Tippett symphony no.2 bbcso/martyn brabbins/R3live/19:30hrs fri.19/04/13

[jayne lee wilson]

So it's Tippett part two with Symphony No.2, a compelling cornucopia of rhythmic, melodic and textural inspiration with almost too many ideas for its 35-odd minutes' length - it's the endless rhythmic invention you'll notice most. Easy enough to point to the Beethovenian and Vivaldian inspirations but this is Tippett's own completely individual take on the neo-classical symphony. Don't miss this rare live account with Brabbins as your guide to its marvels, not the least of which is a gorgeous, "moonlit" slow movement and a structurally unusual finale based on 17th Century Fantasia form - a sequence of (supposedly) unrelated ideas...

Stephen Johnson "explores" the Tippett in the interval. I hope he's got a map.

Mark Simpson - A Mirror-Fragment (London Premiere)
Beethoven - Violin Concerto (with Nicola Benedetti)
***
Tippett Symphony No.2 (1956-7)

As with the Brahms last week I guess the Beethoven seemed a good idea at the time... but I've been a bit overexposed to it lately so ignore my weary sighs... Let's hope Benedetti and Brabbins take it by the scruff!

[jayne lee wilson]

Heavens, how great was that? If they played the Beethoven Violin Concerto like THAT every time...

Gorgeously sung out by supersub Simone Lamsma on a very distinct instrument (the "guitar" strad - oh, alright, the 1718 ex chanot-chardon) and accompanied with wondrous alertness and sensitivity by Brabbins, who made it sound like they'd played it together for weeks (and Lamsma's expressive fluidity did ask quite a lot of him & his band...!). Rich, full tone from the BBCSO strings too. Wonderful!

And how good to hear a new orchestral piece whose composer isn't worried about pleasing the audience, indeed happy to go to glittering, shimmering extremes, with violent colouristic clashes, pools of calm, a glimpse of a halfremembered chorale... then a lovely, shadowy cantilena led to the adumbration of a tonal resolution - swiftly dismissed! Excellent, this Mirror-Fragment from Mark Simpson...

[Richard Barrett]

how good to hear a new orchestral piece whose composer isn't worried about pleasing the audience

Can I just say: no composer is "worried about pleasing the audience". On the contrary, every composer I know is happy when he/she pleases the audience. I don't know where this strange myth comes from (I know you don't put it as strongly as this, but quite a few people do) that there are composers hell-bent on displeasing the audience. There aren't.

Thanks anyway for flagging this concert up. I wasn't aware it was going on and I'll have a listen later on. As it happens I was listening to Tippett 2 a couple of days ago (the Hickox CD which also contains the rather fascinating New Year Suite). A beautiful and exuberant piece, as you say. I imagine Martyn Brabbins would be the perfect conductor for it.

[jayne lee wilson]

Can I just say: no composer is "worried about pleasing the audience". On the contrary, every composer I know is happy when he/she pleases the audience. I don't know where this strange myth comes from (I know you don't put it as strongly as this, but quite a few people do) that there are composers hell-bent on displeasing the audience. There aren't.

Thanks anyway for flagging this concert up. I wasn't aware it was going on and I'll have a listen later on. As it happens I was listening to Tippett 2 a couple of days ago (the Hickox CD which also contains the rather fascinating New Year Suite). A beautiful and exuberant piece, as you say. I imagine Martyn Brabbins would be the perfect conductor for it.

Well no, I don't think that there are MANY composers "hellbent on displeasing their audience"... mind you, you rather think that Stravinsky might have been more worried if the premiere of Le Sacre was greeted by people saying how very nice it all was, and Schoenberg didn't set up the Society for the Private Performance of music, sans applause and all, to make sure the audience was pleased... (or only his small group of already-converted members...)...
Postwar composers who began to bring electronics and prerecorded tape into the concert hall, not to mention 1960s aleatorics, might just have been forgiven for rather enjoying the epater les bourgeois of it all (well, it went a bit further than that...). You could say that Max Davies' 8 Songs for a Mad King is still supposed to "please" its audience, but it goes a LOT further than that...

But of course I had in mind any number of tedious 20-minute orchestral premieres that would seem to have their wellspring in film scores...

[Richard Barrett]

Pleasure can take very many forms of course.

