Prom 27: López/Rachmaninov/Walton, BBC SO/BBC SC, 4 Aug 2023

[bluestateprommer]

Friday 4 August 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Jimmy López Bellido: Perú negro (UK premiere)
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
[Encores:
(a) Rachmaninov: "Polka de V.R." (first performance at The Proms)
(b) Vincent Youmans: "Tea for Two" (arr. Art Tatum; first performance of this version at The Proms)]

interval

Walton: Belshazzar’s Feast

Yuja Wang, piano
Thomas Hampson, baritone

BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Klaus Mäkelä, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efb84f

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2023/prom-27-yuja-wang-plays-rachmaninov/

[french frank]

Friday 4 August, 19.30: "After an ‘extraordinary’ Proms debut last season, rising-star conductor Klaus Mäkelä is reunited with sensational pianist Yuja Wang for Rachmaninov’s glittering Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – its mercurial moods and technical demands a tour de force for any soloist.

"American baritone Thomas Hampson joins forces with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus for Walton’s biblical blockbuster Belshazzar’s Feast – a choral symphony with an epic impact. Orchestral colour is also on display in Jimmy López Bellido’s Perú negro – a vibrant homage to the songs, dances and traditions of Afro-Peruvian music." (From the RAH website)

[duncan]

Carnage trying to book promming tickets this morning: this one will be busy!

[edashtav]

I’m looking forward to hearing what Klaus Mäkelä makes of Belshazzar’s Feast.

[HighlandDougie]

More, please. Wonderful pianism.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I wasn’t expecting to like Yuja Wang’s Rhapsody hugely as they played her Chopin Bflat minor Sonata last night and I disliked her excessive staccato and weird left hand accents in the opening so much I switched off.
But she played the Rhapsody absolutely beautifully. Not milking the famous D Flat variation - a real model of how to do it. The virtuosity was always in service of the music. The only thing I did notice was the slight tendency for the above the stave to be a bit tinkly - almost as if the notes are being underhit. Maybe it’s just the way she has the piano voiced . But I’m just nit -picking. Her octaves are more muscular than most - I mean really extraordinary. And the accuracy in the “crème-de-menthe skips “ - remarkable. This was the second lovely Proms Rach piano performance after Stephen Hough’s wonderful first piano concerto . And the prospect of an outstanding Rach 2 later in the week. What a feast.
Hardly one ever plays the encore - the Polka de W.R. - lovely to hear it so beautifully played.,

[antongould]

More, please. Wonderful pianism.

indeed ….. wonderful

[edashtav]

Jimmy López Bellido is a classical music composer from Lima in Peru. He has won several international awards and has been nominated for aLatin Grammy Awards. His Perù Negro, a rhapsody on Peruvian Black music starting with the advertising songs and snatches of itinerant street sellers introduced by a fanfare call to attention. Colour, rhythm energise a laid back street scene not without a touch of melancholy, or is it menace? Dances soon erupt propelled by a very active percussion section using modern and traditional instrument such as jawbones. There a good sense of form with motifs tossed from section to section and developed. The foreground is often quick and oropulsive whilst the background may be plodding and seemingly based on slow moving Peruvian chorales. The tempo increases and the music gets ‘hot’ with plenty of room for the members of the orchestra to let their hair down. A fun quarter of an hour!

Onwards to another Rhapsody: Rachmaninov’s; more a Theme and 24 mini Variations than a loose assemblage, and ideal for Yuja Wang‘s mercurial talents. Quicksilver, staccato activity mixed with more reflective languidvariations. One, starring a bassoon was shaped beautifully. The orchestra under superb direction from Klaus Mäkelä produced miraculously tight off-beat chords. Metrical accuracy ruled: OK! Some of Yuja’s effortless prestidigitation took my breath away. The famous 18th variation was less romantic than usual but its end was magical. The subsequent flight to the throw-away coda was imperious and unstoppable, a virtuoso, brilliant performance, gloriously characterised by all three actors: pianist, orchestra and conductor!
Lovely to have Rchmaninov’s jokey Polka arrangement as a cheeky first encore, then it was time for a well-brewed tea 4 2.
i hope to pen something on the second half, later.

