Your Most Unforgettable Concert

[decantor]

decantor, see here, #34. I thought there was a chance someone else was there....

Richard T, I can’t think how I failed to register your earlier post – and you remember the date, too. You say it was a “charged occasion”. Indeed yes, and I felt it especially, as on my previous visit to The Maltings (just months earlier, I think, for Curlew River) Britten had been in his bunker, looking desperately ill.

And Steerpike also there. Thirty-eight years pass, and we reassemble......

[Richard Tarleton]

Richard T, I can’t think how I failed to register your earlier post – and you remember the date, too. You say it was a “charged occasion”. Indeed yes, and I felt it especially, as on my previous visit to The Maltings (just months earlier, I think, for Curlew River) Britten had been in his bunker, looking desperately ill.

I was there too - Imogen H sitting next to him, if memory serves.

And Steerpike also there. Thirty-eight years pass, and we reassemble......

Indeed - remarkable really

[makropulos]

This is a lovely thread. For the sake of sanity, I'm going to restrict myself to Proms. But even then, one is impossible...
17 July 1970: Messiaen: La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur, cond. Serge Baudo (UK premiere)
8 September 1974: Janacek: Katya Kabanova, cond. Charles Mackerras, ENO (concert performance)
17 August 1977: Vaughan Williams: Job, cond. Boult with BBC Northern SO (Boult's last-ever Prom and a simply glorious performance)

Of these three, I saw the same production of Katya in the theatre several times, so I suppose I could put that to one side. But the Messiaen and RVW Job were both pretty-much life changing events. I simply can't choose between them - sorry!

[slarty]

Of all the concerts I have ever seen, the Prom 16 August 1967 - Mahler 6 , New Philharmonia and Barbirolli.
it is still the greatest Mahler sixth of my life.

[jayne lee wilson]

Nielsen Symphony No.5, BBCSO/Oramo, Barbican 10/04/15, Radio 3 live...!
(Internal program subject to change or alteration...)

[Barbirollians]

Of all the concerts I have ever seen, the Prom 16 August 1967 - Mahler 6 , New Philharmonia and Barbirolli.
it is still the greatest Mahler sixth of my life.

Serious envy here - but as I was only a very small baby at the time I doubt I would have enjoyed it then . Is that the performance that appears on Testament ?

[Stanfordian]

Last night's concert takes some beating. It was Pinchas Zukerman giving a spellbinding performance of the Elgar violin concerto with the RPO and the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

[Beef Oven!]

Of all the concerts I have ever seen, the Prom 16 August 1967 - Mahler 6 , New Philharmonia and Barbirolli.
it is still the greatest Mahler sixth of my life.

I have the CD of that concert

Seems he went to Walthamstow and recorded it in the Assembly Hall soon after, unless I'm wrong.

[slarty]

Serious envy here - but as I was only a very small baby at the time I doubt I would have enjoyed it then . Is that the performance that appears on Testament ?

Yes Barbs, It is, and the CD is a great reminder of what I saw.
I can add that I then went home to Scotland and caught Karajan and the BPO at the Edinburgh Festival with the Bach Magnificat and Brahms 1. what a marvelous time it was.

[slarty]

I have the CD of that concert

Seems he went to Walthamstow and recorded it in the Assembly Hall soon after, unless I'm wrong.

You are right. They went into the studios the next morning. it was difficult to believe that the recording which eventually appeared on HMV and the performance that I heard the night before came from the same forces. Now that the Testament CD is available they are comparable, one is electrifying from beginning to end and the other is not.

[Conchis]

Of all the concerts I have ever seen, the Prom 16 August 1967 - Mahler 6 , New Philharmonia and Barbirolli.
it is still the greatest Mahler sixth of my life.

I was two weeks old at the time!

I can only imagine what it must have been like living in London in the sixties. 'Amazing' wouldn't begin to do justice to it.

[Beef Oven!]

You are right. They went into the studios the next morning. it was difficult to believe that the recording which eventually appeared on HMV and the performance that I heard the night before came from the same forces. Now that the Testament CD is available they are comparable, one is electrifying from beginning to end and the other is not.

