Prom 63: 'The Rite by Heart' (2), Aurora Orchestra, Saturday 2 September 2023

[bluestateprommer]

Saturday 2 September 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

A dramatic and musical exploration of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring

interval

Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring / Весна священная; performed from memory)
[Encores: Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps - "Glorification de l'élue", "Danse de la terre"]

Charlotte Ritchie, actress
Karl Queensborough, actor

Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon, conductor

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

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tick...rite-by-heart/

[rauschwerk]

The Aurora Orchestra did this piece at Snape last week, making the second half of a conventionally planned programme. In the first half we had:-

Elgar: Cockaigne
Bloch: Schelomo (with Sheku Kanneh-Mason)

An excellent performance of the Stravinsky, though what playing and conducting from memory added to the experience I cannot say. The Elgar was suitably rumbustious, the Bloch passionate as it should be. Another time I'll sit further back!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If they want this Rite performance to be authentic, are they going to supply the audience with rotten tomatoes?

[Bryn]

If they want this Rite performance to be authentic, are they going to supply the audience with rotten tomatoes?

Hmm. is it to be danced? Was not the first performance as a concert work, without dancers, rather well received?

[smittims]

I've read that even the second stage performance was well-received, perhaps because the vandals weren't there and the audience could hear the music. Although it was staged in London shortly after, it was not heard there again till 1922 when the young Eugene Goossens conducted a concert performance which attracted a lot of attention,and which may have been the first time many peope in Britain heard it. Siegfried Sassoon even wrote a poem about the occasion.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've read that even the second stage performance was well-received, perhaps because the vandals weren't there and the audience could hear the music. Although it was staged in London shortly after, it was not heard there again till 1922 when the young Eugene Goossens conducted a concert performance which attracted a lot of attention,and which may have been the first time many peope in Britain heard it. Siegfried Sassoon even wrote a poem about the occasion.

Is this the one?

Concert Interpretation

The Audience pricks an intellectual Ear …
Stravinsky … Quite the Concert of the Year!

Forgetting now that none so distant date
When they (of folk facsimilar in state
Of mind) first heard with hisses – hoots – guffaws
This abstract Symphony; (they booed because
Stravinsky jumped their Wagner palisade
With modes that seemed cacophonous & queer;)
Forgetting now the hullabaloo they made
The Audience pricks an intellectual Ear

Bassoons begin … Sonority envelops
Our auditory innocence; & brings
To me, I must admit, some drift of things
Omnific, seminal, & adolescent.
Polyphone through dissonance develops
A serpent-conscious Eden, crude but pleasant;
While vibro-atmospheric copulations
With mezzo-forte mysteries of noise
Prelude Stravinsky’s statement of the joys
That unify the monkeydom of nations.

This matter is most indelicate indeed!
Yet one perceives no symptom of stampede.
The Stalls remain unruffled: craniums gleam
Swept by a storm of pizzicato chords:
Elaborate ladies reassure their lords
With lifting brows that signify ‘Supreme’
While orchestrated gallantry of goats
Impugns the astigmatic programme-notes.

In the Grand Circle one observes no sign
Of riot: peace prevails along the line.
And in the Gallery, cargoed to capacity
No tremor bodes eruptions & alarms.
They are listening to this not-quite-new audacity
As though it were by someone dead, – like Brahms.

But savagery pervades Me; I am frantic
With corybantic rupturing of laws.
Come dance, & seize this clamorous chance to function
Creatively – abandoning compunction
In anti-social rhapsodic applause!
Lynch the conductor! Jugulate the drums!
Butch the brass! Ensanguinate the strings!
Throttle the flutes! … Stravinsky’s April comes
With pitiless pomp & pain of sacred springs …
Incendiarise the Hall with resinous fires
Of sacrificial fiddles scorched & snapping …
Meanwhile the music blazes & expires;
And the delighted audience is clapping.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good poem that. I’ve always been tickled that Rite / Riot is a kind of play in words. As Sassoon (comically ) says an appropriate response to a good performance might well be an orgy of blood letting

[smittims]

Thanks for posting that, Alpie. I must have given away my copy of his 'Selected Poems'.

[gradus]

I too saw them at Snape, it was a cracking performance and the only time I can remember a pro orchestra congratulating each other after the final chord.

[bluestateprommer]

Yet another late BBC Sounds catch-up, and also perhaps another instance of me listening to this Prom so that the rest of you don't have to ;) . The formula for the Aurora Orchestra's "from memory" Proms seems pretty set now, with the "classical for starters" spoken presentation with musical examples (with one moment of audience choral participation) in the first half, but this time without Tom Service (whew). The spoken presentation was good, maybe a bit bitty in what it presented, although one of the nice nuggets was to hear how Stravinsky transformed original sacred chant into the opening bassoon solo. Charlotte Ritchie and Karl Queensborough both did a fine job, with Nicholas C. making a few contributions as "supporting actor".

The performance of the work itself was OK, nothing very special at least to me. I thought that maybe a bar got skipped in Part One, and there seemed to be an early entrance or two here and there. The strings sounded a bit reduced in presence compared to the rest of the orchestra. But some lines that I don't recall hearing before, even live, came through. And the sheer act of memorizing the score is an immense achievement in of itself, to state the obvious.

