Prom 26: Barry/Walton/Sibelius, BBC Philharmonic, Ehnes/Storgårds

[bluestateprommer]

Wednesday 3 August 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Gerald Barry: Kafka's Earplugs (BBC commission: world premiere)
Walton: Violin Concerto
[Encore: J.S. Bach: Sonata No. 3 in C for solo violin, BWV 1005 - IV. Allegro assai]

interval

Sibelius: Symphony No. 1 in e, op. 39

James Ehnes, violin
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ewx6gw

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2023/prom-26-sibeliuss-first-symphony/

[french frank]

Thursday 3 Aug 19.30: "The BBC Philharmonic and Chief Conductor John Storgårds present Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 – a thrilling glimpse of a composer emerging from the shadow of Tchaikovsky and his fellow Romantics.

Canadian violinist James Ehnes is the soloist in Walton’s fiercely direct Violin Concerto – a work full of song, dance and drama. The concert opens with a world premiere from heartily irreverent Irish composer Gerald Barry, focusing on Franz Kafka’s obsession with wearing earplugs to silence the noise around him.

‘In the music’ Barry says, ‘you are Kafka, hearing the world’s sounds as he heard them. You are inside his head.’ (From the RAH website)

[edashtav]

A whole orchestra heard seemingly through Franz Kafka’s noise reducing earplugs, that is the conceit behind Gerald Barry’s latest piece. I’ve usually enjoyed his works which are often loud and aggressive. How did I cope with a foggy soup which attenuated most high registers and lent compensating importance to bass notes? Kafka’s world was muted but, apparently pretty busy with much chugging rhythmic activity. Ostinati must have irritated the poor writer, their very repetitious nature making them ear-worms. The silence at the work’s conclusion was golden. Yes, it was disturbing and dislocating but I was glad to have experienced it.

It’s 10 years since William Walton’s Violin Concerto was heard at the Proms. James Ehnes has performed it many times during the last decade but I wonder how well acquainted John Storgårds is with Walton’s idiom? The work shuffles onto stage in a laid back, nonchalant manner and that entrance was handled well. James Ehnes has a lovely tone but I sometimes find his interpretations lack a cutting edge. Certainly, John and his orchestra provided the more explosive fireworks. James excelled during languid, Mediterranean stretches and his high position work on his E string was a constant delight as were his accurate intonation and luscious tone in unaccompanied passages. The broadcast on Sounds was splendid, catching many half-hidden orchestral details.

The Tarantella set off at great pace with real bite & sting. The Spanish episodes were beautifully characterised. I’d have liked a little more electric charge from James but, on the other hand he’s so assured and his technique is wonderful and so reliable (shades of the work’s dedicatee, Jascha Heifetz).

The finale looks back in romantic love and affection. That found Mr. Ehnes a little lacking in Latin passion, he’s such a decent Canadian gentleman: tender, indeed, but not a spontaneous , no-holds barred lover.
The orchestra and John Storgårds exceeded my expectations.

✳️✳️✳️✳️ rather than ✳️✳️✳️✳️✳️

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes Ed - agreed about the Walton, which is one of my favourite violin concertos in any case, so I was delighted not to have been disappointed. How could Mr Ehnes follow on from that work's bewitching conclusion? Well quite possibly his choice of the Bach solo movement was the only one possible, and it was carried off with likewise panache. Great work from the BBC sound engineers, with barely a concession to the wide dynamic range in either this or the remainder of the concert, which has almost always proved so irksome in the past. I have to say I found the Barry piece tedious in the extreme - the composer, whose early music I had always enjoyed, despite its lying outside my aesthetic realm, seemingly out to parody Birtwistle in the worst possible fashion. But there we go: the Sibelius 1, not my favourite of the series, it being too dependent for its emotional impact on Tchaikovskyian rhetoric, was given a good rousing performance, with the disturbing accelerando passage in the slow movement and those in the finale carried through to thrilling effect. It would have been heart-warming to have been in that enthusiastic audience.

[Maclintick]

A whole orchestra heard seemingly through Franz Kafka’s noise reducing earplugs, that is the conceit behind Gerald Barry’s latest piece. I’ve usually enjoyed his works which are often loud and aggressive. How did I cope with a foggy soup which attenuated most high registers and lent compensating importance to bass notes? Kafka’s world was muted but, apparently pretty busy with much chugging rhythmic activity. Ostinati must have irritated the poor writer, their very repetitious nature making them ear-worms. The silence at the work’s conclusion was golden. Yes, it was disturbing and dislocating but I was glad to have experienced it.

I am sorry to report, Ed, as I'm usually in sync with your assessments, that my view of the latest Gerald Barry commission is diametrically opposed to yours. Having endured this composer's execrable "Beethoven" and "Canada" musical-jokes in recent years, I'm dumbfounded that he should have been re-commissioned for yet another non-composition. The "Irish Jokester" label may beguile the English metropolitan musical elite for whatever reason, but it shouldn't obscure the fact that Barry is basically a dud. Initially, I was intrigued by the low-register rumblings, but soon irritated by any lack of progression. About 6 or 7 minutes in we were treated to a doubling of tempo and register which persisted to the end. Nothing gained...

