BaL 21.04.12 - Prokofiev's Symphony no. 5

[Nick Armstrong]

Is the Rozhdestvensky being discussed here the live Proms performance from 1971 with the Leningrad Philharmonic? I have eight Prokky 5 recordings and that is by far my favorite. A sizzling performance, a receptive audience, and my favorite part: what sounds like Rozhdestvensky stamping his feet on the podium in order to whip his forces into a frenzy for the energetic coda of the scherzo (second) movement. Or so it sounds to me anyway!

That was given full value in the review this morning The ones that caught my ear were that - and the conclusion of the HvK performance which sounded great! (prokky, are you not bothered by the coughing in the RAH? I suspect I wouldn't be if the performance was good enough - which it sounded to be. Although British concert-going coughers make my blood boil in general How can people with the intelligence to go to a concert like that be stupid, selfish and unaware enough to cough like horses, open-mouthed? Note to self: get high-velocity rifle & silencer serviced and greased for Proms visits this summer )


But...

But...

I just don't "get" symphonic Prokofiev I've tried for 30 years, Shostakovich is my first and one of my enduring enthusiams... But SP in 'serious' symphonic mode continues to seem meaningless to me. Yes the Classical is fine, yes I can enjoy the stylish, dapper or downright exciting music, like the second movement of No 5 or its conclusion... One of my earliest LP purchases was the complete Romeo and Juliet (Previn) and I love that score - the 'descriptive', 'figurative' Prokofiev. But the 'argument' of the symphonies (for example, this morning, the first movement, the last movement of No 5)... it just seems empty of meaning to me, as if he's talking a dialect I don't understand at all even though I know the language.

I may invest in the Rozhdestvensky Proms recording, as I am a Noddy fan... Just to see if he can allow me to understand.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Right again, ferney!!

... although you didn't need to mention it twice!

[Charles_Smith]

I thought there was some rather poor structuring of the review. Why did he need two salvos to sink Mitropoulos and the VPO? Why did we listen to such a long extract from Sanderling's 2nd movement when we already knew it was going down?

[Nick Armstrong]

... although you didn't need to mention it twice!

It's the website bugging and rubbing it in! I don't think it's possible for us to double-post !

Still - it bears repeating how right you were

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought there was some rather poor structuring of the review. Why did he need two salvos to sink Mitropoulos and the VPO? Why did we listen to such a long extract from Sanderling's 2nd movement when we already knew it was going down?

Both those points struck me too. The Sanderling went on for ages. I suppose there's an argument for illustrating how not to do it... but it didn't seem to tally, and the time might have been better spent illustrating a stronger contender or two...

[prokkyshosty]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]are you not bothered by the coughing in the RAH?

Not really. It gives me a chance to indulge a bit of cultural superiority by thinking "ooh, those Brits, don't they know that smoking is BAD for them??" and that makes me feel good inside, in a shallow way. Then again, my judgement is tainted considering I give standing ovations to EVERY concert I hear. I think that's why I enjoyed being in the Arena last year... it was like getting an early start on my Standing O!

I suppose if you are left cold by the 1st and 3rd movements of the Fifth, then I've got nothing else to try and convince you with. I think that's as good as it gets. Shosty has a better winning percentage (13 out of 15, I'd say) than Prokky (4 out of 7), who often treated his symphonies as step children, hobbled together with various used and unused bits. Plus, Shosty's biggest knock on him (if you believe Testimony) was that he was a poor orchestrator at best, and at worst, farmed his orchestrations out to his students.

But I wouldn't give up the range and diversity of Prokofiev's output for anything! No 20th century composer gets played more often, in more different forms (symphony, concerto, opera, ballet, chamber, solo, you name it).

[Roehre]

But I wouldn't give up the range and diversity of Prokofiev's output for anything! No 20th century composer gets played more often, in more different forms (symphony, concerto, opera, ballet, chamber, solo, you name it).

Which is a very remarkable feat, as it is hardly -if at all- possible to name one towering masterpiece (a la Beethoven 5 or 9 or Berlioz Symphonie fantastique e.g. within the output of their respective creators)
His most likely most well known work is Peter and the Wolf. But is this the towering master piece? Let's say that I am doubtful.

[prokkyshosty]

I might make the case for Romeo & Juliet as his towering masterpiece, but I'm biased. It's a staple of any ballet repertory, it is played in the concert hall often (waaaay too often), has been recorded numerous times, and it has a Big Tune that is used in popular culture and sporting events and the like.

We'll check back in 100 years to see how it's doing.

[HighlandDougie]

is this the towering master piece?

Surely (he says with his tongue ever so slightly stuck in his cheek) it's the "Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution". Sirens, machine-guns, declamations from the works of Lenin, what's not to love about that, especially in Kiril Kondrashin's blistering (if incomplete) recording? Although I sort of agree with Roehre (and have always tended to think that there is a bit of the First Division rather than the Premier League about Sergei Sergeyevich), nonetheless I find myself listening to his music (Piano Sonatas, Piano Concertos, Violin Concertos, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th Symphonies, Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, the Cantata etc etc) really rather a lot. So I'm very much in tune with ProkkyShosty point about getting played often. It might not be a corpus of towering masterpieces but clearly people like it.

[Panjandrum]

I'd say the 3rd PC, the 6th symphony, 7th piano sonata and the first violin sonata are all worthy of the epithet, masterwork.

