Prom 28: NYOGB, Rangwanasha / Prieto, 5 August 2023

[bluestateprommer]

Saturday 5 August 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)
[Encore: Errolyn Wallen: "The Whole World" (first performance at The Proms)]

interval

Copland: Symphony No. 3
[Encore: Louis Prima: "Sing, Sing, Sing" (with interpolation of Chu Berry: "Christopher Columbus")]

Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, soprano
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor (Proms debut artist)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/emzd2m

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2023/prom-28-national-youth-orchestra-of-great-britain/

[Pulcinella]

This looks a cracker of a programme.
One of my friends hopes to be there!

[french frank]

Saturday 5 August, 19.30: "After a ‘stunning’ debut at last year’s First Night of the Proms, South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, winner of the Song Prize at the 2021 Cardiff Singer of the World, returns to perform in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs – luminous musical farewells to life, love and a changing world.

"Drawn from the UK’s finest teenage musicians, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain also performs Hindemith’s jovial reworking of themes by Weber, before crossing the Atlantic for Copland’s lyrical Symphony No. 3 – ‘very symphonic and very jazzy’, according to Leonard Bernstein – which incorporates his much-loved Fanfare for the Common Man as a springboard for its final movement." [RAH website]

[smittims]

I always enjoy the NYO Prom. Last year's, with Andrew Gourlay, was superb. And I'm glad they've continued to repeat it on TV.

[Pulcinella]

Copland’s lyrical Symphony No. 3 – ‘very symphonic and very jazzy’, according to Leonard Bernstein
Really?
Jazzy is not a word that springs to my mind as a description of Copland 3.

[smittims]

I agreee, but there was a time when any work containing any syncopation was called 'jazzy', e.g. Arthur Benjamin's Concertino, which is more Vaughan Williams than jazz, to my ears. Perhaps Lenny was just trying ot encourage people to listen to the Copland.

[edashtav]

Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber
The National Youth Orchestra attacked Hindemith’s ‘jeu d’ésprit’ with brash brio, energy and youthful zeal: let’s Party with Paul! It was colourful, fun and relaxed. They knew their parts well, meaning that they could shape them and engage with other players ensuring that Paul’s jokes and mockery of academic devices came off the page into richly coloured, larger than life, music. A terrific performance, the best I’ve ever heard, and I’m a keen Hindemithian.

Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)
Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha has a lovely voice. It took a short for soprano and orchestra to fully co-ordinate in ‘Spring’, pehaps because Strauss’s lush romanticism is s much more fluid than Hindemith’s metrical straight-forwardness. I had some worries over orchestral balance in the second song, coupled with further concerns about ‘give and take’. The famous horn solo was well moulded. On to the penultimate song and its tear-jerking violin solo, nicely done although some of the accompanying wind players were a bit rigid. I was hoping that the whole ensemble would relax and show, again, its excellent best in the finale. The prologue was smooth and authoritative. At last there was graceful comunication between Masabane and the orchestra.
Overall, I could not stop my anxiety and enjoy this performance, fully, as I was tense and willing the orchestra to ‘come good’.
I enjoyed Errolyn Wallen’ s choral encore arrangements without reservation and they brought the house down.

[DracoM]

Best thing about that Prom was the Copland .........and that fantastic encore!!!!

[edashtav]

Best thing about that Prom was the Copland .........and that fantastic encore!!!!

Spot on, DracoM! Yes, the performance of Copland’s 3rd Symphony was idiomatic, confident, powerful and altogether splendid. Copland knew the benefits of economy when scoring for orchestra: he made wonderful use of his rubber.
“Do I sound good in this?”
“Yes, you sure do!”

My problem with this ‘Great American Symphony’ is that it’s the most ‘Soviet’ of Copland’s works: it drips with positive feelings and there is little, too little, contrasting shade. It’s 99% ‘motherhood and apple pie’. But, this Great American Dream, this wide open Prairie is just the ticket for a talented Youth orchestra, just as Strauss’s 4 Last Songs - all about last things- in this concert’s first half was difficult terrain.

