Prom 17: Ives/Ravel/Debussy/Tchaikovsky, RPO/Philharmonia Ch., Kozhukhin/V. Petrenko

[bluestateprommer]

Thursday 1 August 2204
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Ives: Three Places in New England
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
[Encore: Tchaikovsky: Album for the Young - 'In the Church', op. 39, no. 24]

Interval

Debussy: Nocturnes
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini

Denis Kozhukhin, piano
Philharmonia Chorus
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/en6fbp

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-17/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021bx2

[Pulcinella]

I see that this is heralded as Prom 17: Vasily Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky

So Francesca da Rimini is supposedly the draw is it/she?

[edashtav]

It's got everything, hell,.bells and buckets of blood! [Whoops]

[Pulcinella]

It's got everything, he'll,bells and buckets of blood!

By Jiminy, you're right.

[richardfinegold]

I was just playing the Bernstein recording of 3 Places in New England yesterday. I listened to Ives entire symphonic oeuvre yesterday as I am reading John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath and the music is a great supplement.
This is an interesting program. The Tchaikovsky has never set with me, more potboiler than substance, but it’s been years since I’ve sat and actually listened. It does make frequent radio appearances here so it is frequently background listening

[edashtav]

I see that this is heralded as Prom 17: Vasily Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky

So Francesca da Rimini is supposedly the draw is it/she?

Tchaikovsky was proud of it and conducted the work across Europe , including in ha visit to the University of Europe. I find it more inventive and colourful than Liszt's Dante Symphony.

Camille Saint-Saens characterised it in these terms:

"Bristling with difficulties, Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, which lacks neither pungent flavours nor fireworks, shrinks from no violence.
In it the gentlest and most kindly of men has unleashed a fearful tempest, and has had no more pity for his performers and listeners than Satan for the damned. But such was the composer's talent and supreme skill that one takes pleasure in this damnation and torture."

Perhaps, Camille's final sentence indicates the nature of tonight's Prom audience.

[edashtav]

Was it not Busoni who defined composing as the art of transcribing what one heard in one's brain onto paper? With many composers one feels if the act of transcription involves editing and simplifying. Charles Ives' could imagine two contrasting marching bans approaching from different directions and then transcribe it utterly careless of harmonic clashes and difficulty. . I was 19 before I heard any of Charles Ives and then it was his 3 Places that I heard on, I think, a Mercury recording with the Eastman Rochester Orchestra.

Denis Kozhukhin's pianism is about clarity and unpacking difficult passages. I enjoyed his playing in the first movement of the Ravel. Did he take the second movement too slowly? The melody broke up into its components. Some lower woodwind instruments had gone out of tune in the London heatwave and a note on Denis's keyboard was suffering, also, from heatstroke. Two minutes of agony for this listener. Some filigree playing on the final repetition of Ravel's extended melody restored my bonhomie.

The third movement was a tour de force of speed without loss of definition. It was soon over but left the listener salivating for more.The contrasting encore was An Den Fruhling by Edvard Grieg.

correction The encore is now identified as Tchaikovsky In the Church.

[bluestateprommer]

Fine first half to this Prom, and just archived the encore, which flummoxed Tom Service, rather endearingly so, amidst all his standard over-verbiage. In fairness, I didn't know the encore off the bat either, but the BBC R3 page had it immediately listed (*). However, to give Tom S. credit, he did call out RPO wind section players for praise (Diomedes Demetriades, Patrick Flanaghan, and Sonia Sielaff, if I have the names correct).

(*) PS: The original BBC info turned out to be incorrect. Encore duly corrected above.

[Pulcinella]

I thought that the encore might be Tchaikovsky, as it reminded me very much of 'The Crown of Roses' (When Jesus Christ was yet a child) in the Oxford Book of Carols; that is subtitled Tchaikovsky's 'Legend'.

[edashtav]

Constantin Silvestri helped me to appreciate Debussy's Nocturnes through his mono recording with a Paris orchestra and a live performance with the Bournemouth Symphomy Orchestra.
Petrenko did not luxuriate in Nuages but kept his clouds scudding across the sky on a light, variable breeze. Plenty of lovely woodwind solos and a moving coda.
Fêtes was stunning full of rhythmic, tight chording, colour and in the coda post-Festival languor. A masterly performance

Sirènes is difficult to bring off. Intonation from the women's chorus took a moment to settle. I'd have balanced the choir further back in the audio spectrum, thus making them more believably supernal. The whole mood was 'too much in my face'. Slower and quieter, please. Wind and brass were impeccable and evocative of L'Après Midi D'une Faune.

[edashtav]

I thought that the encore might be Tchaikovsky, as it reminded me very much of 'The Crown of Roses' (When Jesus Christ was yet a child) in the Oxford Book of Carols; that is subtitled Tchaikovsky's 'Legend'.

[edashtav]

Full marks to Vasily for applying vaseline to the Fantasia's rickety joints and making the orchestra believe that it was creating a masterpiece of hell, fire and vitriol.

A victory for orchestral virtuosity plus a superb portrayal of doomed love, perhaps Tchaikovsky's favourite mood, one in which he and Berlioz excelled. Here, one duet featuring oboe and clarinet moved me to tears!

A memorable end to a Concert which exceeded my expectations. Hats off, Boarders to Vasily Petrenko and his RPO.

[Nick Armstrong]

Denis Kozhukhin's pianism is about clarity and unpacking difficult passages. I enjoyed his playing in the first movement of the Ravel. Did he take the second movement too slowly? The melody broke up into its components. Some lower woodwind instruments had gone out of tune in the London heatwave and a note on Denis's keyboard was suffering, also, from heatstroke. Two minutes of agony for this listener. Some filigree playing on the final repetition of Ravel's extended melody restored my bonhomie.

The third movement was a tour de force of speed without loss of definition. It was soon over but left the listener salivating for more.

I made a point of listening to the Ravel just now (happily deploying Sounds technology to avoid any Room Service…) - I thought it was a really excellent performance. In particular, I thought the slow movement was perfectly paced - a fraction faster than many I thought, and all the better for that. Swift finale too as you say - eye-poppingly so for some of the orchestral soloists I dare say, who stepped up brilliantly.

(A wee bit of ‘piquant’ tuning did strike the ear - but it didn’t spoil anything for me… and I didn’t notice any odd piano note )

[Pulcinella]

I made a point of listening to the Ravel just now (happily deploying Sounds technology to avoid any Room Service…) - I thought it was a really excellent performance. In particular, I thought the slow movement was perfectly paced - a fraction faster than many I thought, and all the better for that. Swift finale too as you say - eye-poppingly so for some of the orchestral soloists I dare say, who stepped up brilliantly.

(A wee bit of ‘piquant’ tuning did strike the ear - but it didn’t spoil anything for me… and I didn’t notice any odd piano note )

Quite the opposite reaction here: its filigree nature was completely missing (imho).

[Historian]

This concert is being repeated in today's 'Afternoon Concert' although the website does not make clear when it will start. Well worth a listen I would say.