Prom 5 - Monday 18th July 2011 (Messiaen, Dusapin, Beethoven)

[Bryn]

Roehre, the originals can be found on this EMI double CD album:



Amazon seem to have the lowest price.

[Bryn]

It seems that instead of a repeat of Prom 5 this Afternoon on 3, we are to get a different performance of the Triple Concerto, with Myung-Whun Chung directing from the piano:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012lm51

[french frank]

It seems that instead of a repeat of Prom 5 this Afternoon on 3, we are to get a different performance of the Triple Concerto, with Myung-Whun Chung directing from the piano:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012lm51

Silly Bryn - scroll down and you'll see that the piano soloist was Martha Argerich ...

[Bryn]

Silly Bryn - scroll down and you'll see that the piano soloist was Martha Argerich ...

Perhaps she turned up after the first movement?

[french frank]

Perhaps she turned up after the first movement?

Hmmm, there must have been quite a scrabble for that piano stool ...

[Bryn]

Re. the Triple Concerto, it seems that the old recording by Anner Bylsma, Franzjosef Maier, Paul Badura-Skoda and Collegium Aureum remains the only one using 'original instruments'. It may not be that HIPP by modern standards, but with Badura-Skoda and Bylsma involved it's well worth hearing, (it can be downloaded at Amazon).

[bluestateprommer]

This was a fine concert, and my first live experience of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; very good band, in fine form. I'm not a huge Messiaen fan, to be honest, but I did quite enjoy Les offrandes oubliées. The Dusapin was OK, sort of par for contemporary music for me, in that the opening was fairly generic dissonant note-spinning to me, but then the slow atmosphere settled in on me. I was rather surprised at PD's attempt to write an upbeat finale, as most modern music that starts dissonantly doesn't usually go for happy endings. The Capucon brothers and Frank Braley were splendid in the LvB Triple Concerto, so no one was deprived at all of quality pianism with Martha Argerich's absence.

On the lighter side, it was a little amusing to see the look on some of the orchestra's faces when the Arena Promenade Charities did their end-of-interval announcement, as I saw some of them straining forward to catch the gist. I suspect that when they heard the phrase 'musical charities', they easily translated to 'charites musicaux' or whatever the phrase is.

[bluestateprommer]

FT article/interview (!) with Martha Argerich

Andrew Clark had this recent FT article about Martha Argerich, where the Proms cancellation came up:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9370c7e4-a31f-11e0-a9a4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1T9rB63Op

"Martha Argerich loves the Proms. Martha Argerich loves the Beethoven Triple Concerto. Martha Argerich loves performing with the Capuçon brothers, violinist Renaud and cellist Gautier. She admits as much when I meet her in the southern Swiss resort of Lugano, where she has been giving performances at her chamber music festival, the Progetto Martha Argerich, now in its tenth year.

But the Argentine pianist will not be turning up to play the Triple Concerto with the Capuçons at the Royal Albert Hall on July 18. When I ask why she has cancelled her eagerly anticipated Prom at such short notice, she simply shrugs."

However, it says later, for those who are in or near Edinburgh:

"Yes, she tells me, she will fulfil her engagement at the Edinburgh Festival on August 14, a duo piano recital with compatriot Nelson Goerner."

Given that at one point in the article, AC wasn't expecting to get an interview with Argerich, but then lucked out later, with respect to Argerich, the phrase "whim of iron" comes to mind.