Prom 26 - 1.08.13: Henze, Stravinsky & Tippett

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.30pm – c. 9.45pm
Royal Albert Hall

Henze
Barcarola (20 mins)
Stravinsky
Concerto for piano and wind instruments (19 mins)
INTERVAL
Stravinsky
Movements (10 mins)
Tippett
Symphony No. 2 (32 mins)

Peter Serkin piano, Proms debut artist
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Oliver Knussen conductor

[Flay]

All of this will be new music to me. I don't know anything about Henze yet, so am downloading this CoTW to listen to (will it help?):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gw9l5

Similarly for the Tippett there is a DM programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01rw2kr

[edashtav]

I'm really looking forward to attending this concert.

I love Tippett's 2nd Symphony. That it was written for the Third Programme's 10th birthday should endear the work to For3 members. But... they may recall the veil cast over the piece by:

Late delivery.
The catastrophic breakdown in the eventual first performance by the BBC SO under Sir Adrian Boult.
Subsequent tensions between Michael Tippett and the BBC.

With Knussen at the helm, we should be able to relax and enjoy the work.

[amateur51]

I'm really looking forward to attending this concert.

I love Tippett's 2nd Symphony. That it was written for the Third Programme's 10th birthday should endear the work to For3 members. But... they may recall the veil cast over the piece by:

Late delivery.
The catastrophic breakdown in the eventual first performance by the BBC SO under Sir Adrian Boult.
Subsequent tensions between Michael Tippett and the BBC.

With Knussen at the helm, we should be able to relax and enjoy the work.

I had no idea of the origins of Tippett symphony no.2, edashtav - many thanks for this.

I'm also looking forward to listening to this concert - what a contrast to last evening's C major event

[jayne lee wilson]

Anyone going to the hall unfamiliar with the Henze - don't be among the first to applaud at the end of the Barcarola - there's a classic Haydn-90 style trap in there (and odds-on someone will leap in... d'you think Ollie might play it twice...? He's GOT to play something twice, hasn't he? )

[Petrushka]

Good, imaginative programming. Looking forward to an evening in front of the radio for this one.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

d'you think Ollie might play it twice...? He's GOT to play something twice, hasn't he? )

My money's on the Stravinsky Movements - using his "now I've found my glasses" catchphrase.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good, imaginative programming.

[jayne lee wilson]

What a stunning concert so far, both musically and sonically spectacular. "Sonorities" could be its title, balefully brilliant or darkly shadowed in Barcarola, then a whole gamut of sounds and moods from stony, almost hieratic resonance, through tender expressiveness, to jaunty humour in Stravinsky's far-too-little played Concerto. Serkin a very playful soloist tonight. Marvellous!

[Flay]

I'm enjoying it thoroughly from the centre of the Arena!

[Bryn]

Please hold off Re. detailed comments. I am currently watching/listening to BBC FOUR and don't want my later catching up with tonight's concert compromised by prejudice born of reading comments on this thread.

[amcluesent]

Tippett in the bin!

[jayne lee wilson]

Please hold off Re. detailed comments. I am currently watching/listening to BBC FOUR and don't want my later catching up with tonight's concert compromised by prejudice born of reading comments on this thread.

Lucky for you it's a very late finish & I'm too hungry to say anything more now...

[Tapiola]

What a stunning concert so far, both musically and sonically spectacular. "Sonorities" could be its title, balefully brilliant or darkly shadowed in Barcarola, then a whole gamut of sounds and moods from stony, almost hieratic resonance, through tender expressiveness, to jaunty humour in Stravinsky's far-too-little played Concerto. Serkin a very playful soloist tonight. Marvellous!

I switched the radio on momentarily and absentmindedly this evening (I was busy doing other things) - forgetting which Prom - and received a blast of hectic movement: sounds like Henze 7 (movement 1 or 4) but isn't, followed by a very long held chord sounding very, very much like the opening chord of Tristan Act 3, but isn't. Aaah, Henze's Barcarola...

[edashtav]

America's Answer to Rees Mogg Triumphs in a 3-Piece Suit

Oh dear Ollie, you're a national treasure but you'ved turned 60 and you're visibly far from well. Please look after yourself, your country's music needs you!