One wonders what Aurora Orchestra will do for next year's "from memory" Prom (perhaps they'll dare Bruckner).

[Bryn]

Yet another late BBC Sounds catch-up, and also perhaps another instance of me listening to this Prom so that the rest of you don't have to ;) . The formula for the Aurora Orchestra's "from memory" Proms seems pretty set now, with the "classical for starters" spoken presentation with musical examples (with one moment of audience choral participation) in the first half, but this time without Tom Service (whew). The spoken presentation was good, maybe a bit bitty in what it presented, although one of the nice nuggets was to hear how Stravinsky transformed original sacred chant into the opening bassoon solo. Charlotte Ritchie and Karl Queensborough both did a fine job, with Nicholas C. making a few contributions as "supporting actor".

The performance of the work itself was OK, nothing very special at least to me. I thought that maybe a bar got skipped in Part One, and there seemed to be an early entrance or two here and there. The strings sounded a bit reduced in presence compared to the rest of the orchestra. But some lines that I don't recall hearing before, even live, came through. And the sheer act of memorizing the score is an immense achievement in of itself, to state the obvious.

One wonders what Aurora Orchestra will do for next year's "from memory" Prom (perhaps they'll dare Bruckner).

How about Ives' 4th?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

..,And the sheer act of memorizing the score is an immense achievement in of itself, to state the obvious.

One wonders what Aurora Orchestra will do for next year's "from memory" Prom (perhaps they'll dare Bruckner).

I admire the ability to perform from memory, but when an ensemble does so because it’s a condition of employment, the admiration stops. My appreciation of the musicians’ performances is paramount. Their ability to play from memory is unimportant, however much presenters and concert promoters drool over them.

in these days of inclusiveness, their other gimmick is a step in the opposite direction. Some of the world’s finest musicians would be excluded from the orchestra, simply because of the requirement to play standing up throughout. I don’t just mean the likes of Jeffrey Tate and Itzhak Perlman; many others, through no fault of their own, have conditions that make prolonged standing unwise, and sometimes impossible. They can’t all play the cello.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I admire the ability to perform from memory, but when an ensemble does so because it’s a condition of employment, the admiration stops. My appreciation of the musicians’ performances is paramount. Their ability to play from memory is unimportant, however much presenters and concert promoters drool over them.

in these days of inclusiveness, their other gimmick is a step in the opposite direction. Some of the world’s finest musicians would be excluded from the orchestra, simply because of the requirement to play standing up throughout. I don’t just mean the likes of Jeffrey Tate and Itzhak Perlman; many others, through no fault of their own, have conditions that make prolonged standing unwise, and sometimes impossible. They can’t all play the cello.

A concert pianist to have any sort of career would be expected to have in their memory many hours of both solo and concerto repertoire. Pieces like the Hammerklavier and Rach 3 have thousands of notes in them . So what is so impressive about memorising the horn part of Beethoven’s fifth? And what real difference does it make musically playing it from memory ?

[Bryn]

A concert pianist to have any sort of career would be expected to have in their memory many hours of both solo and concerto repertoire. Pieces like the Hammerklavier and Rach 3 have thousands of notes in them . So what is so impressive about memorising the horn part of Beethoven’s fifth? And what real difference does it make musically playing it from memory ?

Do not most concert pianists (and other instrumental soloists) tend to have a fairly restricted repertoire of memorised works, whereas an orchestral player will be expected to play whatever is programmed for them, unless, as with the Aurora Orchestra, they opt to concentrate on a similarly restricted range of works to that of concert soloists?

[RichardB]

I admire the ability to perform from memory, but when an ensemble does so because it’s a condition of employment, the admiration stops. My appreciation of the musicians’ performances is paramount. Their ability to play from memory is unimportant, however much presenters and concert promoters drool over them.

in these days of inclusiveness, their other gimmick is a step in the opposite direction. Some of the world’s finest musicians would be excluded from the orchestra, simply because of the requirement to play standing up throughout. I don’t just mean the likes of Jeffrey Tate and Itzhak Perlman; many others, through no fault of their own, have conditions that make prolonged standing unwise, and sometimes impossible. They can’t all play the cello.

I agree with all of this. While playing standing up (for those who can) is common in HIPP performances for reasons of authenticity, of course it doesn't actually make any difference to the sound, and nor or course does it make any difference to the sound whether or not the music is played from memory.

As for orchestral musicians in general, another difference between their work and that of soloists is that even if they might have memorised the horn part of Beethoven's fifth, they might play it once every few years, and often under different conductors whose interpretations might well necessitate extra marking up of the part, to say nothing of string players whose bowings might need to be rewritten from one performance to the next. Soloists aren't bound to someone else's idea of how the music should go, even when they're working with conductors.

I was very impressed once, some years ago, to see an ensemble play Varèse's Octandre from memory and without a conductor, but when I listened to the radio broadcast I just thought to myself this is a fairly ordinary performance, not as together as it could be. One's mileage may vary, of course, as they say.