Prom 19 (28.7.12): Gudmunsen-Holmgreen, Shostakovich, Langgaard & Tchaikovsky

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Saturday 28 July at 7.30 p.m.
Royal Albert Hall

Langgaard: Symphony No. 11, 'Ixion' (first performance at The Proms) (5 mins)
Pelle Gudmunsen-Holmgreen: Incontri (UK premiere)
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in Eb(29 mins)
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in b, 'Pathétique' (45 mins)


Daniel Müller-Schott, cello
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard, conductor


Thomas Dausgaard conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, contemporary Danish music and Shostakovich's 1st Cello Concerto with soloist Daniel Muller-Schott.

Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Symphony Orchestra present a night of firsts. Making its UK premiere is maverick Rued Langgaard's tuba-rich 11th Symphony of 1945. There's also the UK premiere of octogenarian Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's Incontri. Daniel Muller-Schott makes his Proms debut as the soloist in Shostakovich's hyper-concentrated 1st Cello Concerto. And the Prom ends with Tchaikovsky's radical and deeply emotional 6th Symphony.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Tchaikovsky 6 was the work that I detested at my first ever live orchestral concert, but I gradually came to love it and it now vies for top position in my symphonic affections, alongside Elgar 1.

[Serial_Apologist]

That is quite a programme!

The Benedict Mason should be interesting. I once greatly admired this composer, but sort of lost track with him when he went over to creating multimedia-styled "installations". The Danish (? ) composers' works have been much to my liking, and the Shostakovitch is a tremendously powerful work. The Tchaikovsky would probably prove too much of a good thing on top of all that had preceded, and I would doubtless leave early, were I to be there.

[french frank]

That is quite a programme!

The Benedict Mason should be interesting.

Or would have been ...

[3rd Viennese School]

I'll be listening to this. I want to hear how Langgaard can get a symphony down to 5 minutes!

Not heard his stuff- so looked up Langgaard symphony programme notes on line. The 16 symphonies do look very uneven!

I saw the Shostakovich Cello 1 live in downtown Chatham and the Tchaikovsky 6 live at the last proms I went to.

And, as you readers will know, Tchaikovsky Symphony no.6 was my first symphony! When I was at school. Bought it on vinyl in downtown Chatham.

3VS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'll be listening to this. I want to hear how Langgaard can get a symphony down to 5 minutes!

Possible by emulating Webern - or Roger Norrington.

[Roehre]

Possible by emulating Webern - or Roger Norrington.

More like Varese

[Roehre]

I'll be listening to this. I want to hear how Langgaard can get a symphony down to 5 minutes!

Not heard his stuff- so looked up Langgaard symphony programme notes on line. The 16 symphonies do look very uneven!

They are, see e.g. my comments to SC's symphonic journey re Langgaard's 1st symphony.
But there are some very nice, interesting and spellbinding works among these 16 symphonies.

[3rd Viennese School]

Langgaard Symphony no.1 is an hour! Symphony no. 12 is only 7 minutes. But apparantley its a condensed version of symphony no.1! I suppose I will have to hear both symphonies being played back to back!

3VS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not sure I can bear the inappropriate applause.

[jayne lee wilson]

A truly remarkable concert, with an extraordinary range of music and high level of performance and engineering throughout.
The premieres were something of a stereo spectacular!


More time for discussion later I hope, but I must say how brave and right it was for Dausgaard to bring the adagio of the Pathetique in quickly, to silence those too eager to acclaim too soon - after the march. He made sure Tchaikovsky's voice was heard above the mob. I'm fairly tolerant of inter-movement applause but in the Tchaikovsky 6 it is a crudity of response that amounts to a betrayal.

And I'm delighted to have experienced "Jungle Baroque" - courtesy of Mr. Gudmundsen-Holmgreen...!

[PJPJ]

......but I must say how brave and right it was for Dausgaard to bring the adagio of the Pathetique in quickly, to silence those too eager to acclaim too soon - after the march....

I understood that was marked in the score but it isn't in mine. Mravinsky and others also start the fourth movement with a short break after the third and effectively.

[jayne lee wilson]

The intensity - the extremity - of Tchaikovsky's 6th was fully expressed in the contrasts Dausgaard emphasised in this performance: light, swift and fluid in the earlier, fearfully hopeful sections of the first movement; followed by weighty, snarling outbursts from the brass.
The stormy developmental episode was almost savage, the orchestral ensemble on the very edge, just as the composer was - resigned to survival, in the smoking ruins of the coda.

The middle movements were built upon a warm and full orchestral response, the strings especially suave and elegant in the con grazia... "it is the ladies and gentleman skating in Moscow" as Klemeperer said. Terrific brilliance and frenetic excitement in the march, just a little too triumphant, looking away from the truth... the tragedy of the finale. The audience's interruption at this junction almost underlined the poignancy of one who knows that triumph, public acclaim, the image of fulfilment - is hollow...

Dausgaard knows that the finale needs no exaggeration. Stark, bleak, and shocking. Perhaps only Mahler in his 9th and 10th symphonies, or Shostakovich in his 15th, were ever closer to the grave than this.

****
I still can't see - yet - why Langgaard called his 11th a symphony rather than an overture, but the startling entry of those 4 tubas made me fear for my ears - or had the amps blown?! - quite a moment, faithfully relayed! Nor can I see past the essentially late-romantic idiom of this composer, for all the complex architecture in Music of the Spheres or the larger symphonies. The BBCSO's response - their reach perhaps just exceeding their grasp - could scarcely be described as half-hearted, but those Tubas turned it up to "11".

"Jungle Baroque" - is a phrase used by Gudmundsen-Holmgreen in a note about Incontri on the Chester Novello website (google it for further enlightenment..!). Listening innocent-eared, I imagined a baroque ritornello assaulted by the more primitive, elemental musics of percussion and brass, but the composer seems to see them as existing together, like different birds and creatures in the same forest.
Whatever his inspiration, it's a prime piece of orchestral ear-candy (and another good workout for your stereo...)

Our cup runneth over with the DSCH Cello Concerto No.1. the BBCSO winds brilliantly emphatic in their protesting accompaniment to the
beauty and articulacy of Daniel Muller-Schott; again, idiomatic and faithful to both letter and spirit.

With its mix of virtuosity, innovation and intensity, a concert in the great, living tradition of the Henry Wood Proms.

[Flosshilde]

I hadn't heard the Shostakovitch concerto before. The seconf movement surprisedme - almost , Vaughan Williams-ish ? The beginning, at least.

[EdgeleyRob]

Post #13 top quality as usual from JLW,oh to be able to write such stuff!
The Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky were super IMO.
Why the applause after the 3rd movement of the Tchaikovsky 6,did they not know what was coming?