Prom 17 - 25.07.13: The Apotheosis of the Dance

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.30pm – c. 9.55pm
Royal Albert Hall

John McCabe
Joybox (c7 mins)
BBC Commission, World Premiere
Beethoven
Symphony No. 7 in A major (40 mins)
INTERVAL
Falla
The Three-Cornered Hat (35 mins)
Ravel
Boléro (15 mins)

Clara Mouriz mezzo-soprano, Proms debut artist, New Generation Artist
BBC Philharmonic
Juanjo Mena conductor

The world premiere of John McCabe's 'Joybox' opens a concert of music inspired by or written for dance, from the Bohemian stamp and whirl of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony to the slow-burn crescendo of Ravel's 'Boléro'. Mezzo-soprano Clara Mouriz and the Compañía Antonio Marquéz join conductor Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic in Falla's colourful Ballets Russes commission 'The Three-Cornered Hat', a tale of intrigue and jealousy shot through with the spirit of Spanish folk dances.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So many John McCabe premieres during my lifetime. Quite a few in Manchester that I attended.

[pastoralguy]

So many John McCabe premieres during my lifetime. Quite a few in Manchester that I attended.

I remember hearing an early performance of 'The Chagall Window's' with Alex Gibson conducting the SNO in 1977. Must have been my introduction to new music.

[Alison]

How long until someone says that Joybox

"could have been written at any time during the last 100 years' ?

I'm heartened that such music can still be penned me self.

[Alison]

Oh dear, this is sounding very much like a 'first half' Beethoven 7. After his splendid Bruckner performances Mr Mena is proving a shade disappointing here.

[Flosshilde]

Are the dancers a Prom first?

[amcluesent]

Bolero - oh, dear. Like Lance-Corporal Jones, the foot stamps always lag.

[johnb]

Bolero accompanied by clog dancing (or so it sounded on R3).

Well I suppose someone will have enjoyed it ... perhaps.

[pastoralguy]

Bolero accompanied by clog dancing (or so it sounded on R3).

Well I suppose someone will have enjoyed it ... perhaps.

Bit pointless on the steam radio...

[edashtav]

How long until someone says that Joybox

"could have been written at any time during the last 100 years' ?

I'm heartened that such music can still be penned me self.

Well, I won't give it a 100 year window of opportunity but I may settle for 30 years, Alison. I was touched that Joybox was dedicated to the late Steve Martland and noted that some of Martland's techniques had been adopted by John McCabe. The piece had some verve but was not as sharply characterised as Martland might have achieved. The material wasn't very memorable but McCabe hammered it home with much overlapping repetition so that by the piece's end it remained in my memory. It didn't fill me with joy, but I felt happier for having heard it.

I like Mena as a conductor - he strings phrases into coherent sentences and regularly finds the music's pulse. Did Beethoven's 7th dance too soon in his hands, I wondered as I listened to its first movement? Some chording was a little sloppy, perhaps there was heat haze in the RAH. I wasn't filled with joy once more by this performance but it was far from a disaster but, as Alison has noted, it fell short of Mena's considerable expertise in Bruckner.

Dinner called me away from the second half which I hope to hear later via the iPlayer.

[Alison]

A Shame that the clog dancing spoilt what otherwise sounded a finely characterised account of Bolero. Loved the quiet emergence of the Ravel after the Falla 'reprise'.

Concerns over the blandness of the orchestral playing were quickly dispelled in the second half and I am moved to seek out my unplayed Mena Falla CD.

[Nick Armstrong]

Bit pointless on the steam radio...

You'll be able to revel in it on the telly then! (A week tonight, 2 August. And in HD too now, it seems, on Ch. 303, the HD redbutton)

[pilamenon]

The second half was really good fun - the music to El Sombrero is gorgeous, and was beautifully characterised - and a treat to hear a more complete version rather than the better known suite. I enjoyed some of the dancing, but am not convinced that much of it is what de Falla would have wanted or seen. The reverberant stage was totally inappropriate for the stamping - you need a hard wooden floor. Bolero was a dog's breakfast, artistically, but again a very enjoyable 15 minutes. Certainly, the campest Prom I've ever been to. Most of the audience loved it, and it was a very young crowd in the arena. The dancers didn't want to go home!

First half was less memorable - Joybox was a suitable opener, but I found the Beethoven only intermittently joyful. A rather heavy-handed performance.

[amateur51]

Bolero - oh, dear. Like Lance-Corporal Jones, the foot stamps always lag.

[PhilipT]

Are the dancers a Prom first?

Dancers at a Prom are nothing new. The Korean dancing drummers we had at a Late Night Prom in the mid-1990s were particularly memorable. Some Baroque operas have had integral dance sequences, of course; e.g. in Glyndebourne's "Giulio Cesare in Egitto", though I could have done without the bonking Duracell bunnies in their "Fairy Queen".