Sun 13 March - Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms

[french frank]

A three-hander at 5pm this week, with Tom Service, Julian Anderson and Stephen Walsh, not forgetting the BBCSO/Michal Dworzynski and the BBC Singers:


"Stravinsky composed his psalm settings in the years between the two World Wars, and they are one of the first musical expressions of his re-discovered Christian faith. The work has proved one of the composer's most succesful and influential pieces. Tom Service hosts a round table forum on the piece, examining its background and the ideas behind the music with illustrations and a complete performance given by the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra."

[3rd Viennese School]

This is the work that got me into Stravinsky! I want to hear the show and I've lost my personal radio at Victoria Wetherspoons!!

3VS

[Bryn]

This is the work that got me into Stravinsky! I want to hear the show and I've lost my personal radio at Victoria Wetherspoons!!

3VS

Sorry to read of your loss, but at least you might access the on demand iPlayer offering later. Since the BBC Singers are shown as providing the vocal, I guess it will not be faithful to the composer's desire that it performed with an all male chorus. There again, it is only very rarely so performed, and Stravinsky's recordings used mixed voices, so ... .

[3rd Viennese School]

Would that last slow section sound right with just Gueezers singing? I'm too used to the mixed choir version.

Praise him with trumpets and drums. And there aint any. How ubercool is that!?

3VS

[Bryn]

Both Preston and O'Donnell have recorded it with all male choral forces, and it works just fine.

[Nick Armstrong]

the BBC Singers

Anyone else share my view that they've got even more wobbly and frankly unlistenable-to lately. They're getting on I suppose, not enough new blood?

[3rd Viennese School]

As I no longer have a personal radio i had to come home to hear the show. I taped it in case I missed anything. It was good musically. I didn't even know about the Octagonal scale. I will listen to it again in due course. I'm still wondering. does it actually count as a symphony?

However, very heavy in depth on the religious aspect.

Anyway, a good show.
For reference, POrokofiev's work for the same occasion is Symphony no.4.

3VS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think this was the first Stravinsky I played in - 2nd oboe in the university orchestra. But I still can't believe the great man could expect an oboe to play softly on low Bs and Cs. I designed my own mute to overcome the problem.

A conical bored woodwind instrument such as an oboe or a saxophone always plays louder down at the bottom. This is a law of physics.

But Symphony of Psalms remains one of my favourite Stravinsky works.

[Roehre]

For reference, Prokofiev's work for the same occasion is Symphony no.4.
3VS

As is Honegger's 1st btw.