Prom 10 (21.7.12): Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

[EdgeleyRob]

Another amateur view.
Boulez I can live without.
Both the symphonies sounded great to my non expert ears.
I do find that as I get older, the Beethoven symphonies seem to mean less and less to me (except 3 & 9),whereas the chamber music and piano sonatas seem to have more and more to say.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thoroughly enjoyable accounts if not for me quite attaining the heights of Friday evening.

4 (i) could have been more propulsive after the unusually tense and expectant introduction.

Just a shade underwhelmed at the end of 3, the fast coda not quite putting the seal on an often
illuminating traversal.


(I didn't hear the Tom Service commentaries and would avoid those at all costs !)

That about sums up my view, ditto Ariosto #14. I also agree with Pegleg #11 as regards the BBC hype, and about Boulez. Haven't been near Mr Service's burblings; and Ms. Derham on the TV was awful (quite amusing seeing her at a loss for something to say about the Boulez)

I've now listened to / watched last night's performance of No 2 twice: just great on every level

[Ariosto]

That about sums up my view, ditto Ariosto #14. I also agree with Pegleg #11 as regards the BBC hype, and about Boulez. Haven't been near Mr Service's burblings; and Ms. Derham on the TV was awful (quite amusing seeing her at a loss for something to say about the Boulez)

I've now listened to / watched last night's performance of No 2 twice: just great on every level

To be fair to Ms Derham - and I do think she was slightly out of her depth, she coped better than I expected. I wish she had managed to get out of her dressing gown before the show started though, even though it was an expensive looking one ...

I just wish the lot doing the sound would turn down the audience noise and turn up the announcer's mic so we could hear properly. Who want's to hear the loud clapping when someone is trying to talk over it. The BBC needs to get experts in to show them how to work the equipment and then use people who have good hearing and more than one brain cell. It is not rocket science.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, if anything could be criticised isn't it the placing of Boulez between the symphonies?

No.

Truly awful in my opinion, what is the purpose ?

To juxtapose two composers who changed people's realization of what Music is and could be for the better.
To reveal to modern audiences the shock that Beethoven's audiences would have felt encountering Beethoven's Music for the first time. (The reception for Anton Eberl's Eb Major Symphony - which was premiered in the same concert as the first public performance of the Eroica - was much more favourable than that for Ludwig's masterpiece. Many people in 1805 seem to have regarded the Eroica as "truly awful in [their] opinion". Fortunately, there were conductors and performers who didn't let such opinions affect their programming.)

[heliocentric]

if anything could be criticised isn't it the placing of Boulez between the symphonies? Truly awful in my opinion, what is the purpose?

Firstly, quite a considerable number of people like Boulez's music as well as Beethoven's, believe it or not.

But if there has to be a "purpose" over and above that, it's surely (as with concert programming in general) to combine pieces and styles in such a way that they reflect one one another in an illuminating way. Beethoven sounds different after Boulez. (And vice versa, needless to say, though there is the fact that Boulez's music is less familiar than Beethoven's to most people.) It does to me anyway, and fascinatingly so, and if experience is anything to go by almost certainly would have done even if I hadn't enjoyed the Boulez work, and I don't think combining new and old music needs any more justification than that.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But if there has to be a "purpose" over and above that, it's surely (as with concert programming in general) to combine pieces and styles in such a way that they reflect one one another in an illuminating way. Beethoven sounds different after Boulez. (And vice versa, needless to say, though there is the fact that Boulez's music is less familiar than Beethoven's to most people.) It does to me anyway, and fascinatingly so, and if experience is anything to go by almost certainly would have done even if I hadn't enjoyed the Boulez work, and I don't think combining new and old music needs any more justification than that.

Yeah: that, too!

[heliocentric]

Yeah: that, too!

Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore your previous one (which I agree with), I just hadn't seen it until I posted mine.

[amac4165]

I wonder whether Barenboim will continue conducting Beethoven with a baton, and Boulez without. I would have thought the opposite would be more logical, with Beethoven being more straightforward rhythmically than Boulez,

baton but no score for Beethoven

Boulez was a solo clarinet piece - and so no conductor


amac

[John Wright]

Firstly, quite a considerable number of people like Boulez's music as well as Beethoven's, believe it or not.

...... Boulez's music is less familiar than Beethoven's to most people.) It does to me anyway, and fascinatingly so, and if experience is anything to go by almost certainly would have done even if I hadn't enjoyed the Boulez work, and I don't think combining new and old music needs any more justification than that.

