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

[BBMmk2]

Do people think that the BBCSO is not, gerally at it's best, this season?

[makropulos]

Do people think that the BBCSO is not, gerally at it's best, this season?

I wouldn't say that after listening to the playing for Bychkov in the Verdi Requiem, or the Grainger/Elgar/Strauss concert with Andrew Davis. The Bychkov Mahler 6 with the BBCSO in a couple of days' time will be an interesting yardstick - I really hope they play well for him.

The problem with the BBCSO is that "its best" has always been a rather variable thing: for some conductors they play wonderfully (in the fairly recent past I'm thinking of Gunter Wand, or Svetlanov, among others) and I remember that being the case way back in the 1970s too. But the same orchestra is capable of sounding pretty shabby on an off night, usually with a conductor they don't respond to. That doesn't mean one they "like" necessarily - for instance, even though they certainly didn't like Bernstein's approach to the Enigma Variations, they played superbly for him.

The situation now seems quite similar: the playing for Bychkov at the Prom the other week, and at the Barbican earlier in the year, was very fine - I didn't hear any sign of it not being at its best in either of those concerts.

[Rasluap]

I heartily agree with makropulos, and would add that the playing for Wigglesworth in the Britten concert was outstanding.

In an earlier message in this thread I mentioned an impressive studio performance at Maida Vale a few months' back of Prokofiev 5 with JB conducting. As Chris Newman rightly points out above, JB is a fine orchestral builder and has quietly enhanced the qualities of this orchestra.

[alywin]

I was in the gallery for this Prom, and thought the sound was very muddy indeed, certainly for the Prokofiev - and unusually so for my usual experiences up there. It was one of those times when I decided that the beautiful bits I so love in the 5th weren't worth listening to the rest for. It was also distinctly on the slow side - I seem to remember that the tape I have of Jansons and the LPO comes in at around 38 minutes, and I'd usually have thought of Gergiev as the faster conductor of the two. This was much longer. But at least I did manage to conclude that, contrary to what I thought, there is actually nothing of Cinderella in that one - it just seems to inhabit the same sound world at times.

Was Slava's Fanfare by any chance played at the Rostropovich 75th Birthday concert at the Barbican? (The one that went on for nearly 3 hours) If so, I may well have it on video somewhere ...

[jayne lee wilson]

Pulling a few Prokofiev 5ths off the shelves at random, Ansermet comes in at 40'54, Rattle at 43'22, Karajan 43'29, Szell 38'07. All great performances.

Gergiev came in somewhere around 43-44 minutes (didn't have a stop-watch handy!), but if it seemed to outstay its welcome it wasn't only because of tempi was it...

What was that, alywin? A 3-hour fanfare for Rostropovich at the Barbican?!!

I was in the gallery for this Prom, and thought the sound was very muddy indeed, certainly for the Prokofiev - and unusually so for my usual experiences up there. It was one of those times when I decided that the beautiful bits I so love in the 5th weren't worth listening to the rest for. It was also distinctly on the slow side - I seem to remember that the tape I have of Jansons and the LPO comes in at around 38 minutes, and I'd usually have thought of Gergiev as the faster conductor of the two. This was much longer. But at least I did manage to conclude that, contrary to what I thought, there is actually nothing of Cinderella in that one - it just seems to inhabit the same sound world at times.

Was Slava's Fanfare by any chance played at the Rostropovich 75th Birthday concert at the Barbican? (The one that went on for nearly 3 hours) If so, I may well have it on video somewhere ...

[BudgieJane]

Pulling a few Prokofiev 5ths off the shelves at random

Why are you comparing a live concert with recordings?

[Bryn]

Why are you comparing a live concert with recordings?

Why assume that the recordings, or some of them, are not of 'live' performances?

[Panjandrum]

Surely, the point being made was that Gergiev's timings were not inordinately slow. Whether the comparative performances were "live" or studio affairs is surely irrelevant. IOW, a lacklustre performance rather than perverse tempi.

[BudgieJane]

Why assume that the recordings, or some of them, are not of 'live' performances?

They might be, but they will, most probably, have been post-processed, which a live broadcast of a concert will not have been.

[makropulos]

They might be, but they will, most probably, have been post-processed, which a live broadcast of a concert will not have been.

In general yes, but not if you're dealing with people who have a lot of things recorded off the radio... (A quick look at my own hard drive shows me that I have twelve performances of this piece taken from live broadcasts).

[Bryn]

They might be, but they will, most probably, have been post-processed, which a live broadcast of a concert will not have been.

In the cases of Proms 1 and 4 the horrible processing was done 'live'. I refer to the heavy dynamic compression applied to the output of those two 'live' broadcasts. However, as has already been mentioned, the point related to overall tempi, not audio processing, or perhaps by "post-processed" you were referring to trimming of pauses between movements?