Prom 43: Tuesday 16th August at 7.00 p.m. (Copland, Bax, Bartok, Barber, Prokofiev)

[BBMmk2]

Well, last night's concert was a treat and ahalf, I should say! Thumbs up to Roger Wright and nhis team, here. Andrew Litton and the RPO were in excellant form. I would say that their standard has improved, quite considerably over the recent years. Presumably Maestro Dutoit's work? Very high quality music making, with only one particular compisition that's rather familair. Like some othe members said earlier, perhaps people came to see.

Well, I came for the Bax and Bartok, mainly because the pianist name escapes!(), is a star rising! She has made a superlative recording of Rachmaninov's PC3.

Great to hear a magnificent performance of the revised version of the Prokovief 4th symphony.

What an original programme!

BaxofDelights: I had some Arsenal fan's on my train to! They were rather restrained though!

[Serial_Apologist]

Of course, but I'm just saying it's important to make sure your praise or blame is really worth something. For example, if I'm going to pan a performance in a way that might hurt someone's career, I better make sure I've done everything I can to back myself up. (And don't even get me started on the sleazy "quid pro quo" artificial hype racket.) Falling back on my knee-jerk likes and dislikes is unfair to everyone, artists and audiences alike.

I find it quite extraordinary that you should think it either necessary or helpful that the/any critic should have had read a score before committing him or herself to critical comment in an article going out to the public. To have read or not read the score - assuming one could, or would need, to get hold of it - surely does not have to be the criterion determining whether onr not one has over-exercised ones own prejudices. Whether that be the sole criterion or not. My own feeling fwiw is that one can perfectly appreciate and understand a particular scored piece of music, and thereon expostulate on any public forum or to one's acquaintances, without having had the score to hand. Are you really saying that any specific critic should have detailed knowledge of ALL the pieces on show at a particular event? Supposing s/he (like myself) is not very good at keeping up with scores, can't read them, or regards music as in first instance something composed to be listened to, does that make him or her ineligible for the task, in your exacting requirements? If so, that counts me out!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

ucanseetheend
Full Member
Great concert by Litton & Royal Phil( Not short changed like so many others)

And whats so different was the concert time length, so much music , I for one got tired of paying to see a concert often barely 75 minutes after paying my 25 or 30 pounds so I stopped going, More concerts of 2 hours of music and the orchestral members can really work hard, presumably they enjoy their job?

HUGE APOLOGIES to ucanseetheend. I merged the thread with this one - except that I didn't. Instead, I merged it with tonight's concert .

So I've deleted it there and quoted it here. Really sorry, ucste.

[PJPJ]

..... (And don't even get me started on the sleazy "quid pro quo" artificial hype racket.)

Oh, please do start.

[Panjandrum]

Are you really saying that any specific critic should have detailed knowledge of ALL the pieces on show at a particular event?

I think the answer has to be yes. Otherwise, how would a critic know whether a performance was a reliable interpretation of the composer's intentions? One only has to think of the problems orchestras had getting to grips with the music of Mahler and the 2nd Viennese school in the first half of the last century to realise how inadequate performances adversely impacted the reception of various compositions, which are now heralded as masterpieces (at least in some circles).

The influence which a critic can wield should not be taken lightly, and if hard work in terms of preparation is called for in advance of attending a performance or reviewing a recording, so be it. After all, one assumes that the critic is remunerated for his/her ponderings and their readership has a right to expect a degree of knowledge greater than that of the layperson.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think the answer has to be yes. Otherwise, how would a critic know whether a performance was a reliable interpretation of the composer's intentions?

You are claiming that "knowledge of the score" automatically confers greater understanding regarding the composer's intentions? Your argument only holds true in the cases of integral serial works, in which the score determines right down to the smallest detail how the work should be played. Often the most important things - subtle nuances, room acoustics, the personality of the performer(s) - (as Mahler knew and Stockhausen unsuccessfully tried to account for) - just aren't in the score because they can't be written in; but they're very much part of the music.

[cavatina]

I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. Unless you are a well known critic, I hardly think any comments posted here are going to wreck a previously storied career.

As difficult as you're going to find this to believe, I've been a paid classical music critic for newspapers in the Los Angeles area: once on staff, many times as a freelance stringer.

Anything I've ever written here is a complete joke compared to the kind of effort I put in when I thought it really mattered. For instance, I never wrote a word about a performance until I spent at least two hours afterword thinking about it and doing research right up to the deadline. In retrospect, it's fun to remember racing off to the copy shop at midnight to fax it in...good times! Sort of.

And then there was always the problem of how to approach reviewing small orchestras. Is it really fair to compare the output of a group of local amateurs to the Berlin Philharmonic? I always erred on the side of being complimentary and generous, since in the end, the whole point of the review was to end up in people's scrapbooks, not make or break careers.

I found it quite grueling and definitely not worth the money. I stopped writing reviews after an orchestra liked what I'd written about them and hired me. I suppose I could have kept writing-- I'm sure nobody at the orchestra wanted me to quit!-- but by that point, I was fairly burned out anyway.

Are you really saying that any specific critic should have detailed knowledge of ALL the pieces on show at a particular event?

