Prom 18: Thursday 28th July at 7.00 p.m. (Beethoven, Dalbavie, Carter)

[Tevot]

The finale of Beethoven 7 was exhilarating I thought - and I liked the the brisk, taut and lean approach to both symphonies. The Flute concerti both provided contrast. I especially liked the Carter. Thank you to all concerned!

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[pilamenon]

A really well-conceived and executed programme. Great idea to have two new, relatively short and very well contrasted flute works either side of the interval, framed by early and later Beethoven symphonies.

I adore Beethoven 7, and this was a rousing performance, with especially fruity brass, and wonderfully crisp timpani, as someone has already said. IMV playing attacca is particularly effective between scherzo and finale, and having done so after movement one, which came as a bit of a shock, I was slightly disappointed and perplexed that Fischer paused later on. But in every other respect, tonight's Prom was another glowing endorsement of this orchestra under his stewardship.

[arundodo]

The reason that there was no attacca between scherzo and finale was simply that there had to be time for the hand tuned timpani to be, well, retuned! (From F and C to E and A, I think)

Glad you enjoyed the concert!

[Dave2002]

I thought it was a very good concert, and I'm glad that others did too. One comment about the short gaps between movements - that might have been to reduce the over enthusiasm of the participating audience. At times the obbligato part for coughers made me wonder if we were going to have a multi-part cadenza for those who felt up to the task of coughing at the most significant parts of the performances. I felt sorry for these music enthusiasts having to compete with the flute player in the Dalbavie and Carter pieces.

Proms tickets could perhaps come with free packets of throat lozenges, but then I suppose we'd also be treated to strong sucking and whistling sounds, plus most likely the sound of sweet unwrapping, which was only slightly in evidence from the hall last Thursday.

The microphone placement has perhaps reduced the audience part for audience participation, particularly in the Sunday repeat. [Does the BBC do any post editing for the repeats?]

Now listening to parts of the concert again, having captured it on my pvr.

[Roehre]

[Does the BBC do any post editing for the repeats?]

No. Even the presenters have been recorded and their idiosyncrasies are repeated

[Roslynmuse]

Catching up with a backlog of listening. Listened to the two flute concertos and will definitely return to them. The Dalbavie I heard half of the other day before being interrupted and I hadn't been too impressed with what I heard. However, I warmed to it more second time around, not least because I was pleasantly surprised by how much had sunk in on first hearing. OK, it's hardly cutting edge, but what it does it does with style and economy, verging on the budget-priced at times! Influences - Dutilleux, of course (the constant return to a single pitch, as well as the lower strings music - something I noticed with the first of this year's Dusapin pieces the other week too), but also Lutosławski (the very opening - abrupt chords with scampering in between - struck me as something that Luto would have done with greater energy and creativity; this wounded like the right gestures but with weak notes), Kurtag - the 'depth charge' chords/orchestration reminded me of his wonderful piece Stele - and elsewhere early (Firebird/Petrushka) Stravinsky, Walton (Viola Concerto - some of the melodic shapes, stretching over augmented octaves), Sibelius (5th Symphony in particular - quiet, background scurrying, reminding me again of Walton - 1st Symphony - and Lutosławski). There was something passacaglia-like about the slow theme that ran through the work, and it helped focus what otherwise might have been an exercise in colour. I wished there had been more rhythmic interest in that theme, however; the quasi-baroque gestures got a bit tiresome after a while.

Am I the only one who detected a bit of scrappiness in Pahud's playing? Some very audible breaths (gulps) and high playing that sounded on the edge of losing support at times. The Carter seemed much more assured and the playing here was often stunningly beautiful and varied.

The Carter is a much tougher listen and I found myself having two simultaneous reactions - (1) the culturally conditioned response, tougher = better (than Dalbavie); (2) the equally subjective but perhaps more authentic response, tougher = less rewarding. Maybe I should have listened to them the other way round. I noted the delicate Webern/ late Stravinsky soundworld; the way Carter excavates more of interest from his opening bars than Dalbavie manages in the same space of time; but it wasn't until halfway through, with that extraordinary still music - what wonderful chords! - that my attention was really grasped. First time through, though, I was surprised by the ending - it seemed to come several minutes too soon - maybe I'll understand better why on subsequent hearings.

