Prom 21: 'All-American Prom', Sinfonia of London, Osborne / J. Wilson

[Pulcinella]

Fears for the Copland justified.
Yes, it was only the suite (not the ballet, as I think Skellers said at the start), but no sense of dance at all for me.

[LMcD]

Checked the Proms Performance Archive, on Ives' The Unanswered Question. This work has received 5 previous Proms performances:

1985: Prom 41, London Sinfonietta, Simon Rattle
1994: Prom 58, London Sinfonietta, Markus Stenz
2002: Prom 70, CBSO, Sakari Oramo (this Prom featured the Ives as an encore)
2012: Prom 25, BBC SO, David Robertson
2018: Proms at...The Lighthouse, London Sinfonietta, George Benjamin

I suppose that it says something about this work that 3 of the previous 5 Proms performances featured the London Sinfonietta.

As others have noted, the choice of American repertoire for the more-or-less annual John Wilson Prom is very safe, the new Wynton Marsalis and John Adams works aside, even though it's quite arguable that the choice of anything by Marsalis is "safe" in of itself. In the centenary year of Rhapsody in Blue, its choice was pretty much unavoidable (a bit of contrarian opinion from Ethan Iverson aside). Still, if nothing else, in terms of the amount of music in the concert, it's definitely value for money.

I shall know where to look in future!

[edashtav]

HERALD, HOLLER AND HALELUJAH
The Herald is a fanfare which starts reflectively but becomes rhythmic, jazzy and insistent as HOLLER swings in only to be supplanted by a three note swagger HALELUJAH which surprised
me as every time I've sung the word it had four syllables. A harmless, very American curtain-raiser by the prolific Wynton Marshal's.
Aaron Copland's Billy the Kid soon typified American Cowboy music: swung, rhythmic, bold tunes seemingly played in an in the open air in the middle of a Prairie. Aaron is never glutinous: any superfluous notes having been 'rubbed out' by his eraser. I loved John Wilson's ability to create a picture, in one section before the shootin' I could sense a cool guy lolloping along on his horse, animal and rider at peace but... ever ready for action. How many composers learned how to write for a 'Western' by listening to Copland?
A time there was when Britisg Orchestras and their conductors could not loosen sufficiently to sound truly Amercan. John Wilson has ensured that you can't put a fag paper between the sound of 'his' band and say the Dallas Symphony orchestra which introduced me to Billy the Kid.

I once sang 2nd bass in a Choral arrangement of Barber's Adagio which was the set piece for Mixed Choirs at Tommy Armstrong's Bedford Festival. Sir Thomas loved our long, expressive lines and great intonation. We won: it had taken a lot of preparation. I was surprised how well John Wilson kept sentimentality at bay.
Rhapsody in Blue has,perhaps, the most 'iconic' opening flourish in all American music. JW' clarinet milked his monent but ensured that he his cream stayed at the top of his glissando. Steven Osborne entered like sparkling star.Tight and swung described the Orchestra's mood. Steven Osborne was delightfully free and idiosyncratic which kept everyone on their toes.
The performance kept me 'in the moment' and only once did fret over form. Sunday Night at the Palladium was never this good, was it?

Encore"Things Ain't What They Used to Be" by the Duke.

[bluestateprommer]

Quite the jam-packed first half to this Prom, where JW and the musicians pretty much got on with it with quite minimal pauses between the first three pieces. Even though there was quite the long pause for the stage change for the Gershwin, maybe the sheer density of the first half led to a few dropped notes in the Gershwin, even though the winds and brass obviously got a break during the Barber. The clarinetist(s?) clearly took some chances during Rhapsody in Blue, and thus those slips. But, as even Ethan Iverson said ruefully, the piece pretty much always works. Excellent choice of encore from Steven Osborne.

Marsalis' opener was OK, nothing tremendously special to my ears. I take Pulcinella's point on the Copland, as this performance was pretty much what I've come to expect from JW, namely pretty much everything in place, spic-and-span - and that's about it. That approach can actually work better in a piece so ubiquitous as Barber's Adagio for Strings, which too easily can fall into drawn-out bathos. Perhaps surprisingly, JW actually did draw out one passage in the latter third of the work.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Did any one else watching on BBC Four notice the amount of plaster Stephen Osborne had on his fingers ? That RH fourth finger had two separate sets including some on the tip which must make playing very tricky . He seemed a bit out of sorts tonight by his own stellar standards with quite a few finger smudges . Wonder if he’s had an accident?

[Nick Armstrong]

Did any one else watching on BBC Four notice the amount of plaster Stephen Osborne had on his fingers ? That RH fourth finger had two separate sets including some on the tip which must make playing very tricky . He seemed a bit out of sorts tonight by his own stellar standards with quite a few finger smudges . Wonder if he’s had an accident?

I noticed bandages on the TV relay of Tuesday’s Messiaen extravaganza: I suspect one needs to look no further than that concert’s rehearsals and performance!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I noticed bandages on the TV relay of Tuesday’s Messiaen extravaganza: I suspect one needs to look no further than that concert’s rehearsals and performance!

