4th March at 7.30pm The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

[bluestateprommer]

What a brilliant piece of programming!!

Indeed, this was a very nicely put together program. JW did a good job, and while I have sort of the same impression of his 'straight', perhaps slightly careful conducting as his recent concert of John Ireland, Walton and RVW 5, in this concert, the more extrovert nature of the Walton and Holst compensated for that at least in those works, with the Holst especially fine IMHO. Paul Watkins was good in the Finzi Cello Concerto, although I can see where Alison is coming from in the comment about PW perhaps not drawing in the crowd as fully as he could have, since the performance did have an element of emotional slackness that I saw. Admittedly, that's only on one hearing. The Bax sounded good at the end, nice rich romantic sonorities.

I'll admit that I could have done without JW taking a cheap jibe at William Glock in his comments to Jamie MacDougall in the 2nd half, which was his opinionated and unintended response to BBM's question about why programs like this aren't done more often. Ideally, of course, British works should be represented in British orchestral program(me)s in such a way that it's no big deal, just as when there's Beethoven, Brahms, or Tchaikovsky on a concert program, it's no big deal. I wish that this could be the case with American orchestral music too. But I digress, and that aside, again, a nicely enterprising program, particularly with the relatively rare treat of hearing the Finzi live. It'd be nice if cellists here would take it up as well, as a viable alternative to Dvorak, or even Elgar.

[RobertLeDiable]

I'll admit that I could have done without JW taking a cheap jibe at William Glock in his comments to Jamie MacDougall

I didn't hear that, but since Wilson presumably wasn't yet born when Glock was at the BBC, he's got a bit of a cheek. It's a standard knee-jerk remark based on received wisdom, I suppose, but it's a pity he made it since nobody did more than Glock to give the British musical scene a good and much needed shake out of its parochial complacency. Wilson is a good conductor of Hollywood scores, of course, but he hasn't got much to offer in symphonic music, other than a kind of bandmasterly efficiency.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's a standard knee-jerk remark based on received wisdom, I suppose

It may be "received", but it ain't "wisdom". (And I would have omitted "knee", too!)

[salymap]

It may be "received", but it ain't "wisdom". (And I would have omitted "knee", too!)

What did JW say about Glock then? I listened on iPlayer but didn't hear that.

[bluestateprommer]

What did JW say about Glock then? I listened on iPlayer but didn't hear that.

Unfortunately I didn't record it or transcribe it, so I can't reproduce JW's exact comment about Glock. But it was right after the interval feature and before JW struck up The Perfect Fool ballet music, with JW in conversation with JMacD about why music such as on this BBC SSO program didn't get as many performances. If you didn't record or you skipped over that chatter, you would have understandably missed the remark. JW mentioned as another example John Ireland's Piano Concerto, which he said was played regularly at The Proms in the 1950's (which indeed it was, from a look at the Proms Archive), until during the Glock regime, music such as this more or less got pushed aside.

However, a look at the Proms Archive reveals something that JW didn't note in the constant stream of performances of Ireland's concerto, namely that it was indeed played every year at The Proms for almost 3 decades. It was probably past time to give it a rest at the time. That said, it would certainly be a good thing to revive the Finzi Cello Concerto at The Proms, where it's only been done 2x, 45 years apart (1956 and 2001).

[salymap]

Thanks for that, bluestateprommer

I always found Hans Keller did a lot of the thinking/talking for William Glock.