Live in Concert 30.01.14 - Maxwell Davies, Brahms, Walton

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

LSO - Maxwell Davies, Brahms, Walton
Thursday 30 January 2014
The LSO plays Brahms's Violin Concerto with Janine Jansen and Walton's Symphony No.1. Antonio Pappano conducts.

Live from the Barbican Hall, London

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies: Fanfare: Her Majesty's Welcome
Brahms: Violin Concerto

8.25pm:
Interval - Including music from Janine Jansen's latest Bach CD.

8.45pm:
Walton: Symphony No 1

Janine Jansen (violin)
London Symphony Orchestra
LSO On Track
conductor Antonio Pappano

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would have thought this was an interesting enough concert to merit some interesting interval discussion, rather than more music.

When idle chat is inappropriate, we are served endless gush. When our ears would benefit from a break from music (which the concert goers get), we are served - er - more music.

[jayne lee wilson]

So often a live Walton 1 disappoints... LSO/Pappano... a little more promising, perhaps...?

[Alison]

Joined the concerto late. Seems a bit heavy laden to me, old fashioned even.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Seems a bit heavy laden to me, old fashioned even.

Could you expand on this?

[jayne lee wilson]

Hmm... wasn't very good was it? Notwithstanding the audience acclaim... I shook my head and sighed as the finale's fugue began - where was the bite, the dash and verve?
But tonight - even on the AAC webcast, the engineering was very inconsistent. Starting with violin figures indistinct against winds, the early climaxes were thrilling - very powerful, but after this the level seemed to drop, resulting in a lack of impact at the climax of the development and in the coda - not that longed-for sense of release. I was increasing the volume here. The malizia was more consistent - but (as so often) musically not malicious enough...
Then in the slow movement the wind solos were very loud and the climaxes harsh and muddled - I had to back off the volume quite a bit. The first part of the finale seemed better - more like the very opening, but then the last climaxes weren't loud enough...

For me, I'm afraid poor technical presentation got in the way of the music tonight, but in any case much of the quicker playing seemed rhythmically approximate, and tonally not terribly distinguished.

So the long wait goes on for a great, live Walton First (maybe it really is better than it can be played), and one can only hope for better production values when the same team reassemble for Max 10...

[Alison]

It seemed as if Tony was teasing us in the first movement of the symphony. With tension and atmosphere feverishly high, each successive climax turned out to be ever so slightly softcentred after all. There was no coming back after that.

[Petrushka]

Have to agree with Jayne about the technical presentation. I usually have my volume control pretty high for Radio 3 in any case but I'm sure that this would have sounded a lot better in the hall.

I've only heard the Walton 1 once in the concert hall; in April 1977 with James Loughran and the Halle Orchestra but the one performance that really stands out for me was given a couple of weeks earlier when Colin Davis and the BBCSO gave a thrilling rendition in the RFH (heard on R3). I had that on cassette tape for years but it's now long gone. Would that this would magically appear on an ICA Classics CD!

[Alison]

At the risk of being predictable the best I heard was a live RFH performance by the Philharmonia under Haitink. This was broadcast by Capital Radio who in the early 80s ran a classical programme on Sunday evenings.

The power of the first movement was simply breathtaking: adrenalin levels much higher than on the admirable but ultimately studio bound EMI recording. Alas this was all on a cassette tape recorded by my father which I suspect has gone the same way as Petrushka's.

Jayne has perfectly summed up tonight's Pappano rendition.

[Simon B]

I think the Walton must have sounded very different on the broadcast to live.

I was going to say that I wish the LSO would always use the stage extension as tonight and move forward. It sounded so much clearer in the Barbican than I'm used to. Maybe this correspondingly foxed the engineers.

[muzzer]

That's a shame if it didn't come across the airwaves very well as I was looking forward to listening to it again as a souvenir. In the hall it was terrific. I thought they'd struggle to top the first half, which was by turns thrilling and moving, but the Walton blew me away.

[Simon B]

Interpretationally, not Previn 76 (or whenever it was) vintage, but visceral playing (Phil Cobb, trumpet and Nigel Thomas timps 1 in particular) by the LSO.

Pappano was batonless which, to the armchair critic, might seem an interesting choice in such supremely rhythmical stuff. There were a few untidy entries from the strings, and a spare pizzicato somewhere, but this seemed to be the result of everyone going for it. Absolutely no sign of another day at the office.

If the 1st movement had been 10% faster it would have been even better...

The broadcast must have compressed the close considerably. Full blast from the LSO is a big sound and they gave it.

[Alison]

Thanks Simon. I know you're not easily impressed in this work!

[Petrushka]

Interpretationally, not Previn 76 (or whenever it was) vintage

Unbelievably, Previn's famous recording dates from 1966!

Despite the limited sonics it still packs one heck of a punch. Those that come close are Slatkin, Ashkenazy and Bryden Thomson.

[Simon B]

Somewhat unpredictably the best performance I ever heard of Walton 1, of more than I can remember, was Andrew Litton and the WNO orchestra in Cardiff. Absolutely spitting with rage in the first two movements, deeply dark sinister undertones to the 3rd and Litton is the only conductor I've heard pull off that trick of making the last movement sound properly convincing rather than papering over the cracks where possible.

I think it may have been a rare chance for them to let rip and they took it. Litton and the CBSO a few years ago were that little bit more reigned in - and therefore slightly less compelling.

Maybe I'm deaf, and will readily acknowledge that listening is very different live to any form of artifice, but I've never heard it played with such unanimity of attack, despite occasional flaws, as this evening.

Ashkenazy/RPO is my modern recording of choice - almost angry enough!

PS, Pappano had the horns bells in the air at the end, and Neil Percy was playing the biggest cymbals money can buy, so if it wasn't loud enough it wasn't for want of trying!