BaL 11.11.17 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905)

[Beef Oven!]

I'm with those who didn't care for the 2-way BAL either. As a matter of fact, I think the time has come for Record Review to be re-titled The Andrew McGregor Show, as he clearly has a life-time contract to present the whole 3-hour programme, select the recordings to be played and express his own opinions on them. In addition, he can butt in whenever he feels like it, as on the Shostakovich BAL, thus reducing the time for musical examples of quite a few other excellent recordings that would have been deserving of a mention. I felt all the way through that Gerard McB could have done perfectly well on his own without all the interruptions from you-know-who. Still, others here clearly feel differently, so it's the usual case of "you can't please everyone all the time"!

Fantastic BaL though, wasn't it?

[Pulcinella]

Fantastic BaL though, wasn't it?

If concentrating on so few recordings, presumably bunching the rest (including Barshai, highly respected here!) under the banner of 'inadequate', counts as fantastic, then yes.
I found it rather unsatisfactory (if illuminating in places) and really hate the twofer format, with the 'curator' feeding the 'reviewer' completely unnecessary lines.

[Beef Oven!]

An excellent BaL. I learned a lot about the work, and about some top recordings , more or less as much as one can hope for within the constraints of time. Much enhanced by McBurney's modest approach .

Agreed.

Excellent, rather than fantastic.

We've been very lucky with BaLs. As I've said before, it's R3's best programme IMHO.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I found it rather unsatisfactory (if illuminating in places) and really hate the twofer format, with the 'curator' feeding the 'reviewer' completely unnecessary lines.

It just wastes time. Surely AMcG has enough to do with the rest of Radio 3's flagship programme?

[Paulie55]

Less about the music and more a chance to show us how jolly clever and knowledgeable the reviewer is!
I thought it's about choosing the best PERFORMANCE and not about who knows his/her history before
directing/performing the music.

[silvestrione]

Less about the music and more a chance to show us how jolly clever and knowledgeable the reviewer is!
I thought it's about choosing the best PERFORMANCE and not about who knows his/her history before
directing/performing the music.

Oh dear. Completely disagree there. I thought, what a pleasure to have someone so informed and knowledgeable (and balanced, not pushing an interpretation of the piece) to bring real insight to bear on performances. It was too short however to do joint justice to what he had to tell us, and the range of available recordings.

[teamsaint]

Re post #95 He was using the history, and describing the use of the songs, to highlight which recordings successfully incorporated those key elements, wasn't he ?

Going back to AMcG, i can understand that people don't like that style of presentation, and that it doesn't add anything material, but his comments really didn't take up much time. If the feature needs more time, ( and there will always be more to say) then it should have it .
A perfect opportunity here for reviewers to provide extended online content, I would say.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

i can understand that ... that style of presentation ... doesn't add anything material, but his comments really didn't take up much time.

If ever faint praise sent an idea to the eighth circle of hell, this did, ts! You've put your finger exactly on why the chatty format is harmful - it shows AMcG's interruptions to be no better than the banal tweets sent in to Essential Classics - which also add nothing material and don't really take up much time.

[ucanseetheend]

Less about the music and more a chance to show us how jolly clever and knowledgeable the reviewer is!
I thought it's about choosing the best PERFORMANCE and not about who knows his/her history before
directing/performing the music.

Absolutely! I think that BAL is in the r3 “educating mode”! Trying to change and get new listeners rather than satisfying long standing listeners ! The way of BBC,as it tries to be “different”!

[teamsaint]

If people don't need the education provided by this BaL, or already have all the recordings that he preferred, then I'd suggest that they don't really " need " this particular programme.

That said, I would have liked to hear a wider range of excerpts, but so it goes with the time allocated , a work where some of the background really isn't a given for many listeners, and the good number of available recordings.

[Pulcinella]

If people don't need the education provided by this BaL, or already have all the recordings that he preferred, then I'd suggest that they don't really " need " this particular programme.

That said, I would have liked to hear a wider range of excerpts, but so it goes with the time allocated , a work where some of the background really isn't a given for many listeners, and the good number of available recordings.

It should surely be possible to satisfy both camps: the newcomer and the knowledgeable listener.
The stories behind the songs used were indeed fascinating, and gave me a greater understanding and feeling for the work as a whole, but the Marjorie and Joan (Victoria Wood and Julie Walters: Google if you want a chuckle) style did affect the overall time given to McBurney.

Marjorie: So, we've reached the halfway point of the symphony then, Joan.
Joan: That's right, Marjorie. We're now at the third movement.

Could so easily have been

McB: We've now reached the third movement, which....

That said (to emulate ts, ), it was certainly one of the better BaLs.

[teamsaint]

It should surely be possible to satisfy both camps: the newcomer and the knowledgeable listener.
The stories behind the songs used were indeed fascinating, and gave me a greater understanding and feeling for the work as a whole, but the Marjorie and Joan (Victoria Wood and Julie Walters: Google if you want a chuckle) style did affect the overall time given to McBurney.

Marjorie: So, we've reached the halfway point of the symphony then, Joan.
Joan: That's right, Marjorie. We're now at the third movement.

Could so easily have been

McB: We've now reached the third movement, which....

That said (to emulate ts, ), it was certainly one of the better BaLs.

Its a fair enough point about the Victoria Wood style ( "Don't go specially") I just happen to find it something I can live with. But it really doesn't add anything. My point about the time is simply, how much does the interplay take up ? 2 minutes ? enough for 2 short extra excerpts? It probably feels a lot longer if it happens to irritate you( in general ,not you specifically, Pulcers ) than it does me. Maybe it was more than I think. But it did unnecessarily detract from the overall presentation, I agree.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My point about the time is simply, how much does the interplay take up ? 2 minutes ? enough for 2 short extra excerpts?

Or one extended one illustrating what GMcB considers to be "disgusting" recorded sound so that we can make up our own minds whether or not we agree with him, rather than having to take his opinion on trust. That would have been useful - and mebbe even entertaining and amusing - as opposed to Marjorie's useless interruptions. (Not to mention the fluffs that AMcG's interruptions caused for GMcB.) Sorry to go on about this, but I do feel that much is lost when AMcG joins in - and nothing is gained.

[teamsaint]

But the time constraints are entirely artificial. If R3 is so set on having this format, then more time could be added to the slot.They could find 5 minutes more if they really wanted to. There's plenty of slack in the playlist programmes.
There is no need to lose anything a reviewer wants to say. Add time, put extra material online, whatever.
I agree that more extracts would have been good. I'm sure this reviewer could have illuminated us for hours.

[Petrushka]

I agree that more extracts would have been good. I'm sure this reviewer could have illuminated us for hours.

Gerard McBurney is one of the foremost authorities on the music of Shostakovich and I could listen to him for hours. Moreover, the best BaL's re those where we learn something new.