I wonder to how many TV viewers your first point applies. The second point, well, unfortunately the Boulez piece today was tooting, not music, I lasted about 8 seconds at the start. Some time later I peeped in and lasted about 2.5 seconds. I timed the start for LvB No3 just right and hit the Sky record button. Something for tomorrow.

[amac4165]

Well. Tonight's concert. They went out on a huge high last night, and sort of came in on a low tonight. That's what being human is like.

The fourth symphony is a big problem to perform. Not an easy one. It either works or not. Baremboim seemed out of salts, the orchestra had intonation and ensemble problems, and balance problems. They needed a night off. Sometimes for me the tempos seemed too slow. But who am I to criticise. No winks from DB and he looked unhappy. A lack of flow - which this work needs.

The Boulez was interesting and very well played by the clarinetist. The orchestra was too loud!! (Only joking ...)

The Eroica was better, but I felt still not entirely happy. (If you can describe it as happy ...)

I now agree with Bryn about the timps. Soft heads just don't work. Well, that's my opinion in that accoustic.

But as performing creative musicians we have to take a good night followed by a bad night. That is what the creative arts are. We can only get the magic occasionally - it does not just happen. Tomorrow is another day, a chance for re-birth.

Just back from the hall and agree entirely - they really did need a day off. 4 needed a lot more work IHMO - only in the last movement did I think it got going.

Eroica much better though - as good a live performance as I have heard - I can understand some reservations though

amac

[Petrushka]

I wonder to how many TV viewers your first point applies. The second point, well, unfortunately the Boulez piece today was tooting, not music, I lasted about 8 seconds at the start. Some time later I peeped in and lasted about 2.5 seconds. I timed the start for LvB No3 just right and hit the Sky record button. Something for tomorrow.

How can you possibly dismiss a piece that you stayed with for just 8 seconds? The Boulez was entirely new to me and while I found it a far from easy listen I'm ready to persevere just as I did with the Eroica many years ago. Having it on TV is a great benefit and the sound is so much better than last season.

[Bryn]

I wonder to how many TV viewers your first point applies. The second point, well, unfortunately the Boulez piece today was tooting, not music, I lasted about 8 seconds at the start. Some time later I peeped in and lasted about 2.5 seconds. I timed the start for LvB No3 just right and hit the Sky record button. Something for tomorrow.

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. Best you stick to the easy listening John.

[Bryn]

Strange. Part 2 of tonight's Prom had turned up on the Radio 3 iPlayer, but not Part 1 (as yet).

[jayne lee wilson]

Pace Ariosto's observations about intonation and ensemble, I appear to have enjoyed this 4th more than most - for the fullness and sweetness of the strings ( allied to a powerful rhythmic attack), and for a reading which was actively led - conducted - in a way that encouraged the players to musically dialogue and converse with each other throughout. Did no-one else notice the lead-back to the recap in (i), so teased-out and playful as the divided violins tossed those little figures to and fro across the platform? Then the blaze of tone at the reprise itself. Or the sweet, floating espressivo of the opening of (ii), rebuffed by the weight and attack (again) of those big repeated chords that follow; the lovely wind solos... and Barenboim made sure that the scherzo repeats weren't just repetitions, how thrillingly he steered us all back into the last one.

The Eroica, again gloriously played, was, for me, too moderately paced and massively-intoned in the first 2 movements... does that rich string sound emphasise the famous climax at the height of the 1st movement's development, or rather cushion its impact?

The experience of more "radical" conductors, from Scherchen or Leibowitz to Zinman, Bruggen or wicked old RN, has given us a new dimension of hell-for-leather heroism in this symphony (and what Richard Osborne once referred to (re.Bruggen) as "powder keg sonorities") and a rhythmic energy and buoyancy - sheer speed - which I now can't do without.
But, after a rather saturnine marcia funebre, the fullness and tonal foundation of the West-Eastern D. drove their virtuosity and brilliance through the scherzo and finale - even if DB was playing to the gallery a little as he accelerated through the coda.

I wished I could have heard Boulez' Dialogue in surround-sound! As it was, I found the ear-tweaking richness and resonance (via HDs) of both the "clarinette premiere" (as Boulez has it) and its electronic shadow very diverting indeed. Perhaps it doesn't fit well between two LVB symphonies, but if you tucked it away at a late-night Prom who's going to bother?
(The Roundhouse would be a good venue though... is it back in service yet?)

[heliocentric]

tooting not music, I lasted about 8 seconds

Not myself being an expert on such things I wouldn't presume to try defining the boundary between music and not-music, but I think it's a shame you seem to have so little curiosity.