Prom 57: Saturday 27th August 2011 (Hillborg, Mozart, Beethoven)

[Bryn]

I have twice listened to the edited version from the HD Sound stream today, (I heard all the applause while editing), and am now rather tempted to burn another CD-R replete with that applause. Oh, and a clean edit at the very start is just about possible, but only just.

[Alf-Prufrock]

Oh, and a clean edit at the very start is just about possible, but only just.

I managed it with my dear old Cool Edit program. Phew, that was close !

[rodney_h_d]

Like VH and Jayne Lee Wilson, I enjoyed this very much.

The Eroica was fascinating. Oboe ornamentation in the slow movement and solo strings at one point in the finale are certainly not in the Bärenreiter Edition (which yes, DZ uses, in common with most conductors these days - a trend started by Abbado, Mackerras, Norrington, Haitink and Zinman himself). but they were delightful touches. Some of the balance he asked for in the finale was very imaginative too, allowing the woodwind to be heard at one point in a way they seldom are - it took a bit of conductor intervention to do that, obviously, but I thought it worked.

The whole thing seemed extraordinarily refreshing as well as very enjoyable.....

I enjoyed it too - For me Jayne Lee Wilson's suggestion of the word "brusque" was understandable - especially in the first movement, which as in his recording was for me a little breathless - though I'm not really complaining! Although the "non-Bärenreiter" oboe ornamentation has been mentioned, I haven't noticed any comment on the extra repeat towards the end of the Scherzo. It occurred to me when I heard the 4 bar "Alla breve" for a second time. It appears that when he reaches the Coda, Zinman inserts 90-odd bars of the initial Scherzo repeat yet again until 4 bars before Letter B when he returns to the "Alla breve" and on to the Coda. [Have I got that right?] Is this just Zinman's own performance practice or do others now do it?

[makropulos]

I enjoyed it too - For me Jayne Lee Wilson's suggestion of the word "brusque" was understandable - especially in the first movement, which as in his recording was for me a little breathless - though I'm not really complaining! Although the "non-Bärenreiter" oboe ornamentation has been mentioned, I haven't noticed any comment on the extra repeat towards the end of the Scherzo. It occurred to me when I heard the 4 bar "Alla breve" for a second time. It appears that when he reaches the Coda, Zinman inserts 90-odd bars of the initial Scherzo repeat yet again until 4 bars before Letter B when he returns to the "Alla breve" and on to the Coda. [Have I got that right?] Is this just Zinman's own performance practice or do others now do it?

That's a very interesting point - I don't have the Bärenreiter/Del Mar score in front of me, but if memory serves me rightly (and it might not be doing) the extra repeat in the Scherzo is a Zinman speciality rather than anything suggested in the edition.

[rodney_h_d]

That's a very interesting point - I don't have the Bärenreiter/Del Mar score in front of me, but if memory serves me rightly (and it might not be doing) the extra repeat in the Scherzo is a Zinman speciality rather than anything suggested in the edition.

Your memory is correct in that it's definitely not in the Bärenreiter/Del Mar edition which I have been studying - alongside a 1954 Penguin score!

[Panjandrum]

Hackneyvi,
Is your P.S. an example of British wit? I allow for a cultural difference because otherwise the point of your postscript escapes me.

I take it the idea of a Comedy Prom doesn't bake your biscuit, Estelle?

[hackneyvi]

Like VH and Jayne Lee Wilson, I enjoyed this very much.

The Eroica was fascinating ... The whole thing seemed extraordinarily refreshing as well as very enjoyable.

As I haven't heard the Beethoven which I understand was a bigger orchestra I have no idea how that came off.

... a superb Eroica. David Zinmans's recordings of the Beethoven Symphonies use a new set of editions based on the urtext, and I did spot some extra decoration, especially in the woodwinds. I really liked the lean sinewy sound with only moderate vibrato and hard sticks on the tymps. This gave the whole work a special lift.

I didn't like the recording, I'm not sure about the performance. There seemed to be things present and things absent which I noticed and I was unsure whether it was the recorded mix or the performance/the score being used. Do the engineers aim to reproduce the sound of the music in the hall; is that what we were hearing? I wondered if the performance was commonly given at a hall with a dry acoustic and that it didn't suit the Albert Hall. Again, however, I am listening (though in HD sound, theoretically) via laptop and headphones and a dongle. How entirely the sound is affected by these factors, I can't guess. The bass seemed very heavy and I wondered if the bass strings were more numerous than usual? There was a disproportion in the sound, I thought. It seemed like quite a 'small' performance to me which was then loaded with echo, sometimes causing the music to 'swim', some moments lost under a blur of strings.

The double basses (I think) at times sounded almost synthetic, as though they were a single instrumental sound which was achieved on a keyboard. Overall it was a strange mix of the string homogeneity and (mostly) woodwind detail. It seems petty to mention it but there was a very prominently acrid fart from a (?) trombone in the first movement.

I lost some interest before the end. There was an Eroica from the BBCSO at the Barbican at the spring which was much more my cup of tea. Brisk, even a little raw, but bracing. This seemed long and disconcerting because the focus in the sound seemed to change so as it went along. The very, very soft string playing just before the end of the movement was very beautiful, I thought.

It is not up to you to instruct other audience members to eschew their right to express appreciation of the music making ...

It's not being uptight, it's having the continuity of the music destroyed.

In the C19th it was customary to applaud the different movements of a symphony.

As for clapping between movements, you don't have to like it to realise that shooting everybody a "death glare from Hell" isn't going to accomplish anything ... getting enraged doesn't do a bit of good, and talking about it during the music only serves to put a complete buzzkill on everyone around you.

