Prom 10: Friday, 22nd July at 7.30 p.m. (French & Spanish music)

[Boilk]

Clear uncompressed (dynamically, that is) sound again for Prom 10. However, I managed to miss Gigue though, due to messing around making room on the hard disc/DVD recorder for the BBC4 offering.

I recorded all the pieces separately on the PVR's HD ... so will rejoin the displaced Images movements on Saturday - what a terribly disorienting concert! But wonderful to see Alejandro Viñao as the evening's guest - a hugely talented (Argentinian) composer.

[BBMmk2]

That's a point, Boilk, Ive never heard of Alejndro Vinao before. have to hear his music methinks!

I thought this concert was connnected you know. I havent heard the last poiece yet as was feeling rather tired at that point! Enjoyed what I heard though!

[Roehre]

Douglas called me over just before the rehearsal was about to begin. "I've just been talking to Iris" he said "and she tells me that, as she hasn't played this Falla for a long time, she needs to have the music on the stand just in case, so she needs a page turner. As I don't need you in this work, will you do it?"

Well, I could hardly refuse, could I?
Not being a pianist, I was quite unfamiliar with the complexities of a piano score, where the tune is often hidden among a myriad of notes, so I could only manage by counting off the bars in my head and urgently seeking a nod from Miss Loveridge.
What if I turned two pages by mistake? What if I knocked the whole score off the piano? I was terrified and, to this day, 59 years later, I still shudder at the memory of what I went through that afternoon.

[Pianorak]

Juanjo Mena is so cute!! . . .

Hmm, one way of putting it, I suppose.

I'm sure I'm mistaken, but does Steven Osborne wear a hearing aid?

[BBMmk2]

I duidnt see that he was wearing one, Pianorak. Microphone, perhaps?

[Norfolk Born]

Hmm, one way of putting it, I suppose.

I'm sure I'm mistaken, but does Steven Osborne wear a hearing aid?

I wasn't sure whether it was a hearing aid, or something to do with the broadcast.
Sorry to say, but I found the concert distinctly underwhelming - lacking the fire and excitement that I might have expected - and the programming distinctly odd - very little contrast between the various items.

[Bax-of-Delights]

ofcachap:

I'm glad you say that. I was in the Hall last night (top row of the top Circle - like an oven up there!) at the bequest of Mrs B-o-D who thought the programme was something that wouldn't frighten the horses. In themselves they are masterpieces but taken en bloc one feels as if one has had souffle for all three courses. Entirely forgettable, I'm sad to say.

OK, perhaps my ennui has something to do with
A) Mrs B-o-D getting on a bus to Oxford Street and somehow ending up at Camden Market from whence I received a frantic phone call while I was up a ladder in a secondhand bookshop.
B) The manager at the restaurant querying why we weren't paying the service charge - "because I had to ask three times for the bill.")
C) We were stuck in the middle of a row at the end of which was a woman more intent on reading the programme notes rather than actually getting up and leaving wiith the result that
D) We were more or less the last out of the Hall with the result that
E) The queue for the no.52 was long and
F) It was raining and
G) The lady with the broken umbrella in front of me was surely intent on removing one or both of my eyes
H) All of a sudden the no.52 bus became the scarcest bus to find in London which resulted in
I) The subsequent taxi to Victoria took a curious and circuitous route
J) The train was packed and absolutely everyone was apparently involved in inane conversations so much so that I suddenly knew what the Tower of Babel was like
K) er...that's it.

[BudgieJane]

I'm sure I'm mistaken, but does Steven Osborne wear a hearing aid?

Wouldn't that be an earpiece, so he can hear what the back-room staff are saying?

E) The queue for the no.52 was long and
[...]
I) The subsequent taxi to Victoria took a curious and circuitous route

E) Which bus stop were you waiting at? After a Prom it is better to go to the Queen's Gate bus stop.
I) Last time I was on a bus after a Prom, it took about half an hour to get to Hyde Park Corner. Last time I was in a taxi after a Prom, the driver went through Hyde Park and St James's Park because there was far less traffic there. I assume your driver was also trying to avoid the heavy traffic.

[Ferretfancy]

It was probably an ear protector designed to prevent him from being overwhelmed by the orchestral sound, that's just a guess. It all sounded excellent in the Arena, and it was a most enjoyable concert. Once or twice in the Debussy I thought that the internal balance was a bit odd, with important lines getting a bit lost, but this was Mena's Proms debut in a difficult hall.
Steven Osborne was terrific, and I notice in the Programme that Chandos will shortly be issuing a recording.
One tiny quibble,it could be argued that an entire evening of Spanishry, wonderful music that it is, might be a little too much of a good thing.
Mena takes up his post with the BBC PO in September.

[Tevot]

Re Posts #21 and # 22 - I take your point. I thought the concert was well performed but conceptually and stylistically it struck me as being too much of a muchness - to such an extent that I thought that I was listening to Debussy when the Rhapsodie espagnol was being played (whether this was because Ravel was influenced by Debussy or that music of this era that use Spanish themes sound homogenous I leave to the experts...)

Best wishes,

Tevot

[salymap]

Bax-of-Delights. Reading your post actually makes me glad, perhaps for the first time, that I am too old to go to evening concerts, with or without companions.

It did seem a rather sugary programme to me though.

[prokkyshosty]

I couldn't help but think that our concert was being conducted by Stephen Fry as Jeeves.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i listened to much of it on the radio at home and in the car, feeling rather underwhelmed was thinking it might have had more impact in the hall ... perhaps not?

the interview on the radio was not much better than the tv one by the sound of it ... ....

[marvin]

On TV, at least the concert came over as a rather lacklustre programme with no particular direction. Having mainly Spanish music all night is not necessarily a good idea and splitting 'Images' into its components was a poor choice.

[BBMmk2]

I might listen again to this concert, to see if it was underwhelming