Philharmonia from the RFH - Petrenko

[french frank]

Another pretty good review, like Seckerson, stressing that this was a rather more restrained reading ("What snorting, stamping warhorse will be given a stiff shot of steroids and then unleashed onto an unsuspecting audience? Petrenko’s and Nikolai Lugansky’s reading, though, could not have been more different.")

Cf Secko: "it might have been better to launch the concert from the ubiquitous but still arresting horn call and hectoring declamation of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Except that this is not how Nikolai Lugansky and Petrenko chose to pitch its arrival. Overheated bombast had no place in their framing of those familiar opening measures..."

Perhaps Mr HS likes - or expects - the more bombastic approach?

Another good 'un.

[cloughie]

Bee. Bonnet. Or so it seems, anyway.

I listened again, obviously via the iPlayer this time, and remain intrigued (for which read mystified) as to what the substantiation for the alleged awfulness of the Tchaikovsky could be.

As if technical perfection has much connection with the value of a performance anyway, beyond a reasonable threshold...

I think the Prok 5 has a good sound to it - but did they hire a prom audience - applause after 1st movt!

[Alison]

The Liadov works rather well as a curtain raiser. A really enjoyable concert with the Philharmonia's playing giving much pleasure. I still think a top London orchestra playing this well is hard to beat.

[salymap]

I didn't hear the concert, so have no opinions on it, but surely disagreement is the bread and butter of these boards. If we all felt alike it would be very boring.

Why not move on to the next LIVE concert and count your blessings that you don't have the tinnitus that makes old favourites unrecognisable to me sometimes.

[marvin]

I didn't hear the concert, so have no opinions on it, but surely disagreement is the bread and butter of these boards. If we all felt alike it would be very boring.

Why not move on to the next LIVE concert and count your blessings that you don't have the tinnitus that makes old favourites unrecognisable to me sometimes.

We will all move on when we're ready, I would think?

[amateur51]

We will all move on when we're ready, I would think?

As salymap was suggesting, I thought

[Thropplenoggin]

Still waiting for HS to recover from his Côte de Beaune (premier cru) hangover and answers his critics...

[Alison]

There are a small number of posters, endearing in their way, who love to lob in a few controversial remarks and then not hang around too long to defend them.

[teamsaint]

Intrigued beyond resistance, I had to have a listen.

As another poster mentioned, the sound seemed a bit distant, or on my equipment just a fraction muffled, a bit like listening through a very thin door...not to the point of ruining it though, and clearly not the fault of the performers anyway.
Also, thought the restraint that some of the critics mentioned carried into the tempi, especially early on, but again, nothing to really worry about....just an interpretation thing.
Lugansky's playing I thought was superb, really captivating.

Perhaps I don't know enough to know better.

[Hornspieler]

There are a small number of posters, endearing in their way, who love to lob in a few controversial remarks and then not hang around too long to defend them.

I wrote what I heard and nobody should be called upon to defend their honest opinions. (perhaps justify or explain would have been better words, Alison)

For those who enjoyed that performance, I'm very pleased. Maybe my headphones were out of sync. (I even thought, during those opening piano chords, that the piano itself could have done with a bit of a tune up!)

Ranging from Joseph Cooper through the "crash bang wallop" of Clifford Curzon to the subtle expertise of Emil Gilels and Vladimir Ashkenazy, I must have played in performances of that concerto more than fifty times - even a few of those dreadful Victor Hochauser Sunday Night Albert Hall spectaculars (with cannon and mortar effects by the "company of the Sealed Knot")) so I have a lot to compare that rendering with.

Anyway, I might return when the Proms start. Until then, I have more important matters to occupy my time.

Until then - Enjoy!

HS

[salymap]

I've long been afraid to say too much about my reaction to a broadcast because ofage, dodgy hearing now and probably lack of knowledge of that work- and I have always worked in music and attended 100s of concerts live.

Afterthe attacks on HS, who apologised for getting the conductor wrong and otherwise simply stated his views in his first message - HIS views, no one else's - I'm more afraid than ever to post anything. IMV his critics hounded him unnecessarily. We used to agree to disagree, not now apparently.

Salymap has spoken

[marvin]

I wrote what I heard and nobody should be called upon to defend their honest opinions. (perhaps justify or explain would have been better words, Alison)

For those who enjoyed that performance, I'm very pleased. Maybe my headphones were out of sync. (I even thought, during those opening piano chords, that the piano itself could have done with a bit of a tune up!)

Ranging from Joseph Cooper through the "crash bang wallop" of Clifford Curzon to the subtle expertise of Emil Gilels and Vladimir Ashkenazy, I must have played in performances of that concerto more than fifty times - even a few of those dreadful Victor Hochauser Sunday Night Albert Hall spectaculars (with cannon and mortar effects by the "company of the Sealed Knot")) so I have a lot to compare that rendering with.

Anyway, I might return when the Proms start. Until then, I have more important matters to occupy my time.

Until then - Enjoy!

HS

Isn't it a shame that the RFH is going the same way as the Fairfield Halls, Croydon in flogging works like this, when the 2nd Piano Concerto is a much more enjoyable work.
Perhaps that comment was a trifle unfair though in that the RFH are more adventurous in their repertoire. Surely, however, they are not afraid, like the FH in losing clientele by putting on more outlandish works rather than the warhouses the latter usually has when it publishes its Autumn and Winter fare.

[MrGongGong]

Isn't it a shame that the RFH is going the same way as the Fairfield Halls, Croydon in flogging works like this, when the 2nd Piano Concerto is a much more enjoyable work.
Perhaps that comment was a trifle unfair though in that the RFH are more adventurous in their repertoire. Surely, however, they are not afraid, like the FH in losing clientele by putting on more outlandish works rather than the warhouses the latter usually has when it publishes its Autumn and Winter fare.

The RFH don't necessarily programme what is played by the resident ensembles

[Thropplenoggin]

I've long been afraid to say too much about my reaction to a broadcast because ofage, dodgy hearing now and probably lack of knowledge of that work- and I have always worked in music and attended 100s of concerts live.

Afterthe attacks on HS, who apologised for getting the conductor wrong and otherwise simply stated his views in his first message - HIS views, no one else's - I'm more afraid than ever to post anything. IMV his critics hounded him unnecessarily. We used to agree to disagree, not now apparently.

Salymap has spoken

Hmm.

I wouldn't say he was "hounded", Saly, merely called to account for his rather hyperbolic language. He expressed himself in exceptionally strong terms ("the worst performance that I ever heard") and gave only limited detail (the pianist being half a bar out at one point). This seems to be a minority view, both on the board and in the press. I'm too new to know if HS has a habit of throwing a stick of dynamite into a thread and then watching from afar as it blows up...he would have better served his cause by using his impressive musicological knowledge to explain just why it was the "worst" he ever heard, especially given how well Petrenko and Lugansky are respected these days.

(A further point: I thought that performances were now perceived to be more accurate than ever (speaking 'across the board' and taking aside interpretative elements of the conductor) and that this somehow made them more anaemic to some listeners (I recall reading this somewhere, so don't shoot the messenger ).

[RobertLeDiable]

I'm still wondering how anyone can say

It is unquestionably the weakest of the London Orchestras these days.

about the Philharmonia. I've heard them live under Salonen twice in the last three years and the playing was quite superb - the best London string sound, I would have thought, and certainly world class.