[edashtav]

Mäkelä conducted Walton’s oratorio in Paris earlier this year, gaining mixed reactions.
What a crisp start from brass and Chorus!
By the Waters of Babylon sounded so sad. ‘In a strange land…’
Thomas Hampson, baritone, in ringing tones reminded the Jews of Jerusalem and their homeland,
’Yeh, we wept,’ was beautifully sung by the Chorus who were on top form.
I liked Hampson’s characterisation of his list of Babylonian goods.
Everything went swimmingly until we got to the God of Iron.
Suddenly the tempo increased, making very strong demands on enunciation and clarity.
Visceral excitement took over from control.
Whilst orchestra and choir coped very well, I thought KM asked too much of them.
Hampson steadied the ship with his ‘writing on the wall’ solo.
but then, but then … the Fall of Babylon was too fast and became a blur in the big acoustic.
The end was very exciting but not overwhelming.
Work in progress.

[Petrushka]

Best "Slain!" I've ever heard!

[Simon B]

Ed has it about right on the Belshazzar IMV. Makela was clearly properly invested in it, no feeing his way or head buried in the score. He very visibly knew the thing properly, and for that matter the words.

However...

Initial clarity and cogence gave way at exactly the point Ed identified to generic and slightly fuzzy speed and theoretical excitement. There was no gradation or cumulation from that point to the end though. Most of the last movement was a bit of a scramble and somehow not noisy enough despite everything except at the very last.

For a lesson in how to achieve velocity and cumulative excitement in this work in this very acoustic with nominally much the same forces, see the commercial release of the 1994 Last Night with Andrew Davis and a young Bryn Terfel. Now that was noisy excitement.

Commendable clarity and focused sound from the chorus tonight until it got to the point of a scramble they perhaps couldn't quite keep up with. The timps/percussion ought to have been good - almost an entire section of current or former principals of the LPO, Philharmonia and BBCSO presumably by coincidence. Pretty tight as a result despite the hectic speeds in a weird acoustic.

So, pretty good but no cigar.

Ms Wang's contributions were pretty much lost to me. The Albert Hole is like a boozer with a concert going on in the background now that everyone is allowed to bring every kind of drink and also apparently popcorn on this occasion into the auditorium to distract them from the tedious business of actually listening to music or indeed concentrating on anything at all for more than five seconds. At least the Walton makes a big enough noise to drown quite a lot of it out...

[Cockney Sparrow]

.........The Albert Hole is like a boozer with a concert going on in the background now that everyone is allowed to bring every kind of drink and also apparently popcorn on this occasion into the auditorium to distract them from the tedious business of actually listening to music or indeed concentrating on anything at all for more than five seconds......

I was thinking of picking up a return (or released by seat owner/ agency) ticket for one or two of the Proms, but the prospect of Cinema style intrusive noise has rather put me off. Where in the RAH were you sitting?

[Simon B]

Side stalls as usual. I'm probably at the intolerant, some would say curmudgeonly end of the spectrum though so your mileage may vary as they say.

It is now a blanket thing that you can take beer, wine etc in with you. Makes me want to scream personally but there we go. The stench of ethanol all around, arm up arm down arm up arm down arm up arm down and on and on and on and on and on and on. Slurp it, spill it, chuck a glass of red over your nice and probably expensive white coat as the lady next to me at Shostakovich 5 did. It's enough to make me want to hit the booze...

[Sir Velo]

Can this be where we're heading?

[jonfan]

Perhaps we’re going back to Sir Henry’s original idea of freedom to ‘promenade’ while the music was being played? Highly appropriate in Walton’s Feast!!!
I personally haven’t noticed any lack of close attention to the music and I’m pretty sure ‘glasses’ allowed into the auditorium are not made of glass.