Prom 32: Pejačević/G. Williams/Holst, BBC NOW, G. Lewis/Martín

[bluestateprommer]

Tuesday 8 August 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Dora Pejačević: Overture (first performance at The Proms)
Grace Williams: Violin Concerto (first performance at The Proms)

interval

Holst: The Planets

Geneva Lewis, violin (Proms debut artist)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ladies of the London Symphony Chorus
Jaime Martín, conductor (Proms debut artist as conductor)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ehnv9r

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2023/prom-32-holsts-the-planets/

[french frank]

Tuesday 8 August, 19.00 - (approx) 21.05

The Planets: Holst’s colourful character portraits of our Solar System’s seven planets (excluding Earth) is by turns powerfully visceral and captivatingly luminous, opening with the war-like ‘Mars’ and concluding with Neptune, whose alluring sounds float off into the ether.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Jaime Martín present the suite alongside Welsh composer Grace Williams’s Violin Concerto. Suppressed by Williams for many years, it is an intensely lyrical work whose bittersweet opening gives way to an ecstatic slow movement – based on a Welsh hymn tune – and a joyful finale.

The concert opens with Dora Pejačević’s surging single gesture of an Overture, sumptuous textures married to bold, thrusting energy. [RAH website]

[smittims]

I'm looking forward to hearing the Grace Williams concerto. I like everything of hers I've heard so far, especially her two symphonies, both strong works in my opinion. The violin concerto was scheduled for a broadcast some time ago but it was cancelled at short notice for some reason unknown to me.

I wonder if between-movements applause will make a reappearance in The Planets. When David Robertson conducted it at the 2011 Proms (7 September) every movement was separately applauded.

[edashtav]

I'm looking forward to hearing the Grace Williams concerto. I like everything of hers I've heard so far, especially her two symphonies, both strong works in my opinion. The violin concerto was scheduled for a broadcast some time ago but it was cancelled at short notice […].

Yes, I await Grace Williams’ Violin Concerto with considerable interest and Dora Pejačević’s Overture will be an introduction to her music - I see a second, major work of hers will appear in a later Prom programme.

[edashtav]

The overture by Dora Pejačevič disappointed me. It was largely monothematic and the motif was quite primitive. By the end of five minutes ,I’d had enough and I felt the composer had too.

Grace Williams’ Violin Concerto had far more substance. Lyrical in spirit, it started quite nonchalantly, rather in the style of Walton’s Concerrto written, perhaps 11 years before. The music bloomed and grew in stature. Its Welsh roots were very obvious in the middle movement, based in an old Welsh hymn. The soloist, Geneva Lewis,was a splendid advocate for the work which deserves a place in repertoire. The BBC NOW conducted by Jaime Martin played the music with affection and understanding. What a shame there was insufficient time for an encore.

[Maclintick]

I'm looking forward to hearing the Grace Williams concerto. I like everything of hers I've heard so far, especially her two symphonies, both strong works in my opinion. The violin concerto was scheduled for a broadcast some time ago but it was cancelled at short notice for some reason unknown to me.

I wonder if between-movements applause will make a reappearance in The Planets. When David Robertson conducted it at the 2011 Proms (7 September) every movement was separately applauded.

Loved the Grace Williams concerto, the stream of melancholy of the slow movement, the subverted rum-ti-tum of the finale, but also her unerring sense of form. I'll be disappointed if the audience don't applaud between movements of The Planets.

[BillMatters]

I'll be disappointed if the audience don't applaud between movements of The Planets.

Unfortunately, for me, they are clapping. When I was listening at home to the Shostakovich 5th, I, ironically, nearly burst into applause when the audience did not clap between movements.

[oddoneout]

The R3 schedules are very odd for this Prom - the first half, the interval talk and the second half are listed as 3 separate items(ie as if 3 different programmes), with the second half apparently being 2 hours long.
Music played for the first half shows this

Grace Williams
DORA PEJACEVIC
Performer: Jeneva Lewis. Orchestra: BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Perhaps they should pay a bit more and get the alpha version of whatever AI they're using to write the info...

[parkepr]

Blimey, I just heard the applause after Jupiter.... It was like the end of the concert!! Did the conductor turn to take a bow and get the orchestra up?

[Bryn]

And some here wonder why many of the general populous think of those of us who enthuse about 'classical music' as stuff-shirts. Get a grip. If some attending the Proms are used to individual planets from the suite being performed as works on their own right, and show approbation when a particular named piece from the suite comes to the end they recognise, why should they not show the approbation it deserves? 'We all know better' of course.

[smittims]

I thought the Williams concerto closer in character to the Britten than the Walton. Also, it has that surging feeling to it familiar from her 'Sea Sketches', and a 'see-saw' alternation of major and minor which occurs often in the music of her teacher Vaughan Williams. This was a good performance.

Maybe because I haven't been to many concerts and have derived most of my listening form recordings, I don't find much need for applause. I don't mind when the audience applauds between movements; it's better than making a noise while the music's playing. But what I found interesting in this concert was the different levels of applause in the 'Planets'. After the louder endings, such as Mars and Jupiter, it was longer (15 seconds) and with cheering and whistling, as if they thought that was the end; after Venus and Mercury , less, and subdued. And curiously, none at all after 'Uranus'.

[parkepr]

And some here wonder why many of the general populous think of those of us who enthuse about 'classical music' as stuff-shirts. Get a grip. If some attending the Proms are used to individual planets from the suite being performed as works on their own right, and show approbation when a particular named piece from the suite comes to the end they recognise, why should they not show the approbation it deserves? 'We all know better' of course.

To be honest, I don't mind the clapping and was genuinely interested if someone in the hall could advise if bows were taken after Jupiter? As I would imagine it could come across as rude if the conductor didn't acknowledge the applause.

[Bryn]

To be honest, I don't mind the clapping and was genuinely interested if someone in the hall could advise if bows were taken after Jupiter? As I would imagine it could come across as rude if the conductor didn't acknowledge the applause.

To some here, for a conductor to acknowledge such applause, as the likes of Volkov or Norrington might, would open such conductors to calumny as encouragers of such 'non-U' behaviour from some audience members. I concur with Smittims' remark regarding noisy disturbance during movements, though opera fanatics and balletomanes might find such approbative disruption par for the course, as would those attending performances of South Asian classical music (I well recall a very vocal expression of appreciation from the late Imrat Khan during his elder brother Vilayat's performances at the first all-night Prom in 1981).

[Ein Heldenleben]

As Bryn suggests going to the opera more or less completely inoculates you from prejudice against applause. There’s the applause where there’s no musical room for it (Nessun Dorma ). A scattering of applause when the audience haven’t warmed up (Recondita Armonia) , the embarrassing lack of applause where it’s practically written in by the composer - say if the tenor manages to nail the top C in Che Gelida Manina. Not applauding after Zerbinettas’s big aria in Ariadne Auf Naxos seems almost churlish .In Der Rosenkavalier the stage cast applaud the Italian tenor aria in the first act whereas weirdly very often the audience don’t because the music runs on . As Antonio Pappano once said “let’s face it it’s all a circus.”

[smittims]

And let's not forget a famous letter of Mozart expressing his pleasure when the audience applauded during his playing a concerto.