Prom 25 - 31.07.13: Zappa – The Adventures of Greggery Peccary

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

10.15pm – c. 11.30pm
Royal Albert Hall

Zappa
The Adventures of Greggery Peccary (25 mins)
Nancarrow
Study for Player Piano No. 7 (arr. Yvar Mikhashoff) (10 mins)
Philip Glass
Symphony No. 10 (27 mins)
UK Premiere

Aurora Orchestra
Nicholas Collon conductor

The Aurora Orchestra under conductor Nicholas Collon live at the BBC Proms with the first Proms performance of Frank Zappa's satire The Adventures of Greggery Peccary, with baritone Christopher Purves, followed by an arrangement for orchestra of Conlon Nancarrow's Study for Player Piano No. 7, and finally, the UK premiere of Philip Glass's Symphony No 10.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

An interesting concert, though I admit to a certain scepticism about 27 minutes of Philip Glass.

[MrGongGong]

An interesting concert, though I admit to a certain scepticism about 27 minutes of Philip Glass.

Knock knock ?

[eighthobstruction]

Tonight ....

[Bryn]

Drop the Glass and give us Billy the Mountain instead, as a tribute to Sir Edward Elgar.

[Tapiola]

Dear God, that Philip Glass has an easy living.

Enjoyed the Nancarrow and Zappa (though I think Ensemble Modern some years back made a better stab of G Spot).

As G Spot is now old hat at the Proms (despite the predictable audience titters as to its title*), might we expect a tribute band rendition of Zoot Allures at the Proms in the future?

*this sort of retentive reaction to the perceived-outrageous always reminds me of the last verse of Billy Connolly's "A Four Letter Word" (which I will now probably misquote):

It's not to be said in polite company
When aged old ladies are having their tea;
But when they were younger, the truth be to tell,
They not only said it, they did it as well.


EDIT: The Glass has now thankfully finished and the announcer has remained silent until the applause finished. How I wish that that muppet Service had done the same after Gotterdammerung a few nights ago.

[Alain Maréchal]

Dear God, that Philip Glass has an easy living.

I can't help thinking that it reminds me of watered-down Hovhaness.

[Tapiola]

I can't help thinking that it reminds me of watered-down Hovhaness.

Not that good, surely?

[Alain Maréchal]

Not that good, surely?

weak Hovhaness and cola then, (the cola being in the form in which it reappears some time after drinking)

[Tapiola]

weak Hovhaness and cola then, (the cola being in the form in which it reappears some time after drinking)

Cola always gave me the squirts when I was a youngster

[Bryn]

The Glass has now thankfully finished and the announcer has remained silent until the applause finished. How I wish that that muppet Service had done the same after Gotterdammerung a few nights ago.

The more than half empty Glass certainly lived down to my expectation. From my position on the extreme right (of the front rail, that is) I found the rest of the concert entirely up to scratch, though the pink pig suit did not quite fit my image of a peccary.

[ucanseetheend]

Really?? Give me the Minimalist Glass over something Zappa creates which is apparently "music" anyday.

[Bryn]

The Glass 10th seemed just a tired recycling of what he had done, to some effect, in the scores he wrote for the Godfrey Reggio trilogy, some decades ago. It was little more than a sequence of Glass clichés.

[Tapiola]

the pink pig suit did not quite fit my image of a peccary.

Indeed. Hairy beasts, peccaries.

Though apparently re-released on the posthumous Läther album, one could not describe this work as Zappa's Schweinengesang

[Bryn]

... Though apparently re-released on the posthumous Läther album, one could not describe this work as Zappa's Schweinengesang

The 'original' Studio Tan LP release was unauthorised by the composer, and was made without the Dolby calibration tapes (which Zappa retained). From the start, Zappa intended the recording to be part of the 4 LP Läther project. The eventual CD release with that title was a sort of reconstruction of the original concept. A romping satirical fantasy, if not his finest work. I would still have preferred that the Glass was dropped from the programme and Greggory had been preceded by Billy the Mountain.