Live from St David's Hall, Cardiff Friday 15th June at 1930

[pmartel]

My favourite horn writing in the piano concerto. E flat is the natural key for horn players - as Mozart showed with his horn concertos, the Sinfonia Concertante for wind instruments, the same for the Violin and Viola concertante and, of course, the horn quintet and the piano and wind quintet. Angela Hewitt played musically and her ensemble sections with the woodwind choir were a joy to one's ears.

The Alpine symphony was one of the first pieces I ever took part in (1951, LPO )but I remember little about that performance, being one of the twelve offstage horns, closeted in a side room in the RFH, so I found Stephen Johnson's interval talk very enlightening.

Now I'm enjoying the symphony itself and I must say, Ariosto, that this "third rate provincial orchestra" is doing ever so well!

Please, please, if you've missed this live broadcast, do listen to it on iPlayer. I promise you that you will be thrilled by this performance.

Hornspieler

Alpeinsinfonie is my FAVOURITE of the Richard Strauss tone poems and I thought the orchestra pulled it off magnificently.

I was having a great afternoon listening to the concert on this side of the pond.

The only thing that got in my way were some annoying streaming glitches that oddly weren't there with the Mozart.

It is an extremely difficult piece to pull off WITHOUT a hitch and I don't think in noticed a bad note in the performance and for a 'third rate provincial orchestra' to sound 'European' is quite a feat.

For my ears, this 'Alpeinsinfonie' ranks right up there

[salymap]

I haven't heard the Strauss yet but thoroughly enjoyed the Mozart PC 22 in Eb. It seemed to my non-professional ear a beautiful performance and the chamber music quality, particularly in the first movement,was really good.
Why can't the piano sound always be captured like that in broadcasts? The mics were in the right place for once, perhaps.

[pmartel]

I haven't heard the Strauss yet but thoroughly enjoyed the Mozart PC 22 in Eb. It seemed to my non-professional ear a beautiful performance and the chamber music quality, particularly in the first movement,was really good.
Why can't the piano sound always be captured like that in broadcasts? The mics were in the right place for once, perhaps.

Really do have a listen to the Strauss. It is quite an interpretation.

I just wish I knew what it was about Alpinesinfonie that grips me and always has from the start.

Funny, my fist American concert last year was a program of Mozart and Richard Strauss with the Cleveland Orchestra, Til Eulenspiegel, Mozart's 17th Piano Concerto and topped off with Aus Italian.

To-day, I hear a UK version of a similar nature, I wonder why Mozart and Strauss seem to be paired up

[Panjandrum]

Or as the Radio 3 page has it: "Ein (sic) Alpensinfonie" for last night's concert.

[Richard Tarleton]

Well - I was there in St Davids Hall and it sounded (and looked) tremendous - the orchestra played like gods in all sections and Fischer directed with precision and passion. Everything went, as far as I could see and hear, without a hitch. It was a fantastic performance.

Sadly the Hall was by no means full - most of the choir seats were empty, along with most of the first two rows (numbered F and G) and a lot of seats at the sides. But the main body of the Hall was full, and there was a great standing ovation at the end. I wished I could have headed straight for the bar (which a number of people seemed to be doing) to sink a couple of pints to restore the equilibrium, but we had a 1hr40min journey home, unfortunately.

I have personal experience of an Alpine thunderstorm - walking the Tour de Monte Rosa, which straddles the border of Switzerland and Italy, my three companions and I were caught in one at 7,500 feet ascending to the Col d'Olen - we had to climb another 1000 feet to safety before we staggered into the Refugio Gugliemina at about 8,500 feet, soaked. Strauss has it pitch perfect.

I had a chat with Ms Hewitt in the interval. I enjoyed the Mozart, and her encore, the Wilhelm Kempff arrangement of the Bach Siciliano which is on her CD of Bach arrangements.

Hornspieler - we ate in Gio's before the concert and I found myself looking at the signed photo of Owain Arwel Hughes on the wall behind my wife's head. Should we have asked for another table?

[Hornspieler]

Well - I was there in St Davids Hall and it sounded (and looked) tremendous - the orchestra played like gods in all sections and Fischer directed with precision and passion. Everything went, as far as I could see and hear, without a hitch. It was a fantastic performance.

Hornspieler - we ate in Gio's before the concert and I found myself looking at the signed photo of Owain Arwel Hughes on the wall behind my wife's head. Should we have asked for another table?

...or maybe another brandy?

No. He was a nice chap and his father was a very good Head of Music, BBC Wales.