... and am now rather tempted to burn another CD-R replete with that applause.

I didn't enjoy the recording but I could understand why the audience might applaud at the end of the first movement; it was an original and unfamiliar Eroica that would require some guts to play, I'd have thought, because it takes risks. For me, the result was a bit of a car crash but I can hear why it might also be experienced as exhilarating. After such a long movement of such vigorous music, the applause seemed like very natural punctuation, no different to shifting in the seat, a stretch, a sigh or a cough; an urge yielded to for comfort's sake.

... the premiere of Walton's Second Symphony: the applause went on for 14 MINUTES!!!!!

Hackneyvi, I think you're being too exclusive here; well alright, just selfish. You wanted to acclaim Eight Songs but get irritated when others do the same if you don't want to?

Silence, reverence, these have their place. But a prolonged silence at the end of a Shostakovich 4th or Mahler 10th would be less meaningful if it were not, finally, followed by applause.

I'm very inconsistent on this subject but long, perfunctory applause at the close of the concert has always been, to me, an empty convention. To me, the final piece should be applauded according to the response of the audiences to that piece alone. However, it feels to me that the concert as a whole is applauded in a rather tiresome way when thanks have already been given for the previous pieces 2 or 3 times already. I often feel I am being detained by a falsehood which rather flattens the night.

Maybe you're just going to the wrong theatre. In Manhattan, hearing people applaud at Film Forum isn't unusual at all.

I have been going to the wrong theatre, the BFI (our ex-National Film Theatre) but I've put a stop to that. I'd like to be forgiven for the boast that, one of the last times I went, I led applause for the Beckett/Buster Keaton film, Film.

[Ventilhorn]

I'm very inconsistent on this subject but long, perfunctory applause at the close of the concert has always been, to me, an empty convention. To me, the final piece should be applauded according to the response of the audiences to that piece alone. However, it feels to me that the concert as a whole is applauded in a rather tiresome way when thanks have already been given for the previous pieces 2 or 3 times already. I often feel I am being detained by a falsehood which rather flattens the night.

hackneyvi

The initial burst of applause at the end of the final work (and the competition to determine which idiot in the audience gets to be the first to shout "BRAVO") is for the piece that has just been played. What follows is best explained by telling you of the conductors' technique which I call "Milking trhe applause":

At that first bout of applause, the maestro will turn and bow deeply to the stalls. He then bows to the gallery, back and sides and then to the cheapies sitting on the platform behind the orchestra.

By this time, the level of applause is starting to drop, so he leaves the stage. That won't do for the customers, so up with the volume again which continues to rise until he reappears at the side of the stage, where he indicates to one of the players, say, Principal trumpet, to stand up and take a bow. (Burst of appreciative applause which starts to fade fairly quickly) Trumpeter resumes his seat as Maestro brings the whole woodwind section to their feet and leaves the stage. Longer applause this time, because there are eight of them! Just as the clapping starts to die away, Maestro reappears, so must continue to clap. The ovation is now for the whole of the concert, so Maestro indicates to the whole orchestra to stand - and again leaves the stage, with the players still standing. As the applause is showing signs of petering out and the upper woodwind start casting around for their instrument cases, Maestro comes back onto the platform and goes around shaking the hands of the string section principals and waving his hands above his head, applauding the percussion, brass and anyone else not previously acknowledged. He then turns to the audience and applauds them!

With the orchestra still standing, he takes the leader by his hand and leads him from the platform. The members of the orchestra, still on their feet, turn to right and left and leave the stage, while the remainder of the applause dribbles away, to be followed by a general buzz of appreciation.

Constantin Silvestri was a master of this art and could keep the applause going for at least ten minutes


Does that explain things? It's show business, like any other form of entertainment, and must be nurtured to survive.

Good morning all. It's time I made a cup of coffee.

VH

[Osborn]

ventilhorn. Absolutely right! But I shall never forget the opposite - Barenboim concluding his wonderful LvB sonata cycle in the RFH with Op. 111, holding silence for an eternity - rising & acknowledging a thunderous standing ovation then slowly closing the keybard lid & leaving the platform. A perfect finish!

[salymap]

Good morning VH. Malcolm Sargent was also a master of the 'keep 'em applauding' technique,as I am sure you know full well!
In fact I think I read somewhere of his chat with an inexperienced concerto soloist, " I go off, you bow again, I come back, we bow together" etc.

Better than someone standing there looking lost I suppose.

[amateur51]

Impressive descriptions but they are as nought to the skills in audience manipulation evidenced by two entirely different masters of the keyboard.

For sheer cheek and masturbatory skill in audience manipulation there surely was never a greater exponent than Shura Cherkassky. His range of shocked looks, weary sighs, patting the air with his hands, appealing for patience, head on one side while the volume and length of applause was weighed up, faux advances to the piano & then pulling away at the last moment to great sighs of disappointment, followed by a rapid reappearance and a charge for the piano stool before hurling himself into Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 before the applause had stopped, these were all quite amazing and an integral part of a Cherkassky concert, where 6 encores was the norm. Shura gave good value

In contrast Alfred Brendel had to be 'in the mood'. He would often come out four or five times but play no encore. On other occasions he might give one or rarely, two. But he also played Cherkassky's game of the faux approach and final swerve away to centre stage, rather like a matador teasing the bull, espcially after he'd played one encore and his audience was roaring for more. I've seen him grinning while doing this, clearly enjoying it all far more than his recital persona would suggest.