Prom 4: Sunday 17th July 2011 at 7.00 p.m. (Brian 'The Gothic')

[Alf-Prufrock]

I can't see why anybody would want to watch it on televison.

Quite apart from the visual aspect, which I know some people (including friends) enjoy very much, there is the question of the sound. The sound on Freeview TV is better than the Freeview radio sound. I don't think that would necessarily have much mollified JohnB and my grievances about the Radio 3 sound this evening, but it would certainly be better.

[Ferretfancy]

I was more or less in the centre of the Arena. From my viewpoint facing the stage, here's a rough layout of the forces involved for those who were not there.

On my extreme right and extreme left, two sets of timps on each side with large brass bands, two tubas in each band. I'm not sure how this affected the people in the boxes, who were about a yard away from them!In the stalls on the left a little nearer the platform was the girl's choir, with the boys choir opposite. The orchestra platform was extended forwards to accommodate the enormous orchestra, which also had two sets of timps, two bass drums and a large battery of other percussion. The main choirs were arranged all the way up to just below balcony level, and four deep behind the orchestra. The organ was in full flood of course, plus the four soloists.

I'm pretty sure that this was the loudest concert I have heard in 60 years of Proms visits, and it was certainly hugely impressive as an experience. You could admire the enormous skill in Brian's composition, but I was largely unmoved by it. The real musical content was thin, perhaps it might be more convincing in the two piano version ( little joke, sorry! )

There have to be some works that are too large to broadcast successfully. I'm sorry if there have been complaints about compressed dynamics, but I suspect that the quieter moments, and there were quite a few, would simply disappear without some control. What I do feel as that dynamic steering by manual means used to be more satisfactory on similar performances in the past, and when well done could be musically more convincing than today's automatic compression.

[johnb]

I'm in two minds about watching concerts or recitals on TV or DVD.

Sometimes seeing the conductor or performers can give you a 'sense' of them which listening alone can never do, e.g. Christoph Eschenbach at the Proms a few years ago (positive), Osmo Vanska (slightly negative), Benjamin Grosvenor, Gergiev and Haitink (though I've seen the last two live quite a few times). But that isn't true for all conductors or instrumentatists.

On the other hand, at least for me, there is no doubt that watching the TV is a distraction and I find that I concentrate on the music much more when I just listen, without the TV.

[Serial_Apologist]

Have a go Brian!

A towering but flawed work by a towering, flawed genius - for all the critical reasons put forward in this thread... This is one of those pieces in which it is difficult for me, as a listener, to picture one man somehow being able to think onto paper - it was scored (brilliantly imv) over 10 years, while at the same time Brian was working on other works - not least his extraordinary anti-war opera "The Tigers". Had Brian not been neglected - it took Robert Simpson in the 1950s to bring his name to our attention - he would have figured much more strongly in the story of early 20th century English music. Am I right in thinking Brian was from a working class provincial background, and self-taught?... Though I can't quite agree about this composer lacking in ability to create good melodies: not that "good melodies" are what good symphonic writing is necessarily about (and we could argue that till the cows... ); what about the marvellous roistering marching tune that emerges shortly before the devastating final climax - the one sung "La la la la" in unison before the whole orchestra takes it further and compresses it, almost self-mockingly? Or the grinding uphill march that dominates the second (orchestral) movement?

Maybe I'm just getting inured, but under the circs I didn't think the souind engineers did too bad a job. There was a little distorition in some of the choral passages - and the choirs sounded solmewhat recessed. However, f For me, at any rate, the power and indeed whole atmosphere in the hall burst out of my speakers. Hearing this work is alone a life-changing experience; but I'm glad I wasn't there - if I had been I think I would have completely turned to jelly by the time of the work's conclusion.

Well done to all concerned for a magnificent achievement - not least, the composer.

S-A

[somename]

I haven't listened to the broadcast yet (well, obviously, give me a break!) but in the hall some passages were so loud it did sound like you were having the piers of Durham Cathedral thrown at you and it was hard to hear what was going on!
It was certainly an experience to be there, particuarly for the sheer visceral effect of the orchestra on the hall and of course the Judex section which is an incredible sound. But I don't feel I know where it goes after that in the Te Deum. It doesn't really go into a titantic ending like you expect, of course who would want an artist to be so predictable, but after all the listens (well, six or something now...) I still do get a bit lost a bit towards the end as the ideas continue to pile up. However the experience of the heavenly choral parts rubbing shoulders with the more down-to-earth grotesque sections, like that funny little clarinet march (I was humming that on the long bus journey home - see, he can write a tune!) means I never get bored, but I do lose track of a musical argument.
The rough workmanship combined with artful precision and sheer wealth of enthusiasm and epic visionary scope though surely is what makes the Symphony "Gothic" in the Ruskinian sense. English cathedrals are full of idosyncracies and "mistakes". Even the serene pointy-ness of Salisbury has some odd bits where arches are cut in half and great strainer arches added later in the two crossings to stop it falling down. This is Gothic as a way of doing things rather than a style of pointy arches and finials and it might be a bit untidy at times but that's what gives it its charm.
I am endeared to this symphony but whether it really deserves to be performed as much as Mahler's 3 and 8 I am not sure. It might mature through repeated interpretations but then again the novelty might wear off for many. I was just overwhelmed by after listening to it a good few times last summer I was now sitting listening to it in the Albert Hall! I think what this performance should really inspire is more exciting performances of early C20 British composers next year. A Bax symphony cycle over another Brahms one?!