[Serial_Apologist]

I am sorry to report, Ed, as I'm usually in sync with your assessments, that my view of the latest Gerald Barry commission is diametrically opposed to yours. Having endured this composer's execrable "Beethoven" and "Canada" musical-jokes in recent years, I'm dumbfounded that he should have been re-commissioned for yet another non-composition. The "Irish Jokester" label may beguile the English metropolitan musical elite for whatever reason, but it shouldn't obscure the fact that Barry is basically a dud. Initially, I was intrigued by the low-register rumblings, but soon irritated by any lack of progression. About 6 or 7 minutes in we were treated to a doubling of tempo and register which persisted to the end. Nothing gained...

Nothing to disagree with there.

[edashtav]

Nothing to disagree with there.

Milords Serial_Apologist and Maclintick,

i’d like to call on evidence from two éminences grises:

Andrew Clements wrote in the Guardian two years ago:

“Gerald Barry is always sober,” Mauricio Kagel once said of his former pupil, “but might as well always be drunk”. That sums up the Irishman’s music perfectly: it can be enchanting, exhilarating, wildly funny, frighteningly violent or downright infuriating, sometimes all at the same time.“

Gerald has two successful operas to his name.

I feel that he and his teacher, Mauricio Kagel deserve a sympathetic hearing.

By the way, I reckon dear Tom Service of the BBC is in my corner.

[smittims]

I rather liked the Barry piece, though I thought it too long: 6-7 minutes should have been enough. My approach may have helped. I had heard Barry's name and knew he was an Irish composer, but that was all. And I never read or listen to introductory words before hearing a work new to me, as I feel a piece of music should itself display everything a listener needs to know. Of all this year's novelties so far, this is the one I'll be interested to hear again.

I felt neither the soloist nor the conductor sounded sufficiently sympathetic to Walton's idiom to get the best out of the first two movements of the concerto, though things improved in the finale. For instace,the tutti towards the end of the first movement was a bit 'stolid' or plodding, where it should have glittered. Maybe I've heard too many classic interpretations; as well as Heifetz, Zino Francescatti and Ida Haendel stand out for me .

The Sibelius too has had so many outstanding performances that it must be hard to do it afresh. John Storgards' way with it is well-known by now and although it's not my favourite interpretation I liked the way he waited a while between the first two movements (maybe because of the coughing). But it was still just a group of fine musicians playing well; I wasn't mentally wafted off to a Scandinavian birch-forest in spring, as I was with Kajanus or Collins.

[edashtav]

I rather liked the Barry piece, though I thought it too long: 6-7 minutes should have been enough. My approach may have helped. I had heard Barry's name and knew he was an Irish composer, but that was all. And I never read or listen to introductory words before hearing a work new to me, as I feel a piece of music should itself display everything a listener needs to know. Of all this year's novelties so far, this is the one I'll be interested to hear again.

I felt neither the soloist nor the conductor sounded sufficiently sympathetic to Walton's idiom to get the best out of the first two movements of the concerto, though things improved in the finale. For instace,the tutti towards the end of the first movement was a bit 'stolid' or plodding, where it should have glittered. Maybe I've heard too many classic interpretations; as well as Heifetz, Zino Francescatti and Ida Haendel stand out for me .

The Sibelius too has had so many outstanding performances that it must be hard to do it afresh. John Storgards' way with it is well-known by now and although it's not my favourite interpretation I liked the way he waited a while between the first two movements (maybe because of the coughing). But it was still just a group of fine musicians playing well; I wasn't mentally wafted off to a Scandinavian birch-forest in spring, as I was with Kajanus or Collins.

The Innocent Ear lives on!

[smittims]

Yes, I was a big Bob Simpson fan in those days!

[edashtav]

Yes, I was a big Bob Simpson fan in those days!

Yes, I joined his ‘gang’, too. I admired his music but only his 2nd Symphony has survived my loss of innocence.

[smittims]

The Fourth is still my favourite. I've always preferred his even-numbered symphonies to his odd-numbered ones , and wondered if he himself was aware of a distinction between the two groups, as Virginia Woolf was said to be between her odd-numbered and even-numbered novels.
The string quartets, I find, have not survived the test of time so well, though I still have a fondness for the sixth.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I was a big Bob Simpson fan in those days!

I always found there to be too much bluster in both his symphonies (in particular) and his views!

But I salute his championing of Havergal Brian!

[edashtav]

I always found there to be too much bluster in both his symphonies (in particular) and his views!

But I salute his championing of Havergal Brian!

Yes, Bob did hector!

[edashtav]

I’ve been stimulated into adding to my defence of Gerald Barry’s music by reading this written by David Wordsworth, once of Schotts:

“Playful, satirical, touching, witty, bizarre, amusing “

David applied those terms to LIGETI & BERIO.

We need a THIRD MAN to complete a pan-European trio.

I reckon the description fits GERALD BARRY