HS

[Ariosto]

Now I'm enjoying the symphony itself and I must say, Ariosto, that this "third rate provincial orchestra" is doing ever so well!


Hornspieler

I'm pleased you were impressed and enjoyed it HS. I'm afraid I missed it as I was late home and had some pressing work to do on mics. And the young blond lady was getting a bit restless ...

I have to say that I rarely listen to orchestral concerts these days. Perhaps it's because it reminds me of my prison sentence and all those stick wavers. There is much more interesting music to listen to and perform, but that's just my preference.

[Richard Tarleton]

Perhaps it's because it reminds me of my prison sentence and all those stick wavers.

Ariosto, it's probably not the sort of question you can answer on a message board, but given what you say about conductors, orchestral players and audiences, why on earth did you put up with it for so long? I embarked on a career I didn't enjoy, wasn't suited to, and changed it.

Orchestral concerts are only a small part of my diet - mostly early, solo and chamber these days - as well as being an amateur plucker.

[Ariosto]

Ariosto, it's probably not the sort of question you can answer on a message board, but given what you say about conductors, orchestral players and audiences, why on earth did you put up with it for so long? I embarked on a career I didn't enjoy, wasn't suited to, and changed it.

Orchestral concerts are only a small part of my diet - mostly early, solo and chamber these days - as well as being an amateur plucker.

What is an amateur plucker? Guitar?

Oh, it's not that I didn't like playing, it was a way of making a living and there were no other careers that I remotely fancied, (or that I could mention here ... ) or that I could do. If I could have taken them up I would have hated them. (I don't recall saying that much in the way of criticism of audiences or orchestral players, in fact I often defend the last).

A lot of my comments are tongue in cheek but people are so serious, so that they take them seriously, and then get very het up. It's quite funny really, and I tend to find it amusing, as when a conductor finishes before the orchestra (Abbado) or some even after! I tended to fall about laughing when these sort of things happen - which is very unprofessional I know, but it's all part of the fun. But one can come a cropper too, when I couldn't see the tramlines as the part was bent round, and I carried on when the was a moments pause from everyone else. I should have got a special bow for that.

So when I talk of prison sentences I'm sort of joking, except that sometimes it was a bit like that and then I would leave and freelance or go somewhere else. That is something more difficult these days so I don't know how long I would hold out in one band. My record was 7 years - most were about two, or three maybe.

It interesting (and it even surprises me now) that I spend more time, money and effort, in playing than I ever did before I retired from orchestral work. But all of my effort now goes into chamber music and playing unacompanied solo works such as those by Joe Bach which are still musically and sometimes even technically about as hard as you can find, and worthwhile to spend the time on, unlike other technically difficult stuff that has little musical value.

[Richard Tarleton]

What is an amateur plucker? Guitar?

Thanks for that ariosto, that all makes perfect sense to me. Even my current profession, helping to look after the great outdoors, has more than its share of aggravation, even though people seem to think it sounds pretty ideal from the outside. Yes, guitar, though I did try the lute for a while. And, yes, unaccompanied Bach for me.

[bluestateprommer]

From hearing this BBC NOW concert, nothing '3rd rate' about the group at all. Of course, I don't know long past history dating back to the 1940s-1960s as others do, so I don't have that context.

The Mozart was a solid performance, where I thought that Fischer had the strings playing with minimal vibrato. That could be a result from his past experience in the COE, in particular with Harnoncourt. Angela Hewitt was very fine, with just one tiny slip in the encore. In the Strauss, the BBC NOW did very well, and Fischer had a fine grip on the proceedings. The opening may have felt a tad brisker in tempo than I'm used to from recordings, and just near the very end, the final plunging glissando seemed to get lost, but the latter is an extremely minor quibble.

I just wish I knew what it was about Alpinesinfonie that grips me and always has from the start.

While this isn't a detailed answer, I have the same feeling about the Alpine Symphony, regarding how much I always enjoy hearing it. If nothing else, it's great emotional "cheap thrills", if that makes sense. True, it's very expensive "cheap thrills", given the size of the ensemble, but the point is just that the work is sheer fun to listen to and to wallow in. This NYT article from a few months back gives a nice "Alpine Symphony 101" intro for its audience, given that the premise for the article was the fact that the work was performed by 2 orchestras in NYC on the same night that week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/arts/music/strausss-alpine-symphony-played-twice-in-one-night.html

Emmanuel Villaume, the conductor for the Juilliard Orchestra performance, summed it up nicely:

"You have everything for a conductor in the piece. The colors, mastering all these climaxes, mixing all these textures is absolutely fascinating and an exhilarating experience for a conductor."

Not just conductors, but audiences too.