[french frank]

The rough workmanship combined with artful precision and sheer wealth of enthusiasm and epic visionary scope though surely is what makes the Symphony "Gothic" in the Ruskinian sense.

Talking of which, how nice to hear the voice of Andrew Lyle reading from Ruskin's Stones of Venice, followed by Satie's Ogives, as a fill. O les beaux jours!

[Wilus]

I was quite gripped by the orchestral movements but thought the musical quality nose-dived as soon as the choirs came in. It didn't help of course that they sang so flat - were they exhausted by too much rehearsal, were they just not adequate to the task or is the piece simply unsingable? Probably a combination of all three. Listening to part two brought to mind the opinion of a school friend of mine (who has since himself had a piece performed at the Proms) that composers who write well for orchestra are often non-plussed by the different requirements of writing for choirs. Shorn admittedly of its spacial element on the radio, the interminable "Judex" movement about which Havergalians rave sounded horribly banal both in choral writing and musical material. Though things picked up a little in the final movement, throughout most of part II I felt Brian seemed unable to weld his vast forces into a convincing musical or sonic whole. I love rediscovering neglected works, but all too often one finds there are very good reasons why they have been neglected. I'm not holding my breath for another performance.

[Bert Coules]

I was there, and while I'm glad to have heard it (and seen it - especially seen, actually) at least once, I'm not sure I'd hurry to experience the whole thing again. Yes, some of it was beautiful and (suprisingly) delicate: the solo violin passage at the end of the first movement, the La-la-la chorus, the offstage soprano solo (where was she? I couldn't see from my seat and not knowing it was coming it was a bit disconcerting to watch her suddenly wander off beforehand, as if she was fed up and going home) and of course it was thrilling to have those massed forces all going full tilt; but sheer sound and spectacle apart I had the sneaky feeling that the work didn't actually need those twenty-odd timps, two big bass drums, thunder machine, rain-sound generator (if that's what it was: the oversized shiny metal cake-tin thingy) and all the rest. And where was the giant gong? How did it not occur to Brian to shove one in?

Still, an evening to cherish, even if it wasn't quite the "romp" promised by one R3 announcer last week.

Bert

[RobertLeDiable]

I'm sorry it wasn't recorded for television. It would certainly have been a spectacle worth seeing, even if, for me, listening to it was mostly unbearable.

I would just say that people shouldn't be too hard on the sound engineers. Because of the daily round of Proms concerts, they can't have had any more than one rehearsal to attempt to get a good balance from singers and players spread over a large part of the hall, which you would have thought was well nigh impossible. Maybe that's why there was no TV - because of the lack of rehearsal time in the hall.

[Dave2002]

I think what this performance should really inspire is more exciting performances of early C20 British composers next year. A Bax symphony cycle over another Brahms one?!

Possibly, though I can think of other composers not British I'd rather hear promoted. Glazunov, Miaskovsky, Wainberg, Harris, Hovhaness, Gorecki, David Diamond, Rautavaara etc.

[RobertLeDiable]

I also think one should be kind to the choirs, who did sound perilously close to collapsing at some points. The writing sounded impossible - certainly for amateurs - and it must have been soul-destroying to learn.

I'm afraid the reaction of many may be that, like Foulds's much-trumpeted World Requiem a couple of years ago, these massive 'neglected masterpieces' usually turn out to be a massive disappointment.

[BBMmk2]

I thought the various contributions from the choirs were fantastic. I don't think I heard any flatness from the choirs. They san brilliantly. At least, I think there will be a few more thousand fans of this most original and gargantuan work.

[BudgieJane]

the offstage soprano solo (where was she? I couldn't see from my seat and not knowing it was coming it was a bit disconcerting to watch her suddenly wander off beforehand, as if she was fed up and going home)

She was singing from outside the door she walked off through.

[Bert Coules]

She was singing from outside the door she walked off through.

Oh right; thanks. Not very offstage then. I would have liked a different singer, positioned up in the gallery.

Bert

[verismissimo]

I was there to hear Sir Adrian Boult with the BBCSO at the Albert Hall in 1966!

I wasn't going to risk a repeat.