Live concert Friday 5th Oct from the Usher Hall,Edinburgh

[salymap]

Peter Oundjian conducts his first concert as music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with a range of Russian classics

Glinka - Ov.Ruslan and Lyudmila

Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto, soloist Vadim Gluzman

Shostakovich - Symphony no 11 [The Year 1905]

Did anyone hear it? I didn't but may iPlayer it.

[Curalach]

I heard some of the concert while preparing and eating dinner last night salymap. I'm also going to the Glasgow performance this evening.
I thought the Tchaikovsky was very fine but then I am a great fan of Gluzman. The Shostakovich performance seemed to me much less bleak than I have heard in the past, with the RSNO and Lazarev, and I thought the ending less impressive. I look forward to hearing it again tonight though.
C

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, Oundjian's DSCH 11 lacked grit, lacked atmosphere and was far too episodic. Given that No.11 is built, rather cinematically, on a few principal ideas it should be possible to shape it into a cogent structure. See, or hear, Mravinsky. The orchestral sound was too smooth and glossy, neither Russian nor slav in feel. Evidence too of level manipulation (boosting of quiet passages, even on HD-hi). Sound otherwise good, clear and 3-dimensional.

Oundjian gave a long, rambling introductory talk before turning to conduct the 11th. All this did was to defuse tension and anticipation, does it EVER do otherwise?
Elder has been partial to this, as Gerard Schwartz was occasionally at the RLPO. What are programmes for? Even if you don't know a thing about a piece, innocent ears are better, or just 55', 4 Movements, etc.

[David-G]

Oundjian gave a long, rambling introductory talk before turning to conduct the 11th. All this did was to defuse tension and anticipation, does it EVER do otherwise?
Elder has been partial to this, as Gerard Schwartz was occasionally at the RLPO. What are programmes for? Even if you don't know a thing about a piece, innocent ears are better, or just 55', 4 Movements, etc.

I find it can do otherwise. I did not hear this concert; but I generally enjoy it when a conductor introduces a piece to the audience, provided that he/she has something intelligent and informative to say; as for example Elder, when he conducted Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette with the OAE earlier in the year. But I would not want such an introduction to be "long and rambling".

[jayne lee wilson]

I think the problem with any introductory talk - for that matter with programme notes themselves - is that it can lead to someone trying to spot landmarks, rather than listening for themselves, even if sometimes baffled. If I buy a CD of new or unfamiliar music, I always try to listen first without looking at the notes, maybe just finding out length, sectional divisions etc. (Ears no longer innocent then though.) I notice people at the RLPO looking at the notes as the music proceeds, and I wonder at it... what kind of "listening" is it?

[Flosshilde]

It's listening so that you can learn something about the music as it's played. Perhaps you'd prefer concert organisers not to sell programmes at all? Or only do so after the concert? Your approach would only be realistic in a concert if the piece was played twice (which has been tried in the past with new pieces).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I notice people at the RLPO looking at the notes as the music proceeds, and I wonder at it... what kind of "listening" is it?

Perhaps they are wondering something similar about the people who look at the other members of the audience whilst the Music is playing?

[jayne lee wilson]

Perhaps they are wondering something similar about the people who look at the other members of the audience whilst the Music is playing?

So fhg, you close your eyes throughout? Or study the conductor, or do your eyes move precisely from one instrument or section to another as the music develops among them? Such consistency of attention is WAY beyond me.

I've never found it hard to stay in touch with what's happening even as I glance around - not everything is a Mahler climax - concentration is often self-defeating if applied too deliberately, and if the performance is, well, less than compelling, there are sights to be seen... Music (at least in concert) is like happiness: go looking for it, you never find it... but look at the decor, the patient tuba, or the fidgety audience, and like the butterfly, it "comes to alight upon your shoulder"...

