Prom 8 - 17.07.13: Britten, Lutosławski & Thomas Adès

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.30pm – c. 9.55pm
Royal Albert Hall

Britten
Sinfonia da Requiem (20 mins)
Lutosławski
Concerto for Cello (24 mins)
INTERVAL
Thomas Adès
Totentanz (c45 mins)
World Premiere

Paul Watkins cello
Christianne Stotijn mezzo-soprano
Simon Keenlyside baritone
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Adès conductor

Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem opens a programme of testimony and remembrance. Former BBC SO Principal Cellist Paul Watkins is the soloist in Lutosławski's bleak and beautiful Cello Concerto, composed for and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich in a period of violent protest and political repression in Poland.

Thomas Adès conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra and soloists Christianne Stotijn and Simon Keenlyside in the world premiere of his Totentanz, a commission in memory of Lutosławski, which sets an anonymous 15th-century text that accompanied a frieze destroyed when Lübeck's Marienkirche was bombed in the Second World War.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Surely one of the most exciting Proms of the season?

[Roehre]

Surely one of the most exciting Proms of the season?

for me certainly

[french frank]

The Adès is a pretty hefty work. I wonder if the Totentanz referred to is the Bernt Notke, illustrated in Wiki. Not a suitable format for reproduction here ...

[BBMmk2]

I love the Lutoslaski CC, here. I had the LP of it, c/w the Henri Duttleaux.

[ucanseetheend]

so a piece about a Mural destroyed in the second world war in Lubeck by a British Composer at the BRITISH Proms, Hmmm. Is it a political statement? Not another anti " Bombing of Germany" in 1945 I hope.

[LaurieWatt]

Surely one of the most exciting Proms of the season?

I agree that it could be but the broadcast of the Sinfonia da Requiem, so far, is so poorly balanced even on the Internet radio, and, more importantly, the performance so perfunctory and dull that I have turned it off already.... No doubt someone will say if it improves!

[edashtav]

Ades Sleep-Walks Through the start of Britten

I agree that it could be but the broadcast of the Sinfonia da Requiem, so far, is so poorly balanced even on the Internet radio, and, more importantly, the performance so perfunctory and dull that I have turned it off already.... No doubt someone will say if it improves!

If it did, I didn't experience the improvement. Like you, Laurie , I switched off after a ponderous, under-powered, weakly characterised first movement.

Once I've recharged, I'll listen again to the new Ades piece for I admire his work greatly.

[edashtav]

Thomas Ades and the Waltons

Totentanz (2013) by Thomas Ades (PROM 8) is everything that Tanzsuite by Lachenmann (PROM 5) isn’t: replete with whole dances, fully embracing / buried in the past, & tricked out with tunes. It’s a work of deep, British conservatism. Oh deary me: has Thomas got a severe touch of the “Waltons”? Is the fibre of his youthful iconoclasm under attack? Am I being absurd when I find this extended piece no more significant than Suppe? I can conceive of a programme that starts with “Poet & Peasant”, and the Ades follows – neatly retitled “Pope & Peasant”. Just to show what may be achieved by wit & concision within a backward-looking idiom, the second half starts with Saint-Saens Danse Macabre then the concert reaches its rebarbative nadir in Liszt’s Totentanz for piano and orchestra.

The Ades is immediately attractive – full of lurid fun, etched in primary colours & with all its points rammed home by shed-loads, sorry pantechnicons, of percussion. But… is it a “sell-out”?

Yes, I may seen relaxing with a Scotch and one of Jimmy Mac’s pieces, but I’d rather be stretched by Herr Lachenmann – whom I failed to comprehend on Monday. I was tempted to attend the RAH last evening but I’m glad that I stayed at home. Had I enjoyed myself by now I’d be wracked with guilt. How mediaeval!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This is discouraging. I didn't hear this concert, even though it was a "must hear". But I did record it, so I hope the naysayers are not too accurate.

[DracoM]

What on earth Ades was doing with the Britten, I simply do not begin to understand. It was comatose.
Lutoslawski exciting and Mr Watkins gave it all he had.
BUT
For me, the Ades was just pretty tedious, miles too long and over-blown. The fashion for engine sheds of percussion goes on, but is so 1990's. Nice singing particularly by Finley, but.......so what?
Please explain to me, because I really, really do not get why this composer is so rapturously feted, as if there was some kind of lobbying claque behind him.

[BBMmk2]

What ba pity, about this prom Perhaps I may give it a listen, as I was out last night.

[Bryn]

What on earth Ades was doing with the Britten, I simply do not begin to understand. It was comatose.
Lutoslawski exciting and Mr Watkins gave it all he had.
BUT
For me, the Ades was just pretty tedious, miles too long and over-blown. The fashion for engine sheds of percussion goes on, but is so 1990's. Nice singing particularly by Finley, but.......so what?
Please explain to me, because I really, really do not get why this composer is so rapturously feted, as if there was some kind of lobbying claque behind him.

Beats me too. Damn it, I am told he even gets others to do a fair bit of the composing for some of 'his' output. Who does he think he is? Stockhausen writing Carré? A fair old piano accompanist though.

[Serial_Apologist]

Who does he think he is?

A shark or more probably a sheep preserved in formaldehyde?

[Tevot]

Hello there,

This is curious...

Andrew Clements appears to have been at an entirely different concert :-) !!

Here's the link...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jul/18/prom-8-bbcso-ades-review

I haven't heard the Prom yet but hope to soon - especially given the varied responses to it posted here.

Best Wishes,

Tevot