been convinced they work.

The Britten Cello Symphony's a tough piece. This was one of the less impenetrable performances I've heard, but still pretty heavy-going. The Vaughan Williams was as good as everyone else on here says it was. The finale was definitely louder than some interpretations I've heard, but I thought that let Manze get a bit more sense of structure and development into it. There were definite changes of mood within it, it wasn't totally bleak and static. (Although I know there are those who say it's meant to be totally bleak and static).

[salymap]

When I heard the first performances of RVW 6 it was almost uncomfortably quiet at the end of the last movement and one had to strain one's ears to actually hear the ending, if that's not a contradiction.
And remember VW was very much still with us and Sargent and Boult, the two who played it first, knew him well.

[french frank]

Manze talking about his Pur-SELL arrangements and VW6 interpretation here.

[Flosshilde]

It's the last movement I have trouble with, especially hearing it live - the others are all high-octane, in your face (sorry, that's a bit of a crude description, & they are rather more subtle than that, I know), & then with the last movement the temperature drops suddenly. I'll need to listen to it more to get how it fits with the rest of the symphony.

[Hornspieler]

It's the last movement I have trouble with, especially hearing it live - the others are all high-octane, in your face (sorry, that's a bit of a crude description, & they are rather more subtle than that, I know), & then with the last movement the temperature drops suddenly. I'll need to listen to it more to get how it fits with the rest of the symphony.

I would suggest rather like "Nunc Dimitus" fits with the rest of Sunday Evensong.

HS

[salymap]

Ithink it was very clever of RVW not to give details of any 'programme' he had in his mind when composing this wonderful work.
To me the sheer desolation, after the striving and turmoil of what has gone before, make it his greatest symphony and it's up to everyone to interpret it as they wish.

[Flosshilde]

I would suggest rather like "Nunc Dimitus" fits with the rest of Sunday Evensong.

HS

Ah - perhaps that's where my godlessness letrs me down

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ah - perhaps that's where my godlessness letrs me down

Perhaps "The party's over" might fit your world view better?

Or RVW's own suggestion of Prospero's "We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep"?
... in keeping with the Tempestuous opening of the work, perhaps?

[jayne lee wilson]

" the only clue from Vaughn Williams himself (as quoted by his widow) points us in the direction of an agnostic Nunc Dimittus".

...from the Wikipedia article on the 6th.

I would suggest rather like "Nunc Dimitus" fits with the rest of Sunday Evensong.

HS

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, but perhaps not to play "pp" as "mf"? I try to be generous to performers but I wonder if some conductors don't lose their nerve a little at this point in the 6th - playing so quietly for so long, with a restless audience...

Mahler once said that if a slow movement seems lost on an audience, go slower, not faster - maybe conductors in this epilogue should respond to audience restlessness by playing it quieter still!

VW6 probably still hasn't had its due, has it? Especially if you think of the (rightful, of course) attention given to Nielsen's 5th, or symphonies like Mahler 6, DSCH 4 & 8 etc...

Ithink it was very clever of RVW not to give details of any 'programme' he had in his mind when composing this wonderful work.
To me the sheer desolation, after the striving and turmoil of what has gone before, make it his greatest symphony and it's up to everyone to interpret it as they wish.