Prom 8 - 17.07.13: Britten, Lutosławski & Thomas Adès

[Tevot]

and indeed Ivan Hewett's review too :-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/proms/10187948/Proms-2013-Thomas-Ades-review.html

[antongould]

Well SMP loved it too ~ so with her and the Grauniad critic onside it will only be a matter of minutes before the board follows suit. ....

[Barbirollians]

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.

Mixing up your baritones ! It was Simon Keenlyside .

[Roslynmuse]

Only listened to the Ades, and only once so far, but my immediate response was, like that of others here, of disappointment. This was a piece that could almost have been written any time in the last sixty years. The half-digested Dies Irae near the start was a signal of predictability, and the banality of the dance rhythms was at times embarrassing. As for the final section - it moved from starting out as a budget version of the finale of Mahler 2 to a virtual remix of the finales of the Britten Violin Concerto and his Sinfonia da Requiem (curious 'returning to the scene of the crime' programming!). The performance struck me as the best it could possibly get (although the mezzo had an alarming flutter on some notes and I wasn't wholly convinced by all of Keenlyside's German). One thing I'll say for Ades - he writes like a professional, which is more than could be said for David Matthews' student composition the previous evening. The shadow of Britten seems to be hanging over all the Proms commissions so far - the first section of the Spring Symphony was recalled in Julian Anderson's First Night piece, and Matthews gave us a handful of Aldeburgh shingle too.

I read the reviews linked above and one description made me think of Birtwistle's Triumph of Time - and how far short of that masterpiece Totentanz falls. When was that written? 1971?

[jayne lee wilson]

What on earth does it mean, to "write like a professional"? Following your scathing dismissal of the same "professional"s Totentanz? This is a loose use of language. You make the almost identical comment about the Ades as the Guardian reviewer did about the Matthews, that it could have been "composed almost at any time in the last 60 years"... Hmm... that's a creative crime for - WHAT reason exactly? Does a composer have to invent a new idiom, or take a radical formal approach, every time they compose? Perhaps only those most fastidious self-editors Dutilleux and Alban Berg ever managed that (maybe not even them), and what about Boulez' revisits & revisions? Oh poor Pierre, 50 years of rewriting for want of new ideas!

I've not heard the Ades yet, but I think you've badly misjudged the David Matthews piece (which I've heard twice and said a little more about on the relevant thread. Q.V. Or rather just listen to A Vision of the Sea). Do you know Music of Dawn, In the Dark Time, Chaconne, A Vision and a Journey? He has his own idiom and his mature style isn't much like Britten. (It's an obvious and rather lazy reference to make). Britten's view of the sea is almost always very humanised, whereas in Vision of the Sea Matthews evokes at least as many wild and elemental forces as human ones, with explicit (and surprisingly accurate - one's been in my garden every day this week) Herring Gull calls as a main motif of the piece. A second hearing of Vision revealed much beauty and originality - placing it firmly in a tradition going back to Glazunov, Ciurlionis and Debussy. The BBCPO did well with it, but it would benefit from tighter, more confident solos and a more virtuoso orchestral abandon than the premiere could find. Don't judge so fast on one hearing. (And don't be too confident that any premiere performance of a work is "the best it could possibly get". It does make it SO much easier to dismiss it, doesn't it?)

The Ades is getting such a bad press here (but not elsewhere...) I'm intrigued to catch up - biggest problem is (pet hate) so much text without synopsis or translation. I'll see it on TV at least.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Have only listened to the Britten so far, but it seems yet again that the critics were listening to a different performance, probably one made up in their imagination. Passionate would be the last thing I would call the performance, limp would describe it better with Ades unable to control and shape the flow of the piece.

[edashtav]

When Britten Rules the Waves

Only listened to the Ades, and only once so far, but my immediate response was, like that of others here, of disappointment. This was a piece that could almost have been written any time in the last sixty years. The half-digested Dies Irae near the start was a signal of predictability, and the banality of the dance rhythms was at times embarrassing. As for the final section - it moved from starting out as a budget version of the finale of Mahler 2 to a virtual remix of the finales of the Britten Violin Concerto and his Sinfonia da Requiem (curious 'returning to the scene of the crime' programming!). The performance struck me as the best it could possibly get (although the mezzo had an alarming flutter on some notes and I wasn't wholly convinced by all of Keenlyside's German). One thing I'll say for Ades - he writes like a professional,

I read the reviews linked above and one description made me think of Birtwistle's Triumph of Time - and how far short of that masterpiece Totentanz falls. When was that written? 1971?

