Prom 37: Thursday 11th August 2011 at 7.30 p.m. (Bridge, Brahms, Holst, Elgar)

[barber olly]

What's all this 'British music' stuff? Elgar was mainstream European, surely?

Has anyone told Claudio Abbado or Riccardo Muti?
How much Elgar did Boulez do at the BBC?
Where are Karajan and Klemperer's Elgar 1 and 2?
Where do Szell, Walter and Reiner stand on the Elgarometer?

[PJPJ]

Perhaps they realised others could conduct those more successfully.

[cavatina]

What's all this 'British music' stuff? Elgar was mainstream European, surely?

Not to those who choose to view him through the lens of their own prejudices and see him that way.

The problem with most criticism is that it gives you far more insight into the personality and biases of the critic than it does anything "objective". Even the works of most interesting and broadminded of critics (Jacques Barzun, JB Steane etc.) can't escape it totally. And if it's true of giants like these, what hope is there for the rest of us? Given that, I don't believe it's wise to recklessly toss off sweeping generalizations about nationality as if they were fact. What end does it serve?

If people want to read something significant into national origin, that's their concern, not mine. But those who take this kind of over-simplistic approach fail to realise that creative artists are massively complex people who seldom fit the pre-defined categories they're pigeonholed and shoehorned into. It just doesn't work that way. You're perfectly entitled to feel your nationality as profoundly as you please; just don't go projecting it onto everyone else.

[amateur51]

Has anyone told Claudio Abbado or Riccardo Muti?
How much Elgar did Boulez do at the BBC?
Where are Karajan and Klemperer's Elgar 1 and 2?
Where do Szell, Walter and Reiner stand on the Elgarometer?

From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made?

[amateur51]

If people want to read something significant into national origin, that's their concern, not mine. But those who take this kind of over-simplistic approach fail to realise that creative artists are massively complex people who seldom fit the pre-defined categories they're pigeonholed and shoehorned into. It just doesn't work that way. You're perfectly entitled to feel your nationality as profoundly as you please; just don't go projecting it onto everyone else.

Bravely & boldly said, cavatina

[barber olly]

From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made?

Yes, and I could have added Johum, Monteux but my real point is that many others haven't. As great Mahlerians it would be interesting to hear a Boulez or Abbado Elgar 1!

[amateur51]

Yes, and I could have added Johum, Monteux but my real point is that many others haven't. As great Mahlerians it would be interesting to hear a Boulez or Abbado Elgar 1!

Oh yes, Monteux's Enigma variations barber olly

And Haitink's symphonies and Solti's symphonies, In the South, violin concerto, etc., of course

I don't know Jochum's Elgar recordings

[Bryn]

From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made?

I originally had the Munch on a flood salvage Spanish RCA LP bought for 10 Shillings from a rack outside a newsagents in the mid '60s. I then got a CD issue from the Orchesography closing down sale. A wonderful supplement to Barbirolli and the Sinfonia of London.

[makropulos]

I originally had the Munch on a flood salvage Spanish RCA LP bought for 10 Shillings from a rack outside a newsagents in the mid '60s. I then got a CD issue from the Orchesography closing down sale. A wonderful supplement to Barbirolli and the Sinfonia of London.

Yes, I've got that performance too, and love it. Among non-British Elgar conductors, Solti, Haitink, Monteux, Jochum, Svetlanov, Silvestri, Munch and Toscanini have all done very impressive things and there are plenty of more recent examples too: in the last year: De Waart (Symph 1), Van Zweeden and Kasprzyk (both Gerontius - which Sinaisky also did in Copenhagen), and Kiril Petrenko (Symph 2, with the Berlin Phil, no less). And in the not-so-distant past Leonard Slatkin has done (virtually) all of EE's major works. I've just been enjoying Oramo's Gerontius quite a lot too.

Fritz Reiner conducted Cockaigne and Enigma in concerts, but I don't know if any live recordings survive. But speaking of great Mahler conductors and Elgar, how wonderful it would be to have heard the performance Bruno Walter gave of the First Symphony in 1924 in the presence of the composer (see Ryding and Pechefsky: Bruno Walter, p. 167-8). It looks as if he also conducted the Second, and he certainly did the Violin Concerto with Heifetz and the New York Philharmonic.

Honestly, I don't yearn to hear Boulez doing Elgar on the evidence of some of his other ventures into unexpected repertoire - but one of the symphonies from Abbado would be fascinating, even if that's unlikely to happen.

[Panjandrum]

Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.

At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!

[Ventilhorn]

Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.

At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!

Oh dear! I've just discovered that I'm a Luddite! But at least I can be assured that I am among friends

Yes, if you didn't hear it, do pin back your lugholes and have an objective listen. You have the choice of agreeing or joining we Luddites in our prejudices.

VH

[Roehre]

Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.

At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!

Thanks for listening to this transcription with open ears, Panjundrum (see my Msgs 4 and 17), though I wouldn't call our co-messageboarders luddites.
I cannot comment on the performance as I haven't listened to it, but the CD of this pianoconcerto reveals the secrets of Lazic's arrangement after repeated listening quite easily.
Brahms could have made this himself, and that is (for me, see M17) the criterium.
[Btw, the highly critical Concertgebouw has scheduled a performance coming September 24th.]

[salymap]

Oh dear! I've just discovered that I'm a Luddite! But at least I can be assured that I am among friends

Yes, if you didn't hear it, do pin back your lugholes and have an objective listen. You have the choice of agreeing or joining we Luddites in our prejudices.

VH

Good Morning fellow Luddite [I thought you were a Druid} 'Pin back your lugholes'

BWS would be shocked. Have a good day.

[BudgieJane]

I certainly wouldn't call myself a luddite. The music is certainly OK, and there was nothing wrong with the performance; it's just that it's not a piano concerto.

In a couple of years' time everyone will have forgotten it.

[Ventilhorn]

I certainly wouldn't call myself a luddite. The music is certainly OK, and there was nothing wrong with the performance; it's just that it's not a piano concerto.

In a couple of years' time everyone will have forgotten it.

Let's hope so!

Well spoken and "without prejudice" (as letters from my bank manager say)

VH