Yes could be . He had the same arrangement on the third finger of the LH.

watching so far the musical highlight is the Ellington / Peterson encore which he played magnificently.

the Copland and Barber left me completely cold …

to listen to Georgia and Neil on BBC FOUR you’d think that Rhapsody in Blue changed symphonic music for ever

(No it didn’t )

and the that JW and the SOL were gods representatives on earth

(No they’re not )

[edashtav]

Charles Ives "The Unanswered Question" using the whole of the RAH's space was beautifully played: ethereal strings, intense and closely 'miked' flutes who start in heaven but end in 12-tone hell. The questioning trumpet solo part could have been written by Gustav Mahler.
Ives goes from harmony to dissonance...
John Adams starts in discord and searches for harmonic resolution - difficut to find in a post Wagnerian world. To mind it was written 'Before the Fall' when Nohn Adams was at his most inventive and process music didn't have the quality of over-processed food.
A big piece for a big hall. My word, John Wilson is a bipod metronome. His answer to the Unanswered Question was the unswerving beat. Rubato? It's for the birds! (PERHAPS, that's what caused Pulcinella to note the absence of Dance in the Copland.) However, I did admire the Sinfonia's virtuosity and the way JW insisted that complex textures were permeable and legible to the ear.
When process music is so accurate in rhythm is it reduced? I felt insulted by the telegraphing of the process. Music and life are organic : neither fully reveal the answer to Ives' question.

The second movement did capture some of the ethereal 'aloneness' that British masters such as RVW (6th Symphony), and Holst (Egdon Heath and Neptune) captured so successfully. It would have succeeded better without blessed John's straitjacket. I felt required to ascend to heaven on an endless aluminium ladder with all the treads spaced equally. Gosh .. and there goes Charles IVES' trumpet plus disconsolate flutes.
Onto the finale: John your precision, plodding process was unyielding and grim. I loved Harmonielehre when I first heard it perhaps 35 years ago. This atomised- Harmonielehre: exploded, exposed and explored with a microscope is cold & analytical. It's driving me to hell in an automated cart.

Fiddle Faddle by Leroy Anderson was an unlikely encore and took me back too FNIMN in the 1950s. Brilliantly virtuosic.

[Oddball]

Thought whole concert was pretty awful.
Clean to the point of being bleached.
No soul. No passion. Playing the dots, not the music.
Some great individual playing being smothered by the massive ego that is JW.

[LMcD]

Georgia Mann stuck to her guns and referred to 'Harmoniyalehre' throughout even though John Wilson and Neil Brand managed to pronounce it correctly. There was no way the 2 presenters weren't going to find the whole thing mind-blowingly wonderful.

[parkepr]

For those of us who like to play spot the player... here's the Sinfonia Of London's Orchestra list from last night's prom.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thought whole concert was pretty awful.
Clean to the point of being bleached.
No soul. No passion. Playing the dots, not the music.
Some great individual playing being smothered by the massive ego that is JW.

didn’t think it was that bad but Neil the co presenter on BBC Four (inadvertently) nailed it when he said he’d never heard Rhapsody In Blue “played so fast .” Yes it was too fast : both for Stephen’s fingers and getting enough phrase shaping. I enjoyed the Adams but I think JW is a bit over precise - he need to let the music breathe a bit more.
Meanwhile on Essential Classics the “greatest concert in world history “ hype continues.
People are confusing virtuosity and surface sheen with the real musical inwardness shown by the Hallé in that Mahler 5. They were really listening to each other .

[Nick Armstrong]

Thought whole concert was pretty awful.
Clean to the point of being bleached.
No soul. No passion. Playing the dots, not the music.
Some great individual playing being smothered by the massive ego that is JW.

Jessica Duchen would beg to differ…

https://inews.co.uk/culture/arts/prom-21-sinfonia-of-london-review-3209290

[Pulcinella]

Jessica Duchen would beg to differ…

...

Some people are clearly more easily satisfied than others.
Maybe Jessica should stay in more and listen to how Copland himself, or Bernstein, or Slatkin (to name just three others) can make Billy the Kid sound.

[richardfinegold]

Checked the Proms Performance Archive, on Ives' The Unanswered Question. This work has received 5 previous Proms performances:

1985: Prom 41, London Sinfonietta, Simon Rattle
1994: Prom 58, London Sinfonietta, Markus Stenz
2002: Prom 70, CBSO, Sakari Oramo (this Prom featured the Ives as an encore)
2012: Prom 25, BBC SO, David Robertson
2018: Proms at...The Lighthouse, London Sinfonietta, George Benjamin

I suppose that it says something about this work that 3 of the previous 5 Proms performances featured the London Sinfonietta.

As others have noted, the choice of American repertoire for the more-or-less annual John Wilson Prom is very safe, the new Wynton Marsalis and John Adams works aside, even though it's quite arguable that the choice of anything by Marsalis is "safe" in of itself. In the centenary year of Rhapsody in Blue, its choice was pretty much unavoidable (a bit of contrarian opinion from Ethan Iverson aside). Still, if nothing else, in terms of the amount of music in the concert, it's definitely value for money.

It sounds fairly adventurous to me. Marsalis and Ives aren’t standard concert fare. There is nothing wrong with mixing in some warhorses with unfamiliar fare. Who needs a 25% filled hall?