You've certainly spotted some overt influences and I'll add a further two: Alban Berg and Richard Strauss. Some of these pastiches were "spot-on" but cleverness, glitter, refulgent lines and a wide knowledge of repertoire are not what's demanded, is it? We demand cussed originality with the grist having been through the mill and turned into Ades loaves. I'm accusing the new Ades of mental laziness. Ades once wrote little in a painstaking fashion in the manner, perhaps, of late Ravel or Oliver Knussen. Since the full-length "Tempest" opera, Ades seems to have opened the floodgates. Facility rules, but discrimination and distinctiveness have evaporated.

The point For3 bloggers are making that the spirit of the arch conservative Britten is on the loose and infecting our younger composers is well made. I find that very worrying.

[DracoM]

OK, so what do you want him to sound like? Who do you want him to learn from? Who do you want his influences to be? And who is his editor - because sure as heck he needs someone to be.

[edashtav]

Thomas Ades is no longer a young composer. I want him to sound like Thomas Ades - a new, fresh, individual voice. It's O.K. to wear your influences on your sleeve when you're learning but not later. Ades used to be ferociously self-critical - he was a fine editor of his own music.

He's articulate, tall and authoritative. People look up to Ades - but do they stand up to him? The British press are in awe of him, I just hope that he balances their extremely laudatory comments re Totentanz with a quick perusal of these For3 blogs, many of which are the polar opposite.

Every composer needs trusted, critical friends. Jaeger and W.H. Reed served Elgar, who's doing the same for Ades, I wonder? Yes, ... and he needs a strong editor at his Publishers as he's forsworn concision,apparently.

[Sir Velo]

Ades is now in his mid 40s. How long can he continue to be a "new, fresh" voice? If he were a rock musician he would be considered middle-aged, if not positively methuselean. Given the way he has been feted by the meejah perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if he has not devoted sufficient time to compositional techniques. Maybe he has said all that his own particular genius has to say. For every Mozart, there is a Mendelssohn. For every composer who improves with age, there is another destined to trot out a series of mediocre productions, resting on their laurels so to speak.

[Sir Velo]

He's...tall

Is this a sine qua non for being a composer?

[Barbirollians]

Ades is now in his mid 40s. How long can he continue to be a "new, fresh" voice? If he were a rock musician he would be considered middle-aged, if not positively methuselean. Given the way he has been feted by the meejah perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if he has not devoted sufficient time to compositional techniques. Maybe he has said all that his own particular genius has to say. For every Mozart, there is a Mendelssohn. For every composer who improves with age, there is another destined to trot out a series of mediocre productions, resting on their laurels so to speak.

That strikes me as very harsh criticism of old Felix. His Variations Serieuses , the incidental music to a A Midsummer's Night Dream ,his Violin Concerto and Six organ Sonatas come from the last few years of his life .

[amateur51]

Thomas Ades is no longer a young composer. I want him to sound like Thomas Ades - a new, fresh, individual voice. It's O.K. to wear your influences on your sleeve when you're learning but not later. Ades used to be ferociously self-critical - he was a fine editor of his own music.

He's articulate, tall and authoritative. People look up to Ades - but do they stand up to him? The British press are in awe of him, I just hope that he balances their extremely laudatory comments re Totentanz with a quick perusal of these For3 blogs, many of which are the polar opposite.

Every composer needs trusted, critical friends. Jaeger and W.H. Reed served Elgar, who's doing the same for Ades, I wonder? Yes, ... and he needs a strong editor at his Publishers as he's forsworn concision,apparently.

Well there's Tom Service for a start ...

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Ad%C3%A8s-Noises-Conversations-Service/dp/0374276323

[amateur51]

That strikes me as very harsh criticism of old Felix. His Variations Serieuses , the incidental music to a A Midsummer's Night Dream ,his Violin Concerto and Six organ Sonatas come from the last few years of his life .

Yes but that would have ruined the flow of Sir V's 'argument', Barbs

[Barbirollians]

I haven't heard the Ades piece but there is always a risk that when a composer goes in a new direction that it wrongfoots previous fans of their music .