I have the highest respect for Carlos Miguel Prieto‘s conducting in this and the Hindemith because he ensured that his young students understood the different sound worlds of the two composers.

The huge orchestra produced a riot of an encore in which every member seemed to have their own solo or ‘riff’.
“Did you hear my solo in the Encore, Mum?”
”I sure did, and you were …(tears welling up)… fantastic, darling.’

????

[Sir Velo]

After a slightly ragged opening movement , the NYO gave a virtuoso performance of The Weber Variations (sorry, Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes After CMVW) with the final march rightly bringing the house down . Fine brass and percussion playing throughout and characterful woodwind solos once everyone had settled in..The rumbustious Turandot movement brought home the influence of jazz on Hindemith and his own Ragtime more than any other performance I can remember.

Now I must go and find the Weber originals.

[smittims]

I agree with edashtav about the Hindemith: utterly superb, and incidentally a composer we don't hear enough on Radio3.

I didn't enjoy the Strauss and I think it was much too slow and self-indulgent at 22'18". Compare this with
Flagstad/Furtwangler (premiere at the RAH) 19'47"
Casa/Bohm (for many Straussians the classic version) 18'18"
Schwarzkopf/Ackermann 19'27"
Harper/Hickox (a favourite of mine) 19'58".

I think some singers like to sing slower and slower because they enjoy their long notes. But it can distort the necessary rhythm and pace.

I'm listening to the Copland at present and it's going well. There are quite a lot of unison passages in this symphony, and angular intervals, which pose intonation problems, and the NYO are doing well.

I didn't like the encore piece at all. I'd have made asharp exit at that point.

[Pulcinella]

After a slightly ragged opening movement , the NYO gave a virtuoso performance of The Weber Variations (sorry, Symphonic Metamorphoses of Themes After CMVW) with the final march rightly bringing the house down . Fine brass and percussion playing throughout and characterful woodwind solos once everyone had settled in..The rumbustious Turandot movement brought home the influence of jazz on Hindemith and his own Ragtime more than any other performance I can remember.

Now I must go and find the Weber originals.

Good Sir: It's a singular (sic, in both senses) Metamorphosis (though I too tend think of it in the plural.

Much enjoyed here. I didn't find the Strauss too over-indulgent, and admired the singer's breath control and tone.

[smittims]

Maybe we're straying into pedants' paradise here, but I do see it often spelt on CD covers 'Metamorphoses'. Isn't the original a plural? (Metamorphosen')

I've now heard the Copland and found it superb throughout, a real test of their skills. I look forward to seeing the TV repeat.

[Bryn]

https://en.bab.la/dictionary/german-english/metamorphosen

[Pulcinella]

Maybe we're straying into pedants' paradise here, but I do see it often spelt on CD covers 'Metamorphoses'. Isn't the original a plural? (Metamorphosen')

I've now heard the Copland and found it superb throughout, a real test of their skills. I look forward to seeing the TV repeat.

From Bryn's link it seems you're right. (But read on!)

A singular work in any event.

Wiki has this of part of its article, though:

Although by its thematic material it belongs squarely in the European tradition, it was composed with the virtuosity of American symphony orchestras in mind, and was titled originally in English. Other hands later translated it variously into German as Symphonische Metamorphose von [über/nach/zu] Themen Carl Maria von Webers; two German editions mistakenly give the title in the plural, Sinfonische Metamorphosen nach Themen von Carl Maria von Weber, and Sinfonische Metamorphosen Carl Maria von Weber’scher Themen, though none of these German titles were sanctioned by Hindemith. They nevertheless have sometimes been back-translated into English as Metamorphoses on Themes by .... The work is also sometimes known in English as Symphonic Variations on (or of) Themes by Carl Maria von Weber but, despite the title's reference to "themes", the work incorporates material more broadly from whole works by Weber.