Prom 52: Tuesday 23rd August at 7.30 p.m. (Prokofiev, Dutilleux)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Valery Gergiev and his London Symphony Orchestra feature pairings of works by Prokofiev and Dutilleux. Prokofiev is represented by two very contrasted symphonies, the 1st and the 5th, and Dutilleux by a fanfare that he composed for Rostropovich to conduct and a concerto that he wrote for the great American violinist Isaac Stern to play.

Gergiev always has something special to say about Prokofiev and the very different worlds of the Haydn-inspired 1st Symphony (the 'Classical') and the wartime 5th (written in a single month in 1944) are bound to bring out the best in him. Orchestra and conductor are joined by the virtuoso Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos for Dutilleux's nocturnal concerto, whose title translates as 'The Tree of Dreams'. Dutilleux celebrated his 95th birthday earlier this year and his music celebrates what he calls 'the joy of sound'. That joy is certainly apparent in the short fanfare that he composed for Mstislav Rostropovich's 70th birthday, whose spatial arrangement of instruments should suit the Royal Albert Hall perfectly.

Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D major, "Classical"
Henri Dutilleux: L'arbre des songes
Henri Dutilleux: Slava's Fanfare
Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5 in B flat major

Leonidas Kavakos (violin)
London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev (conductor)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Gergiev again. Let us hope that this Prom will live up to the expectations we have of this fine conductor. After all, Swan Lake was something of a disappointment for some.

[Alison]

The Classical Symphony is one of VG's party pieces. This should be good.

[Petrushka]

This should be good.

I thought that about Swan Lake! This is the maddening thing about VG. When he delivers the goods he really does deliver but he can just as easily flop. You can never tell!

[Simon B]

I've opted out and am about to make my way to the Usher Hall for the Philharmonia's concert at the Edinburgh festival with Salonen. It's a gentle affair (cough) opening with The Poem of Ecstasy and ending with the Rite of Spring. It'll have to be good to top their Prom last week...

If it's not a contradiction in terms, Gergiev is getting more maddeningly inconsistent than ever. His Prom with the LSO last year was pretty darned good (the Firebird anyway), but I've been bored rigid by a few of his concerts the last few years. The most startling example was a concert in Birmingham which opened with Prokofiev's October Cantata, and ended with the Berlioz Requiem! How anyone can do a bashed out run through of that lot I'll never know, but that's how it came across to me. As ever, perhaps it was just me (again)...

[Bryn]

Did Gergiev come on assisted by a zimmer frame tonight by any chance? Just wondering on the basis of the tempo at the moment.

[rodney_h_d]

If he did, he must have leapt out of it for the finale! I doubt whether the LSO enjoyed that much.

[makropulos]

Did Gergiev come on assisted by a zimmer frame tonight by any chance? Just wondering on the basis of the tempo at the moment.

Presumably so - that first movement was very odd - and by the time he got to the finale he remembered that he had a plane to catch...?

[pilamenon]

Oh dear, am I the only one who enjoyed that Classical? Absolutely gorgeous first movement, colours and scoring I'd never fully noticed before. Very playful scherzo, and helter-skelter scamper through the finale, superb ensemble, especially the winds! Idiosyncratic, but this piece can surely take it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh dear, am I the only one who enjoyed that Classical?

Not at all. There are many ways to interpret great music.

[Chris Newman]

Oh dear, am I the only one who enjoyed that Classical? Absolutely gorgeous first movement, colours and scoring I'd never fully noticed before. Very playful scherzo, and helter-skelter scamper through the finale, superb ensemble, especially the winds! Idiosyncratic, but this piece can surely take it.

I agree with Eine Alpensinfonie. This is the sort of symphony that can take, yea...demands being played about with. I have Koussevitsky on 78s, Abbado and Dutoit on hilarious DVDs and more CDs than I dare mention (OK, it is often a fill-up) but it rarely fails.

The Fifth did not light my fire though. The muddy sound on HD could be at fault though. Come back Noddy and Jurowsky.

[makropulos]

It'll be interesting to hear from someone who was in the hall for tonight's concert - the orchestral balance on the radio in the Fifth Symphony was shocking, but was this a microphone problem?

[makropulos]

I agree with Eine Alpensinfonie. This is the sort of symphony that can take, yea...demands being played about with. I have Koussevitsky on 78s, Abbado and Dutoit on hilarious DVDs and more CDs than I dare mention (OK, it is often a fill-up) but it rarely fails.

The Fifth did not light my fire though. The muddy sound on HD could be at fault though. Come back Noddy and Jurowsky.

Chris - the Dutoit Classical Symphony DVD - is that the one with the hairdryers? It's very funny.

You mention muddy sound and I've just posted about bad balance - I was listening on a regular digital radio - there seemed to be real problems.

[jayne lee wilson]

What was that Suzy Klein said after the 5th? "At home, you certainly won't have felt the floor literally shaking at the end"?!
Speak for yourself darling, it did here, even with mere large standmounts (Harbeth C7s fed by ATC pre-power).
These presenters! KD and PT have been even worse this year...

Rather swift, mechanical and gleaming, that 5th... LSO do have a certain sound with Gergiev much of the time, not much room for lyrically expansive second subjects, many a touching detail lost in the vapour trail of speed and power... yet not especially fast at ca. 43 minutes, close of 1st movement not especially dynamic either...

"Exciting performance of exciting music"... you could say, I say hmm...

Hi Chris & Makropulos, what are you listening on? Have you checked computer/dac settings? I was on Macbook/DacMagic on minimum phase, and here it was all-too-shinily clear!

More to say, come back later, got a chow mein to cook...

[Chris Newman]

Chris - the Dutoit Classical Symphony DVD - is that the one with the hairdryers? It's very funny.

Yes, that's the one. Very funny. He makes a very dashing actor. Abbado has puppets of Mozart, Profiev and Nige Kennedy together with Sting and Roy Hudd in Peter and the Wolf

Fom jayne lee wilson Hi Chris & Makropulos, what are you listening on? Have you checked computer/dac settings? I was on Macbook/DacMagic on minimum phase, and here it was all-too-shinily clear!

I am listening on my Computer which has posher Denon speakers added.