Prom 1 (13.7.12): First Night of the Proms

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There seems to be rather a lot of low-level Elgar-bashing on this thread.

Well, the Coronation Ode is "low-level Elgar", and I don't mind "bashing" it, safe in the knowledge that nobody is going to say "We were going to perform Elgar's Coronation Ode, but then we remembered fhg doesn't like it, so we did Das Augenlicht instead."

But I love the "ethereal" Cockaigne and won't say a word against it!

[french frank]

But I love the "ethereal" Cockaigne and won't say a word against it!

This version seems to have been received quite well . [EG = Edward Greenfield?]

[Curalach]

This version seems to have been received quite well . [EG = Edward Greenfield?]

I remember buying that very LP at the time

[Tony Halstead]

Hmmm... I was playing the Royal Festival Hall organ in that performance. ( Edward Heath/ LSO).
Less fussy than Sir RN the other night, Mr Heath ( as he was then) gave a clear but somewhat rigid beat, even insisting on beating out the first 3 'silent beats' before the actual start of the music ( 'so as to get the tempo right' he told the LSO leader who had suggested simply giving an upbeat and ignoring Elgar's scrupulously notated '75% empty' portion of the first bar!).
Edward Greenfield, as you say, seems to have enjoyed it.
I'm not sure whether Heath himself was responsible for its 'luxuriance, its warm expansiveness beyond even what Barbirolli asked for in Elgar' or whether the LSO would have played it like that anyway.

[subcontrabass]

[QUOTE=jayne lee wilson;184599

"Give me Cockaigne" - sparkling, sensuous, romantic and fun -
And give me Sea Drift - a stark, poignant, wistful and challenging vision of love and loss.[/QUOTE]

Cockaigne - yes, although the fun was perhaps not altogether present in that performance.

Sea Drift - sorry, like all the Delius that I have heard (and that is quite a bit over the years) it just comes across as so much vacuous note-spinning.

[BBMmk2]

Sea Drift - sorry, like all the Delius that I have heard (and that is quite a bit over the years) it just comes across as so much vacuous note-spinning.[/QUOTE]


What a shame!!

[Pabmusic]

...even insisting on beating out the first 3 'silent beats' before the actual start of the music ( 'so as to get the tempo right' he told the LSO leader who had suggested simply giving an upbeat and ignoring Elgar's scrupulously notated '75% empty' portion of the first bar!...

I think Heath was right to beat the first three 'empty' beats. Norman del Mar used to be very insistent upon this - the empty beats are very much part of the piece itself, so that the first sounds join something that has already begun, rather than 'kick start' it from cold. I note that Boult does the same in the bit of film I posted in 91.

[Barbirollians]

I am not a fan of some of Delius's vocal music . I do not like the Songs of Sunset but the texts are mostly to blame for that . Sea Drift on the other hand I did not know well and the BBC MM recent Thomas Hampson release impressed me a great deal and I like the work very much.

[amateur51]

I've just caught up with Katie Derham's pronunciation of Bryn Terfel as if his name is Ter-velle.

Why does she do that?

It's not exactly difficult

[MrGongGong]

I think Heath was right to beat the first three 'empty' beats.

I'm wondering how 3 beats can be "scrupulously notated" ??

"Heath was right" hummmmmmm

I'm not an orchestral musician but friends who are haven't been as enthusiastic

[Barbirollians]

I turned on Radio 3 this afternoon forgetting that they would be repeating this concert and my immediate thought was what a dreary performance of Cockaigne - sounded like a lazy run through at a rehearsal before a conductor started working on it ! Then discovered it was Norrington last Friday . Mediocre sums it up to my ears .

[Nick Armstrong]

I turned on Radio 3 this afternoon forgetting that they would be repeating this concert and my immediate thought was what a dreary performance of Cockaigne - sounded like a lazy run through at a rehearsal before a conductor started working on it ! Then discovered it was Norrington last Friday . Mediocre sums it up to my ears .

That was precisely how it struck me at the time. "Lazy" is the word I've used about the performance in a number of conversations over the weekend.

[amateur51]

That was precisely how it struck me at the time. "Lazy" is the word I've used about the performance in a number of conversations over the weekend.

Was it 2010 that the much-missed Sir Charles Mackerras conducted Cockaigne with the Philharmonia at the Proms?

That was a performance of a very different stripe

[Simon B]

Was it 2010 that the much-missed Sir Charles Mackerras conducted Cockaigne with the Philharmonia at the Proms?

That was a performance of a very different stripe

It was 2009 and the BBC Philharmonic, the whole concert played with absolute commitment. I think everyone already knew it might be his last Proms season, and sadly so it turned out...

In the hall, I thought Cockaigne (my favourite piece of Elgar that isn't a symphony or oratorio) was ok on Fri, though Norrington did nearly lose the orchestra at least twice...

Not a patch on Mackerras though (swagger, wistful nostalgia and those trombones!). CM also beat those 3 empty beats at the start. IIRC
he was interviewed before the concert giving the pragmatic explanation that (paraphrasing) it's a bit of a pig to start and the first few bars are a good test of whether a conductor is any good!

In fact I don't think I've ever seen a performance in which the conductor *didn't* give the empty beats...

[Northender]

I thought 'Cockaigne' was the best thing on the programme - not that there was much competition. If the word 'longueurs' didn't exist, it would have been necessary to invent it for the 'Coronation Ode'.