Orchestral lay- out

[richardfinegold]

Just watched a Maazel/Concertebouw Mahler 6, part of a Mahler cycle (various conductors) on Sky Arts - horns as you describe, 2 ranks of 4 well to the left, next to the harps.

I have that. What was your take on the performance?

[Oliver]

Are you suggesting that this arrangement is the orchestra's, rather than the conductor's decision? Whatever it is, it works.

Thank you Hornspieler, some fascinating insights but your reference to the Wagner tubas in Mahler- surely you mean Bruckner? Or is there some arcane orchestral practice unsanctioned by the urtext) to which I am not privy?

[Richard Tarleton]

I have that. What was your take on the performance?

It's been a while since I last listened to 6 so I won't attempt an in-depth review, but I thought it was an exciting performance. They really are a superb orchestra. Maazel had been in my bad books after his lacklustre Bruckner 8 at the Proms (the only Prom I attended last year) and I don't know when this was recorded, but I thought he seemed rather more involved on this occasion .

Without re-igniting the S-A or A-S discussion it did strike me again how the scherzo seems to follow on where the first movement leaves off - I've never heard it performed the other way round.

Do the RCO rotate their leaders? The lady leader on this occasion was in co-leader position for the 4 with Fischer, and neither for the 5 with Gatti. Our own Dominic Seldis featured prominently in the camera angles (more so than in the 5 with Gatti the other day). But superb playing in all departments. It's a series to be treasured - 4 with Fischer/Persson, 5 with Gatti, and I've still got Boulez/7 in the can (and presumably 8 and 9 to come - I must have missed 1 and 2, will have to wait for the repeats).

A final thought - it does look like a weary trudge especially for elderly conductors at the C'gebouw up and down that flight of stairs after a draining performance.....

[seabright]

The references above to Stokowski's platform placements are very well illustrated in a Beethoven 5th he gave with the LPO in Croydon in 1969, currently viewable on You Tube. At about 2:30 in, the camera pans back and you see all the 1st and 2nd violins on the left, whilst over on right, positioned down at the very front of the platform, sat the woodwinds. Shortly after that are Beethoven's antiphonal chords between strings and winds, so the Croydon audience got a very stereo effect! ... The f-holes mentioned earlier were also much in evidence in respect of the cello and basses. As will be seen, they were ranged across the back facing the audience, rather than sitting sideways on as they usually do. This was because Stokowski, having been a church organist in his youth, sought to bring into his orchestral performances the deep bass sound he remembered from his organ-pedalling days at St. James's, Piccadilly ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My-gtP0hqU0

However, he wasn't dogmatic about orchestral positioning and for his 90th Birthday Concert with the LSO at the RFH in 1972 he reverted to the more usual style of platform placings. This next You Tube clip of the 'Mastersingers' Overture shows Stokowski's "free-bowing" idea very well. At about 2:40 onwards the camera shows the strings all playing at will. John Georgiadis is on record as saying he loved this idea and found it very new and exciting, as it made for an "immense" sound, and you certainly get that in this Wagner performance ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O84aDHmttGk

[Hornspieler]

Are you suggesting that this arrangement is the orchestra's, rather than the conductor's decision? Whatever it is, it works.

I believe that the best result is obtained when Conductor and Leader (not called Concert Master for nothing) are in agreement.

Thank you Hornspieler, some fascinating insights but your reference to the Wagner tubas in Mahler- surely you mean Bruckner? Or is there some arcane orchestral practice* unsanctioned by the urtext) to which I am not privy?

Thank you Oliver for pointing out my mispelling of the word Bruckner!

Stravinsky also used WTs in the Rite - played by the seventh and eighth horns and of course, Wagner himself was the inventor of the instrument, with its beautiful melifluous tone. I have known it to be used instead of a tenor tuba or that ghastly cow horn in Vaughan Williams' "Pastoral"(?)

Hs

* I wonder!

[amateur51]

Yes; I think that Stokowski's rationale was that having the Seconds facing the Firsts meant that their f-holes were facing away from the audience, projecting the sound to the back of the stage. Having spent most of my student concert-going life in the cheap seats of Leeds Town Hall (behind the orchestra - so either all the strings were pointing away from me, or the Seconds were pointing in my direction) I found that the ear adjusted the balance subconsciously.

A lot of my early and latter day concert-going has been at Royal Festival Hall in the Choir seats and I agree, my brain does tend to sort it all out, unless there's a string soloist

[amateur51]

Without re-igniting the S-A or A-S discussion it did strike me again how the scherzo seems to follow on where the first movement leaves off - I've never heard it performed the other way round.

That's why I prefger A-S, RT. To my ears, with the A coming second we slip into a parallel universe, away from the dicky heart-beat, the struggle & strife into an emotional discourse, and then when we get into the S it's as though there's a sense of "blimey it was all a mirage" and it fits in so well with the finale.

[ardcarp]

This may be a bit outside the scope of this thread, but I've long disliked the placing of choirs in big choral works. In, say, Belshazzar's Feast, one has the massed ranks of a big symphony orchestra plus all the kitchen utensils, behind which is shoved the choir. To say that they are remote from the conductor is an understatement...very tricky in an uber-rhythmic work sch as BF. But worst of all they have to struggle to be heard over all that scraping, blowing and thwacking. Recordings can sort out the balance, but in the concert hall choirs are often swamped.

Occasionally more imaginative layouts are achievable. One I saw where the choir was in a horseshoe coming around the sides and above the orchestra was fantastic, but this can only be done where architecture permits.

Anyone seen/heard any good solutions?

[Oliver]

It's rather unfair to refer to VW's E flat natural trumpet in his Pastoral as a "cow-horn"! I find it very effective in evoking the battlefields of France. The only cow-horn I can think of in an orchestral context is at the beginning of the last movement of Britten's Spring Symphony. And that really is ghastly- intentionally so.

I like the Wagner Tubas in The Rite, too. Their baleful quality is appropriately disturbing as the poor girl prepares to dance herself to death. Another good, non -Wagnerian moment is their use in penultimate chords of Electra. Wonderful instruments. I wonder why RW didn't want them in Parsifal?