No, but I'd rather read reviews by people who do.

I'm sure part of this attitude can be chalked up to my overcompensating for not having an actual degree in music (despite playing the piano as a child, the viola in a student orchestra, taking singing lessons in college, teaching myself music theory by reading Hindemith and auditing graduate-level music classes in the summer). Nobody expects a reviewer for a second-tier paper to be the next J.B. Steane, but I thought it was worth making the effort. Maybe out of pride as much as anything else.

[cavatina]

..... (And don't even get me started on the sleazy "quid pro quo" artificial hype racket.)
Oh, please do start.

[amateur51]

As difficult as you're going to find this to believe, I've been a paid classical music critic for newspapers in the Los Angeles area: once on staff, many times as a freelance stringer.

Wow,cavatina!

Any links to sample reviews?

[Panjandrum]

As difficult as you're going to find this to believe, I've been a paid classical music critic for newspapers in the Los Angeles area: once on staff, many times as a freelance stringer.

Another of the many strings to your bow! Anything else you'd like to add to the list while we're at it? Neurosurgeon; astronaut; racing driver; crocodile wrestler?

[Serial_Apologist]

Wow,cavatina!

Any links to sample reviews?

Hmm - I always naively believe what people say and hadn't thought of that. You'd really need to read them to understand the composer's intentions. I also note that Cavatina only took up one small phrase of what I wrote in response to her insistence that the only critics whose opinions she considers worthy of consideration are those who read scores while at the same time listening to performances.

[Panjandrum]

You are claiming that "knowledge of the score" automatically confers greater understanding regarding the composer's intentions? Your argument only holds true in the cases of integral serial works, in which the score determines right down to the smallest detail how the work should be played.

Not necessarily limited to serial works SA. In many cases, performance practice has obscured the composers' intentions, or a disastrous premiere has cast a shadow over a work's reception (consider Rachmaninov's 1st symphony); or a particular conductor is associated with a composer and is able to draw more from the music than other interpreters (eg Beecham/Delius). While it may not be necessary to sit down with a score for highly familiar works in the repertory, referring back to a score for new works; those outside the canon; or where the performers are taking a different approach to the norm (eg Norrington) should be mandatory for any self respecting hack, IWHT.

[Serial_Apologist]

There's another point to be taken into consideration when thinking about this "composer/'s intentions as inscribed in the score". The way in which any composer's intentions are interpreted varies from era to era. Some periods and/or composers are easier to "read" re their intentions for performance than others. I have piano pieces by Satie in which there are no dynamic markings or instructions whatsoever. That the "interpretation" is sometimes as important as the score started gaining recognition sometime in the 1950s, as exemplified in Stockhausen's recognition that for ultra-accurate interpretation he had to resort to electronics, bypassing the human performance factor altogether.

As a personal example, during my lifetime I have lived through at least thre different ways of performing Baroque music. If I was coming to Baroque music today as a newcomer, I doubt very much indeed if I would appreciate it in the same way 1960s performances did.

Are we then to say that the critic, giving a verdict on a particular performance s/he wishes to put across to the public and be paid for, should be required to have some era-transcending insight, above those of the performers, in order to convey a valid message? And, will his or her critical assessment be valid for all time?

This is leaving aside any access s/he might or might not have to a particular score, or knowledge in the reading thereof. For these reasons, knowledge of whether or not a particular critic had prior wisdom of a score wouldn't make one jot of difference as to my appreciation of his or her critique.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not necessarily limited to serial works SA. In many cases, performance practice has obscured the composers' intentions, or a disastrous premiere has cast a shadow over a work's reception (consider Rachmaninov's 1st symphony); or a particular conductor is associated with a composer and is able to draw more from the music than other interpreters (eg Beecham/Delius). While it may not be necessary to sit down with a score for highly familiar works in the repertory, referring back to a score for new works; those outside the canon; or where the performers are taking a different approach to the norm (eg Norrington) should be mandatory for any self respecting hack, IWHT.

I could be wrong here, Panjandrum, but am I right in thinking that the main problem regarding misinterpretation of works was often ascribable to bad performances, per se? I mean perfmances which either met with the hostility of conductor and/or performers, or the technical deficiences in performance? One thing which I remember was often said about Webern performances was that the way Webern's music was played paid no regard of the way in which ideas passed from instrument to instrument, or instruments, failed to account for any sense of continuity, thus leading to an aural impression of fragmentation. In other words, to belabour the point I'm trying to make, aspects of performance which a reading of a score cannot take into account. It has even been said - please don't ask me by whom, my literature is in a mess - that such a misinterpretation of Webern led to a lack of understanding of what Webern's music was "about" by those around Darmstadt who took him as their model in the early 1950s.

[Andrew Slater]

Sitting in the stalls, immediately to the left of the stage (as you face it) I was unsure if we were getting the full aural force of the Bax tutti - the organ seemed to be almost inaudible at this point (a feature I have noted before) being somewhat overpowered by the timpani.

I agree about the organ, although its low volume was something of a relief for me, as I was sitting very close to the organ in one of the choir seats, and had been slightly apprehensive.