La Tribune: Un BaL Français

[Roger Webb]

Lucky old you, this is the best day we've had for a few, but still too chilly to risk a trip to the beach! Welsh weather see.

Surprising 'Enygma' Micky.....I'll hold off posting the report til probably Monday evening.

[MickyD]

Lucky old you, this is the best day we've had for a few, but still too chilly to risk a trip to the beach! Welsh weather see.

Surprising 'Enygma' Micky.....I'll hold off posting the report til probably Monday evening.

Thanks for the spoiler alert, Roger, and I hope your weather bucks up soon.

[Pulcinella]

Though I like the idea of elimination along the way, what would happen if the remaining two contenders, say, were simply dreadful in the last movement?
Would they go back to one of the ones they dismissed earlier and say, Well, actually, I could live with that, but I can't live with this, and reach a compromise?

[Roger Webb]

Though I like the idea of elimination along the way, what would happen if the remaining two contenders, say, were simply dreadful in the last movement?
Would they go back to one of the ones they dismissed earlier and say, Well, actually, I could live with that, but I can't live with this, and reach a compromise?

Urm, don't know, it's not happened as far as I can remember - it's very probable that one or two of the panel harbour a liking for a recording different from those chosen by Rousseau and his producer, in which case it's a case of choosing the least worse option, once they've twigged their favourite is not to be considered!

Can't happen in BaL, as the versions to be considered by the guest (probably with some input from CDMcG... especially the makeweights) are picked by them.

If I was on yesterday's Tribune panel (there's a 'listeners' Tribune coming up soon) I'd at least state a preference for one or three that weren't considered!

[Roger Webb]

Rousseau's report on Sunday's 'Enigma' Un Bal Français....

https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/la-tribune-des-critiques-de-disques/variations-enigma-d-elgar-7929486

[MickyD]

The situation happened in the La Stravaganza edition, they loved the first movement of the Biondi, then when they moved onto the second movement they didn't like what he did with that, so it was dispensed with.
(So far I must say I have been consistently happy with all the Solomons Haydn symphonies !)

[silvestrione]

What a surprising choice for the Elgar! (I won't say yet in case folk have still to listen or, as in my case, read the summary.)

[Quarky]

Knowing something about music and a little about Elgar, which probably places me in the same category as the French audience, I found this episode throughly entertaining. And I learnt something about Elgar.

Emmanuelle, member of the team, seemed to have her finger on the pulse in Nimrod and Dorabella. I feel Dorabella swayed the team in favour of Jarvi.

Subjecting the remainder of the variations to the same degree of analysis would be quite a task, but I guess a good place to start would be the Jarvi recording.

[Nick Armstrong]

What a surprising choice for the Elgar! (I won't say yet in case folk have still to listen or, as in my case, read the summary.)

Ah thank you. Had a glance here, reminded me to get some recent Tribunes downloaded for longish road trips in France later this week

[MickyD]

What a surprising choice for the Elgar! (I won't say yet in case folk have still to listen or, as in my case, read the summary.)

I've just listened to the programme and liked the final choice...yes, what a surprise. This is what makes the format of this programme so enjoyable.

[Roger Webb]

I've just listened to the programme and liked the final choice...yes, what a surprise. This is what makes the format of this programme so enjoyable.

Yes Micky, an internationalist choice of contenders to represent a great international composer! No petty parochialism as we might find this side of La Manche.....and yet, a tinge of regret for Boult, Davis, Handley, Del Mar et al.....surely just one wouldn't hurt?!

[MickyD]

Indeed, I think it a pity that another Brit conductor wasn't included. It was an interesting moment when one of the ladies on the panel confessed that she had no idea that Elgar had composed "Falstaff"...an honest admission. The other male panellist regretted that more British music was not better known or played in France. I hope the programme opened the ears of a few Frenchies!

[Roger Webb]

............ It was an interesting moment when one of the ladies on the panel confessed that she had no idea that Elgar had composed "Falstaff"...an honest admission..............

Perhaps no more so than a guest on BaL admitting that they didn't know Saint-Saëns had composed an opera on the subject of Henry VIII !

[MickyD]

Perhaps no more so than a guest on BaL admitting that they didn't know Saint-Saëns had composed an opera on the subject of Henry VIII !

Must admit I didn't know that either! But the French guy was saying how much he admired Walton and that it was never, or maybe rarely played in France. Whereas I think we give French composers a good airing.

[Roger Webb]

.......... Whereas I think we give French composers a good airing............

It's true, I think, that we have more interest in French composers than the French do in our native composers. My CD shop stocked just about all the discs of French music that it was possible to find....and I mean those out of the way ones like Cras, Ropartz, Le Flem, Damase, Jolivet et al.

I made numerous trips to France mainly the Paris area and hunted down CD shops in the capital, only to be amazed at how little 'British music' they stock - Elgar being a prime example.

I was in one of my regulars in Rue de la Roquette, Bastille, and a piece was being played that I half recognised...you know what it's like when you can't quite put your finger on it....I asked the owner what it was, and he grunted, 'you should know, it's English'. Turned out it was the Holst Fugal Concerto on Lyrita SRCS 34. This is one of the recordings you still see - in its distinctive green Lp cover - in secondhand shops occasionally, the reason being that Quad used it at the Paris HiFi show way back in the '60s to demonstrate their loudspeakers, and the French took to its proto neo-classical style. Strange, some shops that had that as their sole representation of Holst....often no 'Planets'!