I'm not sure that two flute concertos in the same programme really works, even sonically gorgeous works like these. BBC NOW sounding great - just a few thin high string lines, but lots of finesse elsewhere. (Pleasantly surprised, having heard the same team's Les biches the other day - I thought that was quite crude, both in playing and interpretation - no match for Prêtre or Frémaux in this repertoire.)

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm surprised about your comments, Roslynmuse, about Les Biches. Having heard excerpts from Fischer's recording, even at a sonically disadvantageous 320 kbps/mp3, it holds up well against the Pretre/Philharmonia, indeed has a warmer and more intimate sound overall. I couldn't detect crudity in the playing, it seemed both tender & sensitive (and the rare choral parts well-sung). If there is an earlier Pretre/Paris Orchestra reading, that might have more local colour and texture, (which one were you referring to?). I used to have (and love) the Fremaux LP, but haven't heard it for ages...

With the Carter, why should "tougher=less rewarding" be a "more authentic" response? Surely that response would be the MOST "culturally conditioned", conventional one of all... Your description of the Carter seems to suggest your enjoyment of it - trust yourself! I too felt it ended too soon, but only because I really wanted it to continue. So later I played the Boston Concerto to quell my thirst. Let's not demand epics from a 99-year old, but Carter's always been pretty concise.

In any case, aren't most musical masterpieces (or even just very good pieces) a bit tough on first or second hearing? It's an obvious point but we all recall how harsh and dismissive contemporary reaction was to Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler etc... but there was time and space for their later reappraisal - perhaps that doesn't exist now? Take a random example, Max. Davies' Worldes Blis. Dramatic, powerful, highly original, first performance booed loudly (Proms 1969)... moving and memorable, all but forgotten now; who would dare to pick it up? (Only recording 1993).

[Roslynmuse]

There is an earlier Prêtre recording (IIRC it came with Dutilleux Le loup) but it was the Philharmonia one I was referring to (complete with chorus). The Frémaux (Suite only) was my introduction to the piece so it has a special place in my affections, as indeed does the whole piece; I just didn't get on with Fischer's tempi or phrasing, and some of the wind playing was a bit sour. Maybe I'll give it another go. (I preferred H K Gruber's BBC Phil performance last October.)

In retrospect, hearing the two concertos together was a mistake (for me, tonight) - I'll listen to the Carter again when I'm more fresh and hopefully my responses will be in alignment then! [I think I meant by 'more authentic' my gut feeling rather than an intellectual reasoning out. Conventional maybe - but changeable! ]

In one sense - and one sense only - PMD is lucky in that Worldes Blis has been recorded and is thus accessible for repeated listening (many other works and composers haven't even that faint light shining on them); how one goes about changing a situation in which rarely heard pieces (for large or complex/unusual forces) are actually performed is beyond me - where there's sufficient energy and interest (Brian Gothic) to bring it about it will happen but I sense corporate resistance standing in the way of brave artistic choices more and more now. But that's for another thread!

[bluestateprommer]

The Beethoven Symphonies had power, rhythmic precision, expressive warmth, wonderful string ensemble and wind solos...
gosh, they were good. (Not much, er, vibrato, though, was there...?)....

Indeed not; wondering how many would notice (and possibly squawk?) . I think that this is a legacy not from Norrington, but Harnoncourt, since I think that Thierry Fischer was a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the time of Harnoncourt's performances and recordings for Teldec, so the "less vibrato than usual" approach got passed down the generations there. I actually enjoyed what I heard from his performances of the Beethoven. On the 'attacca' point of the 1st and 2nd movements of Beethoven 7, the only other conductor I've known to do that is David Robertson. If memory serves, he did that in his 2007 Prom performance.

I thought Pahud was splendid in both the Dalbavie and Carter concerti. I have his CD on EMI of the Dalbavie, and although it's been a while since I've listened to it, what struck me was that I remembered the general atmosphere of the music on hearing the Proms iPlayer performance.