Indeed. but that HMV/EMI recording has a special place in my heart. Wading through molasses it may be be, but......

[Dave2002]

Of all the concerts I have ever seen, the Prom 16 August 1967 - Mahler 6 , New Philharmonia and Barbirolli.
it is still the greatest Mahler sixth of my life.

I didn't hear Barbirolli do that one, but I did travel to Manchester to hear him conduct the Halle in the 7th - the only time I saw him live. It was OK. I think both he and I might have enjoyed other music more. I remember cowbells and Hugo d'Alton who often turned up to play the mandolin.

I also travelled to Manchester to hear Haydn's Nelson Mass - maybe that was in the Whitworth gallery, or the museum. I really liked the performance though I don't think it was done by big name artists and orchestra/conductor. The point was that at that time hardly anyone performed Haydn's masses, so hearing it in a live concert was a treat. There were still steam trains I think, though maybe I went and returned to Liverpool on a DMU, so it was probably in the early 1960s.

[slarty]

Indeed. but that HMV/EMI recording has a special place in my heart. Wading through molasses it may be be, but......

I know what you mean Beefy, but I don't feel that it was a true representation of JB's Mahler 6.
there are four recordings extant
1965 Prom Halle.
1966 Berlin BPO
1967 Prom NPO
HMV NPO
The first three are all very similar, there are fluctuations in timings, but they are minimal compared to the HMV where the tempi are sluggish. JB was almost spent after the emotional and adrenalin fired performance on the 16th August, 1967. To then go into the studios the next morning to do it again was really like "after the Lord Mayor's show". I knew many of the then members of the NPO and all of them said that it was almost impossible to recreate the special feeling of the concert and all considered that the recording was a little flat in comparison.
the same can be said of the difference between JB's live Heldenleben (thankfully preserved on BBC Legends) and the commercial HMV made days later. I attended the repeat of that concert at the RFH on the Sunday in 1969, it was tremendous. One of the two greatest Heldenlebens I have ever heard, the LSO played magnificently for him, but the recording was also a disappointment in comparison.
in his last years JB was very ill and seemed to reserve most of his energy for live performances.
coupled with the habit of sleeping only 3 to 4 hours a night, he was much more often at his best later in the day(evenings) as he was at 0930 in a recording studio.
I am very happy that so many of his live performances have been preserved.

[Beef Oven!]

I know what you mean Beefy, but I don't feel that it was a true representation of JB's Mahler 6.
there are four recordings extant
1965 Prom Halle.
1966 Berlin BPO
1967 Prom NPO
HMV NPO
The first three are all very similar, there are fluctuations in timings, but they are minimal compared to the HMV where the tempi are sluggish. JB was almost spent after the emotional and adrenalin fired performance on the 16th August, 1967. To then go into the studios the next morning to do it again was really like "after the Lord Mayor's show". I knew many of the then members of the NPO and all of them said that it was almost impossible to recreate the special feeling of the concert and all considered that the recording was a little flat in comparison.
the same can be said of the difference between JB's live Heldenleben (thankfully preserved on BBC Legends) and the commercial HMV made days later. I attended the repeat of that concert at the RFH on the Sunday in 1969, it was tremendous. One of the two greatest Heldenlebens I have ever heard, the LSO played magnificently for him, but the recording was also a disappointment in comparison.
in his last years JB was very ill and seemed to reserve most of his energy for live performances.
coupled with the habit of sleeping only 3 to 4 hours a night, he was much more often at his best later in the day(evenings) as he was at 0930 in a recording studio.
I am very happy that so many of his live performances have been preserved.

Yes, I agree, the HMV/EMI recorded in the Assembly Hall adjacent to Walthamstow Town Hall is very different to Giovanni Battista's live recordings, which, as you say, have been preserved. I don't know the 1965 Prom recording, but I have the 1966 BPO (Pianorak, on this forum put me onto the BPO Testament) and the 1967 NPO.