BaL 5.10.19 - Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

[DracoM]

Unlistenable to, and certainly you can learn nothing from it.
A marriage made in hell.

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes to all of the above - every sentence contains false starts, changes tack in the middle, is gabbled, ideas tripping over eachother to get out - utterly unlistenable to. Surely someone realises this? AMcG for a start - perhaps he could listen to a playback? If TS had organised his thoughts into a coherent script it might have helped, but the twofer format is a catastrophe.

[DracoM]

And if they needed proof of the utter nonsense of twofers, then this is an edition of it they need to play to every succeeding producer of the programme.
Wrecked a wonderful piece of music.
Bewildering production decision - after all, everyone in the RR team knows both Service and McGregor, they MUST have known that this would happen. So why give Service the job of sorting one of the most recorded pieces in the repertoire? A guaranteed disaster in the making.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No - the BBC is never wrong. We must be at fault.

[gradus]

TS's final choice was Jansons and the BRSO. A near impossible task given the 100 plus versions from which to choose. Naturally, HvK really didn't get a look-in nor Reiner and Beecham but Barbirolli did and was smartly dispatched to the boundary as far too slow. A revelation was the sound quality of Strauss's own 1941 recording but oddly that wasn't commented on.
Please can we have a dedicated hour long single presenter programme about recordings, perhaps it could be called Interpretations on Record and might it refrain from picking 'the best one'.

[ardcarp]

I remember that my mother used to boast about her WPM (words per minute....she could type). I don't know about TS's WPM, but if it were reproduced in script it would be a stuttering jumble. I had to give up listening before the halfway mark [see, I did try] but I wonder what light was shed by the whole debacle?

Ein Heldenleben is a piece I've had a love/hate relationship with (as I guess many do) and I was hoping for a little light.

[Edgy 2]

Why persist in listening ?
I gave up on BaL and RR a long time ago as with all pre noon Radio 3.
Anyone remember interpretations on record ?
Not likely to ever return,even if it did it probably would be dumbed down in some way or have a very annoying presenter.

[DracoM]

[edashtav]

Despite the mass of criticism that this broadcast has already accumulated on this thread much of which resonates with me, I'm going to stick up for Mr. (a contraction of Marmite?) Tom Service because he had a thesis based on his appreciation of the composer's own recordings, and he used that 'metric', that lens, if you like, to examine later recordings and then explained, with his own brand of Archimedean, naked, unbridled and unmediated excitement where the latter succeeded, or failed. Andrew tried, and failed to interrupt despite having prepared some lengthy sentences.

By the end, my distaste for this work had subsided and a determination to listen again with fresh ears to the interpretations of the composer and Jansons and the BRSO had taken hold of me.

Is that not the purpose of BaL?

[Richard Tarleton]

Despite the mass of criticism that this broadcast has already accumulated on this thread much of which resonates with me, I'm going to stick up for Mr. (a contraction of Marmite?) Tom Service because he had a thesis based on his appreciation of the composer's own recordings, and he used that 'metric', that lens, if you like, to examine later recordings and then explained, with his own brand of Archimedean, naked, unbridled and unmediated excitement where the latter succeeded, or failed. Andrew tried, and failed to interrupt despite having prepared some lengthy sentences.

By the end, my distaste for this work had subsided and a determination to listen again with fresh ears to the interpretations of the composer and Jansons and the BRSO had taken hold of me.

Is that not the purpose of BaL?

A couple of questions, ed:

Was your experience helped, or hindered, by the format and delivery?
Do you think the segment would have been better as a straight-to microphone, scripted piece? You've suggested Andrew was surplus to requirements.

I gritted my teeth and carried on, but it was an effort.

[Bryn]

Despite the mass of criticism that this broadcast has already accumulated on this thread much of which resonates with me, I'm going to stick up for Mr. (a contraction of Marmite?) Tom Service because he had a thesis based on his appreciation of the composer's own recordings, and he used that 'metric', that lens, if you like, to examine later recordings and then explained, with his own brand of Archimedean, naked, unbridled and unmediated excitement where the latter succeeded, or failed. Andrew tried, and failed to interrupt despite having prepared some lengthy sentences.

By the end, my distaste for this work had subsided and a determination to listen again with fresh ears to the interpretations of the composer and Jansons and the BRSO had taken hold of me.

Is that not the purpose of BaL?

I too fond Dr. Service opened my ears to this work, to which I had a previous aversion. Sure, his delivery is both somewhat chaotic and over-enthusiastic, but the essence of his argument won me over. That said, I feel it would have been far better sans the rondabout 'contributions' from Mr McGregor. He should stick to gardening.

[ardcarp]

Did the musical examples played sway your opinion, Bryn? There wasn't a great deal of it was there? (As previously mentioned, I copped out halfway.)

[Bryn]

Did the musical examples played sway your opinion, Bryn? There wasn't a great deal of it was there? (As previously mentioned, I copped out halfway.)

Indeed they did. I found the way he used then to illustrate his thesis that Strauss knew what he was about and that it was not what Karajan, Barbirolli and co. transformed the work into.

[richardfinegold]

I remember that my mother used to boast about her WPM (words per minute....she could type). I don't know about TS's WPM, but if it were reproduced in script it would be a stuttering jumble. I had to give up listening before the halfway mark [see, I did try] but I wonder what light was shed by the whole debacle?

Ein Heldenleben is a piece I've had a love/hate relationship with (as I guess many do) and I was hoping for a little light.

I have resolved my ambivalence about the piece. It only took about 30 years of acquaintance, but I’m all in—it has become one of my Desert Island works.
Jansons/BRSO is an interesting choice because the piece plays to their strengths. Jansons is great but an episodic Conductor. In the admittedly sprawling great Symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner he has passages of great beauty but tends to lose his way exploring the glories of each section. Heldenleben is by nature an episodic work with no great central goal, and so not an issue.

[Stanfordian]

I've not heard the 'Ein Heldeleben' BAL yet, I'll have to catch up with it later. I've read the comments though.

I do admire the winning Jansons recording of 'Ein Heldeleben'. Strauss is well served on disc with a number of excellent recordings from Karl Böhm, Fritz Reiner, Rudolf Kempe and Karajan.

There is another stunning performance that I relish too from Ingo Metzmacher with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin recorded in 2007 at the Philharmonie, Berlin on Challenge Classics. Here Metzmacher uses Strauss’s original ending to 'Ein Heldenleben' that takes out the final brass dominated climax allowing the writing to decay away to nothing. I'll have to listen if this was played.