I just don't know what you can possibly learn about music if you read about it as it plays. But it seems such an idea is a total subversion of principle for some serious, very serious, listeners. Ages ago an interviewer made Colin Davis cross when he asked about someone without much "foreknowledge" getting anything out of Sibelius 7th for the first time...
Colin Davis' reply was masterly. He said he was angry about the idea that you needed some sort of training to listen, and said "follow the shapes that you hear".
I guess the message never got through. But you can't follow shapes in the air with your head stuck in a book.

(BTW -The people following programmes never see my invasive eye - I'm always in the top row...)

[Flosshilde]

I (almost) daren't ask what you think of people who follow the score during a concert.

[EdgeleyRob]

I (almost) daren't ask what you think of people who follow the score during a concert.

I'm so glad I can't read music,wouldn't like to make Jayne angry.

[Flosshilde]

Perhaps they aren't interested in the music being played at that moment? I've been to concerts wher I wanted to hear one of the works played, but haven't been especially interested in another. Perhaps I should take a novel to read, or get out a newspaper? Then it would be quite clear to Jayne that I wasn't reading about the music I was(n't) listening to.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

So fhg, you ... study the conductor, or do your eyes move precisely from one instrument or section to another as the music develops among them?

Yes, both.

Such consistency of attention is WAY beyond me.

I think that's my point: I can't understand why you should spend time in a concert looking at your fellow concert-goers (and "wondering" about the quality of their Musical experience) - how on earth does this enhance your own "kind of 'listening'"?

I just don't know what you can possibly learn about music if you read about it as it plays.

Nor do I, but of what relevance or interest is our ignorance of what other people get from such reading? They are getting their own way into the Music: leave them alone and enjoy yours.

[Curalach]

I attended the performance in Glasgow last night in a packed Royal Concert Hall. The Tchaikovsky,with Vadim Gluzman, was as good a performance of the piece as I have ever heard, both technically and musically.
The Shostakovich sounded better in the hall than it did on the radio so I suspect that JLW is right in her comment about balancing.
On the other hand, Peter's introduction to the symphony was anything but "long and rambling". It was in fact a brief (a little over 2 minutes) and clearly delivered explanation of the circumstances of writing and the events that were the inspiration for each of the four movements.
The lighting in the auditorium was dimmed to the point where programme notes were unreadable. This was particularly effective in the long cold reaches of the first movement. The lighting was intensified at various climactic moments and at the final bar the hall was plunged into darkness.
I have mixed views about this. It was effective in this case but I would not be happy were it to become a regular feature.
The quality of orchestral playing was of the highest order, it's rarely anything less with British orchestras these days, but, for me, the interpretation, which was indeed rather episodic and just on the slow side, lacked the bone-chilling bleakness and the sense of irony that this orchestra produced in several performances for Lazarev. Nevertheless it was enthusiastically received by the capacity audience welcoming their new Music Director.

[amateur51]

I attended the performance in Glasgow last night in a packed Royal Concert Hall. The Tchaikovsky,with Vadim Gluzman, was as good a performance of the piece as I have ever heard, both technically and musically.
The Shostakovich sounded better in the hall than it did on the radio so I suspect that JLW is right in her comment about balancing.
On the other hand, Peter's introduction to the symphony was anything but "long and rambling". It was in fact a brief (a little over 2 minutes) and clearly delivered explanation of the circumstances of writing and the events that were the inspiration for each of the four movements.
The lighting in the auditorium was dimmed to the point where programme notes were unreadable. This was particularly effective in the long cold reaches of the first movement. The lighting was intensified at various climactic moments and at the final bar the hall was plunged into darkness.
I have mixed views about this. It was effective in this case but I would not be happy were it to become a regular feature.
The quality of orchestral playing was of the highest order, it's rarely anything less with British orchestras these days, but, for me, the interpretation, which was indeed rather episodic and just on the slow side, lacked the bone-chilling bleakness and the sense of irony that this orchestra produced in several performances for Lazarev. Nevertheless it was enthusiastically received by the capacity audience welcoming their new Music Director.

Thanks for this review Curalach - good to see you back in action

[Curalach]

Thanks for this review Curalach - good to see you back in action

Thank you Ams. One step at a time