[jayne lee wilson]

Brabbins account of the Tippett 2nd tended more to the jaunty, expansive and richly-coloured Chandos/Hickox character, than the crisply driven Colin Davis/LSO version (not that either recording lacks anything essential). Perhaps a shade cautious through the first movement, but the tempi were well-judged, orchestral colours both vivid and resonant, the conclusion as joyous as ever. In the adagio, the BBCSO strings were as lush and songful as they'd been in the Beethoven; is this sonorous fullness a Brabbins trademark? Very gratifying! Yes a few soloistic slips, but the performance gained very audibly in brilliance and power as the scherzo and finale progressed - possibly with the scherzo as the peak of its excitement and exhilaration - how devastating that plunge into darkness was tonight!

Just a towering symphonic masterpiece, and never mind the "English" bit - why isn't it played (or recorded!) regularly, here, in Berlin, in Vienna? I know, I know...

An inspired and inspiring concert - how wonderful to hear a young violinist REALLY, unforgettably, take her chance - I can only hope that someone else will listen to it, as I didn't even have the cat for company tonight (out on business). So no chance of a second opinion there.

(Heard on R3-HDs, as fine as ever).

[Richard Barrett]

is this sonorous fullness a Brabbins trademark?

It is. My preference for recordings goes to the Hickox approach. Why isn't it played elsewhere in Europe? I think that goes for most of Tippett: the name is associated with A Child of our Time above all else so he's thought of as a one-hit wonder and typically middle-of-the-road English, and nobody knows anything about his later, much more individual works. Also it's quite a difficult piece to play; the first performance (also by the BBCSO but under Boult) notoriously had to be restarted after a total breakdown, and, once a piece gains a reputation for being unplayable, orchestras won't go near it, not wishing to programme something that might make them look/sound bad (which is why most contemporary orchestral music errs on the side of safety and IMO consequently becomes as you say "tedious").

[Gordon]

It may be topical to suggest that people may like to explore Sir Colin Davis' recording of Tippett 2 with the LSO made for Argo in 1967[see #6]. I think I got my download of this version directly from Unversal. Not to mention Tippett's own recording with the BBC SO issued on an BBC MM [130] cover disc.

[amateur51]

An inspired and inspiring concert - how wonderful to hear a young violinist REALLY, unforgettably, take her chance - I can only hope that someone else will listen to it, as I didn't even have the cat for company tonight (out on business). So no chance of a second opinion there.

(Heard on R3-HDs, as fine as ever).

Your cat does door-to-door sales?!

Your urgent advocacy means that I must listen to this concert soon, jlw

[Serial_Apologist]

Your cat does door-to-door sales?!

Probably carries the CATalogues...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tippett's own recording with the BBC SO issued on an BBC MM [130] cover disc.

Now available thus:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Mar05/Tippett_2_4_NMCD104.htm

[jayne lee wilson]

It may be topical to suggest that people may like to explore Sir Colin Davis' recording of Tippett 2 with the LSO made for Argo in 1967[see #6]. I think I got my download of this version directly from Unversal. Not to mention Tippett's own recording with the BBC SO issued on an BBC MM [130] cover disc.

Yes, you can download the Tippett/BBCSO from NMC as a lossless file (nmcrec.co.uk), and the LSO/Davis one is on the Decca British Music double with Nos. 1 and 2... (the Universal Decca webpage sends you to iTunes... so lossless may not be an option)

That Argo LP was my very first encounter with Tippett, it had the same effect on me as Stephen Johnson described. It was in the local record library, brand new, and hardly anyone else ever borrowed it (early 1970s)!

[Quarky]

Must listen again. But first impression, this is restoring my interest both in symphonic works and in Discovering Music.

Does Tippett have latin-american ancestry I wonder?

Second impression: I'm not a big fan of symphonies. Then again I never read novels. So it's just personal taste.

[teamsaint]

Probably carries the CATalogues...

hopefully kitty returned with a full pawder book.
I am also trying to hear this (and the discovering music piece) uninterrupted.......trying t... thanks to Jayne's enthusiasm.

[Richard Barrett]

Yes, you can download the Tippett/BBCSO from NMC as a lossless file (nmcrec.co.uk), and the LSO/Davis one is on the Decca British Music double with Nos. 1 and 2...

And, for the sake of completeness, the Hickox recording (which is my personal favourite) can be downloaded in mp3 or lossless here: http://www.theclassicalshop.net/Deta...er=CHAN%209299