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

[morebritishmusicplease]

Excuse my absence, seeing I started this thread - for some reason I have been hugely distracted and busy since attending this concert. After the Gothic experience, this was the musical highlight of my year. I must admit I did quite enjoy the Barber, despite its hackneyed status, and the Bartok was quite fun though to my mind a little robotic. But the Bax! I have know this work for a very long time, but the impact of hearing it live at last was quite amazing. I was in the Gallery, and I must say the balance, including the organ, seemed very good to me up there. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is the place that has the best sound in the entire RAH. I find it difficult to understand the comments here by those who were left uninterested by this incredibly atmospheric, striking, colourful and brilliantly scored music. I suppose Bax's musical language is one that it takes a while to really get into, which is some excuse. But what pleased me most of all is that the capacity audience gave it a rousing reception, (Litton came back three times), and it was clear the piece made a big impression and is completely convincing in the context of 'mainstream' repertoire. I only hope this will inspire further Proms performance - in particular I think a complete Bax symphonic cycle is long overdue (are you listening, Mr. Wright?)
On the other hand, in my case it was the Prokofiev that left me rather cold - maybe I was just too jaded after the earlier excitement, but it struck me as one of his less interesting works, and in fact quite noticeably crude in conception and realisation after the Bax.

[bluestateprommer]

Very late to the party here, as is my wont: given the demands of a 3-decker "club sandwich" Prom, the Royal Philharmonic did very well. Once past the Copland, which is familiar enough that I didn't really give it much thought, on to the highlight of the evening, Bax's Symphony No. 2, which the RPO performed splendidly in its very belated Proms premiere. I wouldn't claim to be a Bax fan, although I do have the Naxos CD of #2, but I'll have to give it a spin down the line after hearing the Proms iPlayer rendering. Simply splendid there.

I sort of had the same feeling about the Barber, namely that it's familiar enough that I didn't worry about how it went, which was OK. I have heard a theory of what the work is really about, contrary to its status as the USA's official classical music "song of mourning", namely that its spirit is more in the true original spirit of the 'Adagietto' of Mahler 5, another "song of mourning" that really isn't, also given the # of measures length of the Barber (I need to get hold of a score from the library and count at some point). The Bartok had some rough edges, perhaps not a surprise given how exposed the instrumentation is for the orchestra, as well as some tiny splotches from Yuja Wang, but overall, it went well.

I'll confess that the Prokofiev 4 came off as too much of an afterthought in terms of its place in the program, especially given its episodic nature, although again the RPO did fine with it. Now we need to have the original version of Prokofiev 4 done at The Proms, which hasn't happened yet, per the Archive.