Proms at The Glasshouse 1: Tailleferre / Sibelius / Dvořák

[bluestateprommer]

Friday 26 July 2024
19:30
(live concert)

Scheduled R3 broadcast:
Saturday 27 July 2024
16:15

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music
Sage One
St Mary's Square
Gateshead Quays
Gateshead, NE8 2JR
England

Germaine Tailleferre: Petite suite pour orchestre (first performance at The Proms)
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47

Interval

Dvořák: Symphony No. 8 in G major, op. 88

Alena Baeva, violin (Proms debut artist)
Royal Northern Sinfonia
Dinis Sousa, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ez39hn

https://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/extra/h5nfu1lckf/Proms-Gateshead-26-July-Sousa_RNS

https://theglasshouseicm.org/whats-on/bbc-proms-sibelius-violin-concerto/

R3 delayed broadcast, Saturday 27 July 2024, 16:15:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021bs3

[edashtav]

Germane Tailleferre was 65 and she had suffered abuse from her father and her two husbands when she wrote her Petite Suite in 1957. Even her support for Les Six was belittled by one of its supporters, Jean Cocteau, who called her "Une Marie Laurencin pour l'oreille"(A Marie Laurencin for the ear). Nothing stopped Gabrielle composing simple miniatures in her own style which owed as much to her friend Ravel, and Rameau heard through neo-classical ears as it did to the fundamentals of Les Six.

Petite suite uses a large orchestra with extreme economy and delicacy. Tunes abound and many instruments have solo lines with sparse accompaniment. The movements reminded me of spirit of Erik Satie. Their mood is childlike, naive and as delicate as dandelion pappi.

The Royal Northern Sinfonia under its Conductor, Dinis Sousa captured the suite's innocence to perfection.

[bluestateprommer]

Good, solid Prom from The Glasshouse ICM from the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa. Agree with Ed about the quality of the Tailleferre opener. The rest of the concert was very meat-and-potatoes standard fare. Alena Baeva did a fine job with the Sibelius, where I noticed but one very slightly fractional phrasing slip. In Dvorak 8, Dinis S. lingered and seemed to stretch things out a tad indulgently, perhaps in part to avoid an obvious barn-burner interpretation. The smaller size of the orchestra seemed to bring out the winds and brass a bit more than I'm used to hearing in Dvorak 8. The online program gives a total of 57 musicians for the concert, compared to the orchestra's current listing of 31 players (not all of whose names showed up in the Friday night concert).

Perhaps not a world-beater of a concert (and maybe a partial explanation for the low thread traffic here, besides the somewhat awkward broadcast time slot), but it was more than good enough. The applause between movements after the first movement of the Sibelius and between 1 & 2, and 2 & 3, of the Dvorak might indicate some newbies to classical at The Glasshouse ICM.

[Barbirollians]

Catching up with this one I agree with edashtav about the Tailleferre. The Sibelius didn’t wow but was well played . I enjoyed the Dvorak .