Coming Up Live This Week

[Hornspieler]

(Hornspieler’s Picks)

Tuesday 18 December 2012 at 7.30 *Live from the Barbican Centre, London,

Brahms: Symphony No 3 in F

INTERVAL at approximately 8.15
(Piano music by Karel Szymanowski and those he admired)

Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Szymanowski: Symphony No 3 ('Song of the Night')

Toby Spence (tenor)
London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev (conductor)

* Interested? Post a new thread on the Performance Forum (or join in on one existing) to comment or review this programme.

Only one pick from me this week, but I shall endeavour to highlight live concerts on Sunday every week and then the posting of a new thread for that performance (if one does not already exist) is up to the individual

HS

[MrGongGong]

The Szymanowski sounds interesting , never heard it........ I could easily skip the rest though

[doversoul1]

(Hornspieler’s Picks)
Only one pick from me this week

HS

Plenty for me this week

The English Concert (Monday starts at 7.00pm))
Stile Anrico (Thursday)
St James Baroque (Friday)

[aeolium]

The English Concert (Monday starts at 7.00pm))
Stile Antico (Thursday)
St James Baroque (Friday)

Btw, Stile Antico are also in the Wednesday lunchtime concert (bizarrely paired with chamber music by Prokofiev and Rachmaninov).

[jayne lee wilson]

Busy day on Tuesday, but I should be in my seat in time...

Not always Gergiev's greatest fan, I wonder if he'll coax and caress the gorgeous Szymanowski into those sensuous sonic waves.. without pushing it too hard.
Brahms 3 reveals much about a conductor too.

[Dave2002]

I'm thinking of getting a ticket - time and seat availability permitting.

[Simon B]

En route to London for this - maybe (the joy of Worst Late Western trains knows no bounds...)

Having been to the other Barbican concerts in this LSO Brahms/Szymanowski series, I suspect that Gergiev's Brahms won't be to the taste of many boredees. And I don't just mean Mr GG!

Old school, big band full-strength LSO (9 basses in one case I think), slow tempi, dark brown oak panelling, big beards, fluffy slippers, a pint of port etc. I rather like it myself, for a wallow in a warm bath of the LSO sound. Give-or-take some characteristic arbitrary tempo manipulation here and there from the bloke with the toothpick.

The contrast with the meticulously balanced light-textured almost chamber-music quality of the Jurowski/LPO requiem recently (also on R3 at some point I assume from the mic's) couldn't be much greater.

Meanwhile the Szymanowski series has mostly confirmed my prejudices. The first two symphonies aren't quite worth the bother, the 1st violin concerto is by far the better of the two.

After years of nothing, the 3rd symphony has had 4 London performances in less than a year, including the LSO/LSC cond Eotvos (standing in for Boulez) in a much richer, more sweeping account than an earlier LPO/Jurowski which was a rare damp squib for them IMO, being far too clinical and analytical to get off the ground.

Gergiev managed a reasonable degree of lyricism and sensuousness in the 1st vln concerto (albeit with inevitable pile-driving through some bits of it) so he might make a reasonable job of the vaguely similar 3rd symphony...

[jayne lee wilson]

A very fine, richly mature, mitteleuropan Brahms 3rd. A full-toned, moderately but thoughtfully-paced, texturally clear realisation, needing no interpretative idiosyncrasy or pointing of a phrase to draw us in to its distinctive world. Karl Bohm might have done it this way (on one of his livelier days at least). Remember his live 2nd in Salzburg with this orchestra? But sounding even warmer and richer tonight.

Excellent.

[Dave2002]

A very fine, richly mature, mitteleuropan Brahms 3rd. A full-toned, moderately but thoughtfully-paced, texturally clear realisation, needing no interpretative idiosyncrasy or pointing of a phrase to draw us in to its distinctive world. Karl Bohm might have done it this way (on one of his livelier days at least). Remember his live 2nd in Salzburg with this orchestra? But sounding even warmer and richer tonight.

Excellent.

Jayne

Sorry,no! it was plodding, lacked intensity where needed. Don't have time to write more now,as interval, and must get back to seat.

[Alison]

Simply couldn't get motivated by those Brahms performances. The Szymanowski altogether more stimulating.

Typical Gergiev really.

[Nick Armstrong]

Jayne

Sorry,no! it was plodding, lacked intensity where needed. Don't have time to write more now,as interval, and must get back to seat.

I love the "roving reporter" feel, our correspondents filing dispatches direct from the foyer!

[Dave2002]

2nd half much better. The variations were dynamic and genial enough. The Szymanowski was cataclysmic - very loud.
you don't get a dynamic range like that on R3 or hi-fi. Hope Simon B's trains OK. SW trains were in chaos earlier - sadly - so I very nearly didn't get in after a more than 2 hrs journey.

Ps caliban now at bus stop waiting for a 4!

[Nick Armstrong]

Ps caliban now at bus stop waiting for a 4!

Hope it's arrived! Those 4s can be buggers!

[Simon B]

Brahms as expected really. The LSO does make a glorious sound, even in the acoustic nightmare that is the Barbican. Feel that tone is the way to take toothpick-bloke's Brahms. Or Brahms n Liszt...

Gergy Valeriev was at his exercise in the Szymanowski too. Here's a particularly tasty bit for the horns, let's arbitrarily double the tempo for no reason and blast through it like an express train (not FGW obviously) before slamming into a quantum wall and resuming normal service.

But the LSO do make a marvellous racket, and there's no way you're getting that on a hi-fi without leaving a crater.

Basically, Gergiev is an avoid-like-septicaemia except in Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Schnittke and other obvious suspects. Nothing new, really.

[Hornspieler]

Jayne

Sorry, no! it was plodding, lacked intensity where needed. Don't have time to write more now,as interval, and must get back to seat.

I'm with you 100% on this one Dave.

Jlw writes:

A very fine, richly mature, mitteleuropan Brahms 3rd. A full-toned, moderately but thoughtfully-paced, texturally clear realisation, needing no interpretative idiosyncrasy or pointing of a phrase to draw us in to its distinctive world. Karl Bohm might have done it this way (on one of his livelier days at least). Remember his live 2nd in Salzburg with this orchestra? But sounding even warmer and richer tonight.

Excellent

Reads like someone at a cheese tasting!

All the flowery words in the dictionary cannot disguise the fact that this performance of the 3rd symphony was laboured and pedantic.
It was colourless throughout. Karl Böhm would certainly not have done it that way - nor would Horenstein, or Beecham, or HvK.

The St Anthony Variations were slightly better but that lovely lyrical 6/8 Alegretto grazioso movement (the pre-penultimate) was totally marred for me by the sloppy string playing of the opening six bars.

I have yet to summon up the courage to sample the Szymanowsky, so can make no comment.

HS