BaL 5.10.19 - Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

[teamsaint]

I wish that Tom Service delivered radio presentation as well as he writes. But I would much rather have his excellent critical faculties and suspect delivery applied to the subject that some of the other triumphs of style over substance that occasionally appear on the programme.

[DracoM]

Yes, indeed, but it's a bit like kayaking at the bottom Niagara Falls when he's in this mood.

[Maclintick]

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.

Thanks for the heads-up, Stanfordian. I don't think any extracts from DSO/Metzmacher were included, though TS did mention Strauss's original ending, which was news to me.Having just copped an earful on Spotify, I think it's very affecting...

[ardcarp]

I wish that Tom Service delivered radio presentation as well as he writes.

There's a blindingly obvious solution. Write his critique and read it on air at a sensible pace without interruptions.
Er...isn't that how things used to be done? To be serious, one cannot treat a subject properly speaking off the cuff. Maybe some people can do it better than others, but it shows contempt and lack of consideration for earnest BAL listeners to serve up a mish-mash.

[Nick Armstrong]

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.

Yes indeed There was a temporary lifting of the embargo here on Service, due to my affection for this work... but it lasted about 3 minutes. Intolerable bit of broadcasting, for all the reasons given in this thread.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I find it be almost unbelievable that the BBC continues to continue turning Radio 3 into a slow car crash, without airbags or seatbelts.

[Petrushka]

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the presentation (and I can't possibly comment as I don't listen) it's a great shame that the music itself, and the recordings apparently 'discussed' have been lost in the general welter of condemnation of the presentation. BaL is dying a painful death. Perhaps it's time to put it out of its misery.

[DracoM]

The guy KNOWS that at any moment AMcG is going to interrupt, move him on, challenge, come in with his own 'insights' [sic], and with that mammoth number of recordings like a weight on his shoulders, Service was in the drink and drowning within nanoseconds. BUT, as ardcarp wisely says, the BBC willed it by the bonkers format they had gone for, and a wonderful piece of music [IMO] was lamed, chopped and diminished as a result.

It was inexcusable.

[LeMartinPecheur]

The guy KNOWS that at any moment AMcG is going to interrupt, move him on, challenge, come in with his own 'insights' [sic], and with that mammoth number of recordings like a weight on his shoulders, Service was in the drink and drowning within nanoseconds. BUT, as ardcarp wisely says, the BBC willed it by the bonkers format they had gone for, and a wonderful piece of music [IMO] was lamed, chopped and diminished as a result.

It was inexcusable.

Draco: I've picked you to tack on a Reply With Quote but it could have been many others! I was much struck by a comment way up thread that said listeners to BaL are those who already know the work and will have recordings. Really? If so we've already lost the battle for classical music, and should just shut up and enjoy what we can of the dying days of R3. Dying days, NB, created not by deficiencies at the Beeb but by changes in society and/or the terrible state of music in schools (add other reasons or subtract according to taste!). I'm not quite so pessimistic however...

I started to listen to BaL nearly 50 years ago when I wanted to build a record library and still had the idea, easier to believe in those days, that there really was one best recording of the work under consideration (I've posted before about how short the list of considered recordings was back then, and I think they aimed for full coverage of the field). I learned a lot of things. At simplest, I may have rushed out to buy the top pick LP and probably still own and value it, even if other versions have surpassed it. Also, I learned a lot about interpretation and the art of recording, and slowly began to disagree sometimes with the reviewer But in many cases I also found out a lot about works I didn't know well or at all.

Why the blazes are we so sure that there aren't a good number of teenagers now who benefit from the programme in exactly the same way? (Shock horror, they may even feel that the dialogue format suits them better than us oldies)

As for this morning's BaL, I could only listen on car radio but still learned some pretty fundamental things about the work, principally stemming from TS's enthusiasm for RS's own recording. He didn't dismiss it at all, but no doubt felt his brief required a winner with much better sound. OK, I'd like him to slow down a bit but even at my advanced age he renewed my enthusiasm for the work and made me think hard about how well my existing versions really match Strauss's score and intentions. A very good programme IMHO....

...even though I consider it absolutely unforgivable that he didn't even mention the Kempe DVD Prom performance I posted about above...and nobody here has had the grace to comment on

[ardcarp]

I very much respect your considered post LeM-P and agree with much you say about music in schools and changing society. I think some people must have been better equipped than I to interpret the flow of the programme. All I really gleaned from the first half (and I was trying) was that TS had a thing about women conductors not having recorded the work. No-one could be more in favour of women conductors than I, and in gender equality generally. However given that they haven't...yet...was it a sensible thing to bang on about it when time was so short and the discography so vast?

[vibratoforever]

I gave up after around 15 minutes, finding the breathless gabble of TS and AM's interruptions and talking over the guest insufferable.

[Judith Robbyns]

(LeMartinPecheur) You ask, "Why the blazes are we so sure that there aren't a good number of teenagers now who benefit from the programme in exactly the same way? (Shock horror, they may even feel that the dialogue format suits them better than us oldies"

Your question could be turned round as, "Why are we so sure (are we?) that teenagers ARE listening?" Why would teenagers switch on to hear a programme about a piece of music with which they are not familiar because two middleaged men are enthusing volubly about it somewhat chaotically - talking to each other rather than to their listeners? How many teenagers need to listen in order to warrant aiming the programme at them? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? You extracted some benefit but, as you say, you are already familiar with the work and have several recordings. I am one more provoked into recording that I dislike the interview format.

[Barbirollians]

Building A Library did in the 1980and 1990s play a big part in my getting to know music before I bought it - there of course being no You Tube , Spotify or the like then. You had to buy a record much of the time to see if you liked it or go to the public library which in my local town did at least provide me with my first exposure to ASD 655 .

What I liked about it as a teenager was listening to the different examples, erudite reviewers explaining why performances were different and why one was preferable to the other . I cannot imagine yesterday's gabblefest ( judging from the short extract I heard ) attracting anyone to the music.

The depressing thing about this change is that it seems to have taken place either to justify Mr McGregor's pay cheque or in light of This Classical Life . The latter programme is dreadful to my ears because for all Jess's enthusiasm the speaking over the music detracts from it . Also its self conscious trendiness I would have found a massive turn off as a quiet teenager .

It seems to me what would have been really daring would have been for the BBC to put it on Radio 1 or 6xtra. The demographic it seems to be trying to attract.

[Barbirollians]

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.

[gradus]

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'.