BaL 5.10.19 - Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

[Nick Armstrong]

Do we know if anyone at the Beeb - or AMcG himself - reads this board???

If only one of our number could arrange to have it out with the Controller face-to-face, and forcibly convey the general feeling to him direct...

[Bryn]

I can remember him and Rob posting in the good old CD masters days.

Here are Swainee's posts: http://www.for3.org/forums/search.php?searchid=5608830

[BBMmk2]

I can’t remember who was the preferred recording?

[gradus]

Jansons/BRSO but you can disagree!

[Richard Tarleton]

If only one of our number could arrange to have it out with the Controller face-to-face, and forcibly convey the general feeling to him direct...

Thinking about it there's a whole primate behaviour thing going on with BAL these days, if they only but recognised it. AMcG as alpha male....with sometimes nervous or hesitant female troop member he can dominate the situation (for better or worse), with older craftier greybeard who's no longer in the dominance game and who can outsmart him (DON) it's a different and altogether calmer sort of exercise. But with two alpha males in competition, jumping up and down, ripping up tufts of vegetation and jabbering a lot it doesn't work at all.

What was that about an extra trumpet line inserted by one conductor at one point? Was it true? (TS wasn't sure) Did it matter? I have no idea - but as a dominance ploy - breaking off an extra large branch - it worked brilliantly.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thinking about it there's a whole primate behaviour thing going on with BAL these days, if they only but recognised it. AMcG as alpha male....with sometimes nervous or hesitant female troop member he can dominate the situation (for better or worse), with older craftier greybeard who's no longer in the dominance game and who can outsmart him (DON) it's a different and altogether calmer sort of exercise. But with two alpha males in competition, jumping up and down, ripping up tufts of vegetation and jabbering a lot it doesn't work at all.

So true...

[DracoM]

Well, whatever the outcome of this locking of horns, the truth emerging seems to be that AMcG sees this / the prod team see this as HIS 'show' and he must be seen / heard dominating every part of it. The upshot is an incremental diminishing of its analytic integrity.

What is even more worrying IMO is that despite warnings in relatively recent BALs, the ascendancy of AMcG to Olympus has not been arrested. The team must hear the programme, they must discuss it, they must know of some restlessness in the audience, so why are they resolutely adhering to this twofer format - a format that is manifestly and weekly damaging the prog's credibility?

RR / BAL are one of R3's highest profile progs , and damage to it is a serious damage to the whole channel's identity. If you then link that to - in some quarters of the press - a less than enthusiastic response to this year's Proms, then...?

[teamsaint]

Just as an aside really, Tom Service ( and I do think he had many useful things to say about the work) seems to be taking styling cues for his radion delivery from Mark Radcliffe, which wouldn’t be the first time he has taken style cues from a BBC DJ.....

[Maclintick]

What was that about an extra trumpet line inserted by one conductor at one point? Was it true? (TS wasn't sure) Did it matter?

Yup -- a high trumpet Bb inserted into the second half of the bar at fig 37 + 2 where none seems to be notated
possibly a difference of editions ?-- quite effective, though...

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks Mac!

[Nimrod]

I have a very early, maybe even a first edition (can't find a date anywhere!), of the miniature score and it is as shown here.

[Nimrod]

From the sleeve note of JB's Heldenleben which compares JB, Beecham and Mengelberg's HMV recordings:
'Sir John's Hero is a knowledgeable commander who wages with hope in his heart ...his victory is painted in purple as well as gold ... Mengelberg (the dedicatee) shares Sir John's view that 'All good Don Juans take their time' ...Sir Thomas hurls the quotation across the canvas with haughty disdain and then moves to the end with ever growing passion and involvement. The great Dutch conductor at the close is similar to Barbirolli- a sweeter serenity, intimate , reflective... In JB's hands it becomes not merely an orchestral tour-de-force but a tone poem of hope mastering tribulation'.

Barbirolli's live performance with the LSO at the RFH, previously available on Legends, reflects this quote more fully and I don't think you could say it's slow.

[Nimrod]

By the way the Barbirolli may be slower than some but is not tediously slow - Edward Greenfield's excellent Gramophone review in 1970 explains why.

The EMI studio recording is 50.34 minutes whilst the live performance, with the same forces, is 46.43 minutes. Even though the sound of the live is not as refulgent as the EMI the performance surely deserves to be back in the catalogue as an example of Barbirolli's complete grasp and understanding of the score, which he first conducted in 1934.

[Darloboy]

There are, I think, three live recordings from Karajan plus another three studio accounts, all fine, but I suppose HvK will be airily dismissed yet again despite his 1959 DG recording, in particular, being a real stunner. The 1985 studio DG recording is in fine digital sound and is, in some ways, an even better performance than the earlier.

Yes, HvK was airily dismissed as too slow.

The 1985 HvK was 1st choice the last time this piece was covered by BaL back in the good old days of onefers.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, HvK was airily dismissed as too slow.

The 1985 HvK was 1st choice the last time this piece was covered by BaL back in the good old days of onefers.

Do we know who the reviewer was on that occasion, as a matter of interest?