CBSO/Jac van Steen Po3 Nov 14

[Petrushka]

Live from Symphony Hall, Birmingham.

Presented by Martin Handley.

Jac van Steen conducts the CBSO in Schoenberg's Five Pieces and Mahler's Seventh Symphony.

Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra (1909 original version)

Mahler: Symphony No 7

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Jac van Steen, conductor

This looks very promising indeed and a challenging programme for the CBSO. Jac van Steen gave a superb performance of Mahler 6 a season or so ago with the BBC NOW that was better, in my view, than many bigger names.

Looking forward to this one.

[Roslynmuse]

Many years ago - 1985? - a party of us travelled to Birmingham Town Hall to hear the CBSO give exactly the same programme under Simon Rattle. Unfortunately the heating had failed during the day so the Schoenberg had not been able to be rehearsed and was replaced with the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod. Let's hope Symphony Hall's heating system is working tomorrow!

[Bryn]

I missed the Schoenberg. I will try and catch it later but must admit I am thinking of taking an early bath from this Mahler 7 broadcast. Too lumbering and stumbling for my taste.

[Alison]

Fair description Nethers but I'm sticking with it.

[Bryn]

So have I stuck with it, actually, hoping to determine what it is he's trying to do with it.

[Alison]

It didn't really get any better for me. No real grip in the under characterised inner movements, the conductor seemingly unable to make much of the quick interplay of the various lines. A broad brush performance of a score teeming with inner life and detail.

A shame, as I found the opening of the symphony fresh, tense and expectant.

Belohlavek altogether tauter and more imaginative in his deeply considered Barbican account.

[Bryn]

It didn't really get any better for me.

Nor for me. I note that the 7th in the RCO Blu-ray set is conducted by Boulez. I certainly found his DG recording problematic. I'm hoping I find that with the RCO rather less so.

[Alison]

Yes the Amsterdam account is less problematic than the DG and several notches above tonight's effort.

Is that set available now ? I saw most of it on sky arts.

[Petrushka]

Perhaps I've got cloth ears but I rather enjoyed it. I've certainly heard worse and certainly heard better. Anyway, some fine, confident playing from the CBSO.

[cloughie]

Perhaps I've got cloth ears but I rather enjoyed it. I've certainly heard worse and certainly heard better. Anyway, some fine, confident playing from the CBSO.

Caught the end of it on the car radio - sounded fine to me, but the I like the Boulez on DG also!

[Petrushka]

Caught the end of it on the car radio - sounded fine to me, but the I like the Boulez on DG also!

I'm afraid I find that DG Boulez recording absolutely impossible! Pierre on an off-day, I think, which is odd as he is on record as saying the Mahler 7 means a lot to him or something like that.

[Alison]

But the end never fails Cloughie !

[cloughie]

But the end never fails Cloughie !

I'll try the rest on iplayer and see if boredom sets in!

[Alison]

I seem to have shaken off my non-Mahler phase and this was never exactly boring.

And since I agree with Petrushka on everything a listen again is indicated !

[jayne lee wilson]

I could say that Van Steen's conception of Mahler 7 snapped into place as the bright daylit brilliance of the finale burst upon us; the sun rose, the mists cleared, the orchestral colours were - suddenly - bright and sharp! Contrast and volume turned up..!

We'd been on a fantastical (if sometimes uncertain) journey through dark-hued, voluptuous moods and shades; the 1st movement full of Straussian richness, yet open-textured where apt. Moderately but carefully paced; the contrasts and the drama a touch subdued. The players made a lovely meal of those floating development chorales, the gorgeous second-subject lead-back, the continuous "developing variations" of Mahler's formal sonata structure in clear relief, tightening and brightening through the coda.

Were the three nocturnes under-characterised? A little... or simply played as symphonic episodes, and never mind the owls, the ghosts, the bumps in the night? Fuller, richer textures again prevailed. So the mediterranean love-match of the andante was truly amoroso, and perhaps JVS was more at home with the human than the animal or the imaginary... the schattenhaft "child's fear of the dark" (Erwin Stein) could have been a bit scarier.

The power and beauty, the rolls-royce-rattle pedigree, of this orchestra, made the experience - finally - a fulfilling one. The Symphony Hall audience seemed to like it!

Schoenberg's Op,16 Pieces showed all these qualities, but spikier and more aggressive where you'd want it; unusually full and sensous in many of its colours and climaxes. A great, fresh performance of a work which often seems to be over-prepared, played to order.

TECHNICAL REPORT: HDs - 5/5.