BBC NOW/Sondergard Poulenc & Shostakovich Oct 4 2013

[Petrushka]

Live from St. David's Hall in Cardiff

Presented by Nicola Heywood Thomas

Thomas Sondergard opens the Cardiff concert season with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales with Poulenc's playful Gloria and Shostakovich's powerful Eighth Symphoony, inspired by the Soviet Union's epic struggle during the Second World War.

Poulenc: Gloria

8.00: Music Interval

8.20
Shostakovich: Symphony No 8 in C minor, Op 65

Poulenc's Gloria is one of the most joyous and unihibited settings of this sacred text, so much so that the Catholic establishment frowned on the work for being too frivolous. Poulenc was born into an ardently catholic family, and returned to his faith in 1936 after a period of neglect, following the death of his friend and fellow composer Pierre Octave Ferroud in a tragic motor accident. His faith permeated many of his works after, including motets, a mass and a setting of the Stabat Mater, alongside his opera Dialogues des Carmelites, but his music retained the simplicity and directness of his secular musical style. Poulenc has been described as "part monk, part guttersnipe", but the composer felt no such contradition. After all, he had seen both Benedictine monks enjoying a game of football, and fifteenth-century Italian frescos by Gozzoli, in which angels poke their tongues out in good-natured fun.

Thomas Sondergard conducted Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony at the 2013 BBC Proms to great critical acclaim. He follows it at this concert with the the Eighth, written during the Second World War, during the summer of 1943. The Eighth is a symphony of immense drama and intensity, but it's not just a monument to appalling times, it's also a great work of absolute music, in which the notes look beyond the surroundings, a truly heroic work of art.

[Petrushka]

A magnificent performance of the Shostakovich 8! I was present at the BBC NOW Prom performance of the 11th and that was enough to alert me to the exciting qualities in this music shown by Sondergard. He clearly has something special to say and the BBC NOW aided and abetted him perfectly. This was great playing from all concerned (fantastic trumpet playing in that tricky third movement solo).

This would make a superb BBC MM disc but if you can't wait for that be sure to catch it on the I-player.

[jayne lee wilson]

A superbly delivered Shostakovich 8th. Both in its outstanding orchestral playing and the HDs audio quality from St.David's, one of the best broadcast acoustics. The production was set fairly close, but with an even fuller, more opulent and glowing sound than we heard from the Halle at the Bridgewater last night (which was already very good). As with the Halle, I did feel that - at least as broadcast - some of the wind solos weren't quiet enough. To some extent this was true of the 4th movement passacaglia too, where the bleakness and remoteness was offset by the sheer beauty of the playing. A milder climate than usual for one of the most haunting of all symphonic horncalls.

I'd characterise Sondergaard's Shostakovich as swift and direct, with sharply defined rhythmic attack and a very wide dynamic range which we seemed to get an untrammelled, even crushing impact from at home! An open-textured, clear-eyed Western view of the drama rather than a dark and intense Slavonic one perhaps - totally achieved on its own terms.

The Poulenc Gloria was gorgeously sung, with an orchestral contribution both warm and brilliant. Terrific performance of a work I'm very fond of - extrovert sister to the equally lovely, more reflective Stabat Mater. The chorus' Happy Birthday to Maestro Sondergaard at the start of the concert was a delightfully Poulencian touch in itself!

[Hornspieler]

That's more like it!

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales gets better and better.



In the Shostakovitch 8th symphony, everything that I listened for was there:

1st Movement
Gloomy and contemplative. Wandering aimlessly without direction.

2nd Movement
Declamatory and assertive. Something has to be done!

3rd Movement
Busy and purposeful. Like an express train rushing through the night but still arrives too late and finds a scene of desolation.
A direct link to:

Finale
A new dawn and with it a renewal of hope. Activity everywhere and always moving forward until night descends and with it the peace of contentment.

Make up your own story. It's all there for you in the music.

Excellent playing throughout.
Assured horns (believe me that is as extreme as any horn writing that you are likely to hear)
Excellent trumpets and trombones. Sure footed and heraldic.
The woodwind gave their all. Wonderful piccolo playing. That long clarinet solo was beautifully controlled as were the double reed players' contributions.
Percussion had a field day and the strings from top to bottom were most impressive (as they always are these days, under the leadership of Leslie Hatfield).

Thomas Sondergard must be thrilled with what he and the orchestra achieved tonight.

HS

I missed the Poulenc but will catch it on the iPlayer tomorrow.

Good night all.

[BBMmk2]

Sounds great JLW and HS! iplayer here we come!

[bluestateprommer]

Late reply (as usual), but I can only add to the choruses of praise for TS' and the BBC NOW's performance of DSCH 8. I hadn't heard any version of it in a while, so it was a chance to come back to it semi-fresh. Well done indeed. The Poulenc Gloria started at a terrifyingly brisk clip for me, definitely not what I'm used to from recordings and the one live performance I heard way back in the day. But TS obviously knew what he wanted and got it. It was also heartening to hear how well soprano Marita Sølberg did, especially as, per NHT, this was her first time working with TS, the BBC NOW, and her first time singing the Poulenc Gloria.

The chorus' Happy Birthday to Maestro Sondergaard at the start of the concert was a delightfully Poulencian touch in itself!

When I heard this at the beginning, I first thought that the audience was singing "Happy Birthday" to the chorus, as it was noted that it was 30 years to the day of the first rehearsal of the BBC National Chorus of Wales as under that name. But I guess what might have happened was that the audience sang "Happy Birthday" to the chorus, and the chorus sang "HB" to TS in parallel.