Moreover, Scythian Suite, Ivan, Nevsky, R&J, Cinderella, VCs and PCs 1 & 2,6th and 8th Pf sons, Syms 1 and 5 are all exceptionally fine.

[verismissimo]

it is hardly -if at all- possible to name one towering masterpiece

Towering, I can't say, Roehre. But masterpieces:

The first and the last three symphonies; the third piano concerto; Visions fugitives; Love of Three Oranges; War and Peace; Chout; Lieutenant Kije; several of the piano sonatas; sonata for flute and piano; Cinderella; oh, Romeo and Juliet, of course. What else?

(Never cared for Peter and his wolf much.)

[Roehre]

Towering, I can't say, Roehre. But masterpieces:
The first and the last three symphonies; the third piano concerto; Visions fugitives; Love of Three Oranges; War and Peace; Chout; Lieutenant Kije; several of the piano sonatas; sonata for flute and piano; Cinderella; oh, Romeo and Juliet, of course. What else?
(Never cared for Peter and his wolf much.)

Exactly as you say, Verismissimo (and Prokkyshosty, Panjandrum and Highlandougie), without any doubt masterpieces.
But towering?
Is this something which applies specifically to Prokofiev, creating a series of great pieces of music, but without one towering above all the others, or are there other examples?

[jayne lee wilson]

You can sample it here on Spotify - http://open.spotify.com/album/1xv1TQltHUaKPPbFZeaS5W
I don't think it's the worst recording I've heard by a long way, even if I might not give it 5 stars. 4 stars maybe. Indeed some of the Scythian Suite could be considered very good indeed. There's a lot of detail, though maybe not much ambience, aand the dynamics seem compressed - though it's very likely that Spotify has something to do with that, the CD might be better. It could be due to the hall, and takes a few minutes to get used to. Rattle seems restrained at the end of the Symphony, but I'd have to listen right through to check. Indeed I think Rattle is slow in places where others push on, so probably wouldn't be my first choice.

Dear me, don't use Spotify to judge SQ! As I've already said, the original Rattle CD is a technical tour-de-force but might prove hard for some systems to do justice to because of its very wide dynamic range. I simply can't recognise any description of the ending as "restrained" or compressed, played back here it has a huge impact, as does the slow movement - scarily powerful! And there's enough ambience to place the orchestra in the hall (though EMI's Symphony Hall efforts were never quite as airy as their Warwick Uni Arts centre ones). But that is at high volume levels, I guess it could sound restrained or "dull" in balance if you're worried about your speakers...

I always prefer Rattle to HvK now - the latter is a "legend" of a kind, but a rather unimaginative choice for a BaL, I feel (haven't heard the prog. yet, try to later.). But the problem really is having to choose one; it seems rather late-in-the-day , with so many recordings around, to have a single "library choice". Gramophone's recent Collection articles have an imaginative approach, naming various choices - "setting the scene" "other realms" and "the watershed" were 3 recent recommendations of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto!

[Barbirollians]

Yes - a good BaL, but I was surprised that neither Gergiev nor Jaarvi got a mention. I have the Karajan, and complete Gergiev, Jaarvi and Naxos sets...
I'm in two minds about the Rozhdestvensky live at the RAH... indeed, it is a great performance, but the coughing, I don't know. I enjoy recordings where one has a sense of it being live, but intrusive coughing is another matter altogether.
Knowing me, I'll probaly succumb to searching it out - but only at a bargain price.

It is terrific -recommended with all possible enthusiasm-far too thrilling a performance to worry about the odd cough or two.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ok, just heard the Prokofiev 5 BaL. Bit dull wasn't it? Well, stultifying really. Too limited a survey, not much insightful comment, easy and obvious winner. Hadn't heard a complete BaL for a bit, do they always leave so many out without a comment? Hmm... Wasn't as impressed as Norris by the Rozh LPO excerpts... Jurowski seemed more promising.

A much better survey was done for Gramophone in October 1999 by David Gutman. Dig out your back issue. Findable on that terrible archive (My link won't work as usual). Gutman chose HvK with some slight reservations, gives some praise to my favoured Szell and Rattle but doesn't really like them (he's not alone in commenting on the "distant" CBSO Symphony Hall balance - look guys and gals, just TURN IT UP!) ... very good feature though. He puts Jansons, Tilson-Thomas, Celibidache and Koussevitzky in his top five.

Just comparing the scherzo, HvK and Rattle - Karajan has the richer, more virtuoso strings (and shows off what he can do with them), but a more homogenised orchestral palette than the more varied Rattle, who gets wonderfully primary colours in the winds, and subtler dynamic gradations in the wind band and the orchestra generally. Solo clarinet in Rattle is that bit jazzier and more alive. (One can only gasp at how the 1993 CBSO are easily the technical equal of the BPO! Even arguable that the leaner string tone is more apt.)

Karajan still sounds well, livelier in the Christus-Kirche than later in the Philharmonie. Legendary, deservedly so. But I tend to feel now, I know what he's going to do. Rattle's more spontaneous, and, if you can play it loud, better recorded. Interpretatively they aren't that far apart, even in timings; but Rattle finds more expressive variation here and there, by phrase and by paragraph.

I mean, just buy both, really.

Haven't heard the studio Rozh Melodiya in a while... I wonder...