Prom 1: First Night of the Proms

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It is clear from the context that 'Symphony no. 2' referred to a yet-to-be-written work, and that (despite its title) Butterworth didn't regard A Sea Symphony as being a 'symphony'......

The symphony was A London Symphony, which is dedicated to Butterworth. Again, it is clear that RVW wasn't thinking of A Sea Symphony as being a 'symphony' in the way that the London and Pastoral were.

Clearly RVW was content for A Sea Symphony to be included eventually in the canon, but I think these snippets allow us to view it in a slightly different light.

VW didn't number any of his symphonies, other than 8 & 9. I wonder whether he was supersticious?

[marvin]

Missed the first half.

RVW's magnificent Sea Symphony (why does it get such a bad press?)what a performance.
Super music,super playing,super singing.

'questionings, baffled, formless',.....riveting,moving......I am in bits.

I like it but like some of Bruckner's symphonies it does suffer from longuers. It is a pity that RVW could not have pared it down somewhat to about 45 minutes, after which time I do start looking at the clock. I thought that the two soloists were magnificent though, especially the Baritone.
You never know but I might listen to my CD of the work again, sometime?

[Mary Chambers]

is Leaves of Grass considered great poetry ? I'm just amazed VW was inspired to write such majestic music from such, well, silly words (IMO) - heaving breasts, husky nurses (what ?), lots of pennants and mates

I've no idea whether it's considered great poetry - probably not, and certainly not by me - but the heaving breast image of the sea seems reasonable to me. Not sure why 'husky', though! Many of the words are beautiful, and it's about the soul as much as it's about the sea. It has a sense of vastness and eternity.

Pity Britten didn't manage to write his planned Sea Symphony, though.

[BBMmk2]

Maybe if the words were not very good, but almost certainly RVW certainly brought out the nbest of the text, in a like Purcell did. Albeit of an earlier age but Purcell had the knack, like RVW did, of makin g a poor text 'great', through his music.

[marvin]

I'm with Caliban about the Rach. Yes, Hough is technically brilliant, but I wonder if nerves pure and simple got the better of both him and Oramo for about the first three variations? Nothing 'wrong' exactly, but the liaison between the two seemed strained, and it did not have its usual flow and swagger. Hough is not one to 'emote' overmuch while playing, but I think I'd almost have preferred Lang Lang than that strained, anguished look!

As far as programming the Rach and the Lutoslawski back to back, was this a good idea? The latter is a fantastic piece, but it clearly owes a lot to the former, and I'd just about had enough of DEE di diddle diddle DEE by the end of it.

Great to see all those young choirs mixed in for the RVW...and yes Roderick Williams' voice was just terrific. Reminded me of Shirley Quirk at his best.

I always feel slightly ill at ease watching or listening to live performances by SH. I am always waiting for a wrong note or phrase and he doesn't come across as a truly relaxed concert pianist like some of the other greats of the keyboard who perform with seemless abandon. SH looks as though he has to concentrate a lot but I enjoyed this old war horse, however. Let's face it anything 'classical' on TV is a rarity for most of the year and so it's a blessing that the BBC are making more of the Proms, this year. My recorders are all carefully programmed for the coming weeks thus eliminating the usual dross.

[Hornspieler]

I'm with Caliban about the Rach. Yes, Hough is technically brilliant, but I wonder if nerves pure and simple got the better of both him and Oramo for about the first three variations? Nothing 'wrong' exactly, but the liaison between the two seemed strained, and it did not have its usual flow and swagger. Hough is not one to 'emote' overmuch while playing, but I think I'd almost have preferred Lang Lang than that strained, anguished look!

As far as programming the Rach and the Lutoslawski back to back, was this a good idea? The latter is a fantastic piece, but it clearly owes a lot to the former, and I'd just about had enough of DEE di diddle diddle DEE by the end of it.

Great to see all those young choirs mixed in for the RVW...and yes Roderick Williams' voice was just terrific. Reminded me of Shirley Quirk at his best.

Too many posts to comment on them individually, so I will try to cover what I saw last night on TV.

I am in no position to make any comment upon the first item except to say that it was well sung and to ask who in the BBC is actually responsible for commissioning new works. Is it a committee or a single nominated member of staff?

Britten's 4 Sea Interludes started well enough, but the Finale was a complete shambles - more like a Tsunami than a mere bit of rough weather.

I too thought Stephen Hough's playing was quite magnificent - such finger facility as to be mind-boggling to a "one note at a time" non pianist like myself.

One advantage of these TV replays is that the interval is foreshortened and this was quite interesting - especially a very nice leg show from the Duchess of Langham Place (Sorry, Jayne)

I only played The Sea Symphony once - in 1957 and remembered nothing about it except that on that day I was more concerned by a shattering event from which I took 25 years to recover. So I came to it afresh.

Fine singing by both soloists IMV and that huge choir were magnificent, but I thought the last movement was never going to end.
Too many false alarms and just as one was prepared for "closure" (as the Americans put it) with a final triumphant cadence, another of Walt Whitman's poems surfaced from the depths.

Maestro Oramo's conducting? I can only wish the BBC Symphony Orchestra the best of luck.

Hornspieler

[mercia]

how do commissions work ? do they [the commissioners] say - "must be less than five minutes, choral, here's the text" - or is there more freedom ?

