Prom 53: Stravinsky / Reich / Tippett / Elgar, BBC SO / Synergy Vocals, Brabbins

[bluestateprommer]

Friday 30 August 2024
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

In memoriam Sir Andrew Davis (1944-2024)

Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements
Steve Reich: Jacob’s Ladder (BBC co-commission: UK premiere)

Interval

Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage – 'Ritual Dances'
Elgar: ‘Enigma’ Variations, op. 36

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Synergy Vocals
Martyn Brabbins, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/egwp8g

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-24/prom-53/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00224bx

[silvestrione]

Tippett at the Proms! Excellent. Andrew Davis would be delighted.

[Serial_Apologist]

Imagine if it had been Schoenberg's Jacobsleiter instead of the Reich. Now that would have made up a concert programme to remember!

[edashtav]

Tippett at the Proms! Excellent. Andrew Davis would be delighted.

What a shame that neither Berg or Webern are good enough to feature in this year's Proms.

[edashtav]

Imagine if it had been Schoenberg's Jacobsleiter instead of the Reich. Now that would have made up a concert programme to remember!

OR... Both pieces , preferably separated!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Good Stravinsky that. A superb piece of music given a very good performance. I don’t want to prejudge the Reich (ok I am ] but it strikes me that with the Tippett and the Stravinsky you couldn’t have chosen a better couple of pieces to demonstrate what modern music can do.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Poor old Ian he’s really having to fill while an endless mic sound rig goes on. Let’s hope it’s worth it .

one thing Steve Reich won’t be doing is “listening on BBC Sounds “as it’s not available outside the UK . Unless you have a VPN …

[bluestateprommer]

The text for Steve Reich's Jacob's Ladder, from this page off of his website:

"The entire text for Jacob’s Ladder is Genesis 28:12"

"Va yachalohm

Va heenay, sulahm
mutzav artzah

Va rosho mahgeeah
ha shamymah

Va heenay, malachay
Elokim ohlim v’yordim bo

And he dreamed,

And behold, a
ladder set up
on the Earth

and its top reached
heaven

and behold, messengers
of G-d ascending and
descending on it."

[edashtav]

In memoriam Sir Andrew Davis (1944-2024)
R.I.P.

Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements
One of my favourite 20th century symphonies. It is so rhythmic and has in its faster movements momentum and drive although the initial tempo set by Martyn Brabbins was too conservative for my enjoyment. It was good to have Martyn's great ear for analytical detail but I wanted the busyness of Modern America not Stravinsky remodelled by a clockmaker such as Maurice Ravel. The bits from strings and piano nicked from The Rise of Spring were good. The coda recalling the opening, was grandiloquent.

Onto the delicate slow movement, a veritable tapestry of prettiness: Summer Music. Oh dear, a sudden and extreme: almost sentimental slowing down, that's not proper Stravinsky! I was relieved to get back to the A section with its pulse preparing the way for reign to Tik Tok a.k.a. St. Reich.

By golly was the start of the finale tepid. Thank God, the bassoons were ready to step up a gear. Too much accuracy when I wanted a wild ride in a fast machine.
Oh, how much I missed Sir Andtew!

Steve Reich: Jacob’s Ladder (BBC co-commission: UK premiere

A Ladder, or Steps, maybe accompanied by pulses? Steve sets up almost-a-pulse oscillating machine on violas but as this life-affirming 18 minute piece evolves, it absorbs more baroque techniques and the pulse relaxes. The start of Reich's neo-Classical Third period? All very euphoric. What a shame Jacob's Ladder didn't overlay the staircase taking bad folk down to hell's dank, dark dungeons! Full of craft but also rather naieve. Steve Reich has been chatting to Michael Torke. I expect Commissions to shake me rigid with their hectic novelty. Heavens above!
The reception was less than enthusiastic.

[HighlandDougie]

But all redeemed with/by the Tippett …

[edashtav]

But all redeemed with/by the Tippett …

Indeed!

Tippett: The Midsummer Marriage – 'Ritual Dances'.
How lovely to hear the Michael Tippett sound: so idiosyncratic: chirping woodwind birds, hieratic horns, strings providing a counter- melody, seemingly in a differing time signature. Centuries of influences all beaten into shape on the anvil of Tippett's restless imagination. All built to last : we must ask the BBC, MORE, SOON AND OFTEN, PLEASE.

[edashtav]

"Painted emblems of a race,
All accurst in days of yore,
Each from his accustomed place
Steps into the world once more.
Ruddigore

MARTYN BRABBINS' sympathetic and fine interpretation of Elgar's score evoked vivid and emotional memories for me.

it was my father's favourite orchestra.work as was Ruddigore his favourite Comic Opera and to my mind Elgar often tears away the weak 2-dimensional portrait of his friend to bring the person fully alive through sound. Some of his pictures dissolve at in the searchlight of approaching dawn others are gently restored too their empty frames (e.g. Nimrod)
Andrew Davies conducted the work at the opening concert at Aylesbury Civic Centre back in the 1970s . I was given a special ticket as the interlocutor between Conductor (High Culture) and the otherwise endowed local Councillors who had commissioned the new Hall with its execrable acoustics. Andrew was was voluble and funny as ever and Ed who was prepped to the gills with stories of Dorabella was as redundant and stiff as an oil painting. Later, I dined out...
The Enigma Variations has accompanied my life and in death has been played at family funerals I've had organise.

Fare ye well , Sir Andrew. You introduced to so much that I still value.

[LMcD]

MARTYN BRABBINS' sympathetic and fine interpretation of Elgar's score

[oliver sudden]

Poor old Ian he’s really having to fill while an endless mic sound rig goes on. Let’s hope it’s worth it .

one thing Steve Reich won’t be doing is “listening on BBC Sounds “as it’s not available outside the UK . Unless you have a VPN …

I don’t know about that specific gig but I have had no trouble hearing the odd BBC Sounds thing (most recently the Stasevska Sibelius 5 concert) online in Germany.

(maybe don’t tell anyone just in case that’s a hole someone hasn’t got around to plugging…)

[Barbirollians]

Few comments on this concert . I thought the Stravinsky was fine - not too soft edged though the early CBSO/Rattle is my benchmark. The Steve Reich I should be very happy never to hear again - minimalism does nothing for me especially it seemed deliberately out of tune minimalism .

Excellent Ritual Dances - Brabbins for me is probably the finest living comductor of Tippett.

A lovely Enigma but more reminiscent of Boult and Barbirolli than the late Sir Andrew for me.