[Pabmusic]

is Leaves of Grass considered great poetry ? I'm just amazed VW was inspired to write such majestic music from such, well, silly words (IMO) - heaving breasts, husky nurses (what ?), lots of pennants and mates

perhaps I need to try harder with them

Whitman was hugely popular with certain composers, not only RVW. Delius, Holst, Britten, Weill and Hindemith all set him in major works, as well (of course) as many American composers.

He is easy to parody, though. Here's G K Chesterton on Old King Cole:

Me clairvoyant,

Me conscious of you, old camarado,

Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez,

Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed;

The crown cannot hide you from me,

Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me,

I perceive that you drink.
(I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.)

I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting
(I do not object to your spitting),

You prophetic of American largeness,

You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States;

I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious,

I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations,

Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever;

They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment:

I myself am a complete orchestra.

So long.

I particularly like this one by Julian Sturgis in 1884:

Covent Garden Market.

Onions, potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, asparagus French and English.

(O bonjour, French asparagus, my brother!)
Good vegetables and bad musty vegetables!

Good sellers and bad musty sellers!

I devour the bad musty vegetables.

O bouquets for misses, and for opera girls!

Empty wagons and full wagons, empty baskets and full baskets, empty people and full people!

O Covent Garden Market!

O dirt and smell and slime indescribable!
I describe you all, I love you all, I wallow in you all –
I too, am a vegetable.
I am likewise an animal and an angel.

Cool and sweet is the dewy grass, and the shore of the sea.
Cool and sweet is the crowded London street.

I strip myself naked in the grass, on the shore of the sea, in the crowded street.
I am free and naked; the policemen run me in,

Them also do I call brothers!

[mercia]

Many of the words are beautiful, and it's about the soul as much as it's about the sea. It has a sense of vastness and eternity.

yes, you're probably right - the first movement is probably the weakest for me words-wise, but transcended by the music

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Roderick Williams was excellent throughout. A superb slow-movement, one of the best I've heard.
Sally Matthews' voice didn't fit the piece: very heavy, far too much vibrato - with such contrasting voices, the last movement was never going to work.
The choir sang well at times, with superb diction. But dear me, the scherzo was plodding!

Steven Hough had some rather strange ideas of rhythm and phrasing in the Rachmaninov.

And back to the Albert Hall acoustic. I'm quite sure the BBC engineers have done a magnificent job getting it as good as this, but it's all so close-miced. That didn't help the choral sound.

[Sir Monty Golfear]

I always feel slightly ill at ease watching or listening to live performances by SH. I am always waiting for a wrong note or phrase and he doesn't come across as a truly relaxed concert pianist like some of the other greats of the keyboard who perform with seemless abandon. SH looks as though he has to concentrate a lot but I enjoyed this old war horse, however. Let's face it anything 'classical' on TV is a rarity for most of the year and so it's a blessing that the BBC are making more of the Proms, this year. My recorders are all carefully programmed for the coming weeks thus eliminating the usual dross.

I know exactly what you mean about watching or listening to SH live. I think you summed it up how I feel too!.
He always looks as though he is working so hard when he is playing!.

[Mr Pee]

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/first-night-proms-royal-albert-hall-0

[edashtav]

I find it difficult to concur with this. VW could have revised the work, as he did with his next symphony, but he never did. But I'm a little biased as it's definitely one of my desert island choices.

But... things are not that cut and dried, all is not black and white. Firstly, there is the issue of wide distribution: the numbers of copies of the score and parts of the London Symphony were few and the number in non-professional hands extremely low. A new edition caused little distress among the public and some joy to those musicians who had criticised the score's self-indulgence. The vocal score of the Sea Symphony had sold well to amateurs singing in choral societies. They would have been distressed to find that their edition was useless.

More importantly, perhaps. A Sea Symphony was published by Breitkopf & Hartel in Leipzig. Had RVW wanted to tighten the score, having a publisher on the "other" side of the front line in World War I would have presented acute, possibly insuperable, difficulties.

It's germane to my argument that when Stainer and Bell published a "new edition" of the vocal score in 1918, it included a preface containing 15 (minor) alterations with a note stating "Conductors and singers who are using old copies should alter their copies so as to correspond with this new edition."

RVW was a practical musician who knew and cared for amateurs who sang his music. He was no Stravinsky looking to protect copyright (and income flow) through pseudo-updated editions.

By the time that a thorough revision of the Sea Symphony had become practicable, RVW's "style" had for ever changed; had he then revisited his apprentice work, he would have had to start afresh.

The sins of youth diminish in importance as the corpus of maturity grows.

[Mary Chambers]

Whitman was hugely popular with certain composers, not only RVW. Delius, Holst, Britten, Weill and Hindemith all set him in major works, as well (of course) as many American composers.

]

I'm struggling to think of a setting of Whitman by Britten, but maybe the heat is befuddling my brain.

Whitman was very popular among a certain type in Edwardian England. I inherited a copy of Leaves of Grass from a great aunt, born in the 1870s, along with her Tennyson, Longfellow and various other volumes of poetry, all bound in limp leather with gilt lettering and page edges. I never knew her, but wish I had.

[Pabmusic]

I'm struggling to think of a setting of Whitman by Britten, but maybe the heat is befuddling my brain...

Mine is already befuddled. You may be right - I suspect I was thinking of Bliss (Morning Heroes, which uses some Whitman). Or it may just have been 'one of those things' that appear more and more regularly.