Barcarola isn't a cheerful little number trilled by a gondolier and accompanied by water lapping gently in 6/8 rhythm. It starts with the thunderous arrival of Charon, the boatmen to eternity, and plunges into the maelstrom of the river Styx. The more reflective and lyrical moments look back with some affection over a career (Paul Dessau's?) about to end. Until I saw Ollie Knussen last night, I hadn't realised that he'd been struggling with illness - he'd always been a craggy, stout mountain of a man whom I'd regarded as indomitable; his appearance coupled with his choice of programme was deeply disturbing. Once it had settled, Knussen's account of the work was hard-hitting - you know you're in trouble when a stentorian bank of trombones stand up, the better to impress themselves on an awful scene. I felt a trifle sorry for the hard-working souls of the BBC SO - what presiding genius within programming had dictated that they should proceed from Ades's Totentanz to the Henze: his work could be subtitled "Dances with Death". Yes, jlw, the "double-take" ending was deliciously Haydnesque - but it was necessary- at least it offered some hope of eternal peace.

On to (after an interminable re-seating interval ) Stravinsky's granitic Piano Concerto. In to the great heat of the RAH walked the aristocratic Jacob Rees Mogg, no, I'm mistaken, the American intellectual, Peter Serkin. He was What an achievement for he sported a THREE-piece sober suit tricked out with a splash of intense colour: a red tie. Half the audience looked flushed and sweaty despite wearing scanties. Peter Serkin wrestled with fistful of notes but looked like an advert for anti-perspirant. Seriously, it was a wonderful performance, two minds thinking alike and finding in Stravinsky's music drive, humour, lovely moments of lyricism, sharp rhythms and great colours. I think it was Stravinsky who misjudged some of the balance: filigree passage work from Serkin was overwhelmed at times by the lower brass lines. No doubt, the BBC's clever engineers sorted that for those of you back home listening to the steam-radio.

Thank goodness the interval covered the next great scene change as the orchestra was condensed for Stravinsky's Movements. This sounded wonderful,: a crystalline chandelier of brightly lit notes were bathed in the glow of the Albert Hall's ample acoustic. This was a magisterial performance, the most perfect of an evening of fine music-making. The programme note referred to the piece as full of "song and silence". Thus, it was very clever and apt of Peter Serkin to play an encore that was a song (from Gershwin's songbook?) played in a beautiful, restrained, aristocratic manner with each iteration of the tune separated from the next by a moment of repose, of stillness. My word, the Albert Hall's acoustic is perfect for silence. A great Proms debut by Peter Serkin - please come back!

The next re-seating interval was of Brucknerian proportions. By now, I'd lost all hope of getting an "early" train back to Bucks. So long was this pause that after over 10 minutes of patient waiting, a couple in front of me lost hope that conductor & orchestra would resurface and made a dash for the exit. Was Tippett's 2nd Symphony worth our wait? Definitely, but not absolutely. I bought the Colin Davis Argo LP when it first appeared and found it entrancing. It was, and remains, the work's definitive performance. These days, I rely on a CD with the BBC SO under Tippett, himself, - full of insights and flaws. How would I characterise last night's performance: faithful, thoughtful, precise, nicely balanced, well-paced [ by now you know there's a BUT on the horizon] ... but, whilst it became airborne, it did not achieve escape velocity and take me to Tippett's heaven. Why not? Well, I think the work's shot through with difficulties: a complex of embroidered lines, written in idiosyncratic notation, full of quirky rhythms and with a disregard of the natural dynamic range of instruments. Having said that some of the light-footed, quiet work of the BBC SO's first trumpet was sensational - one moment where he handed the baton of a high note to the first oboe so that the tone of the trumpet transformed effortlessly into the oboe's piping will remain long in my memory. Frankly, this piece deserves a place in repertory, and only through achieving that will orchestras and conductors be able to reveal fully its great beauties and truths.

I was so pleased to hear the Tippett in the flesh, so many thanks to the BBC , the BBC SO, Ollie Knussen and all. I need to write that because the attendance on the night was appallingly small.

Full marks, again, to the Beeb & the Hall authorities for organising upgrades to Arena stalls for those bound for Hell's first Circle. I was so relieved. And.. the darling Usherette randomy gave me a seat 4 metres from an old friend who had travelled from deepest Lincolnshire for this special concert! But..., it was deeply worrying that the Prommers standing in the Arena had room to lie down and turn over. My guess is that everyone could have fitted with room to spare in the Cadogan.

Full marks to the Albert Hall authorities for leaving large jugs of tap-water and free plastic cups in the corridors serving the Hall. They have had bad publicity because of the Great Heat, it good to recognise that they have upped their game.

Low marks, however, for failing to steward the "no phones" rule. The glitter from iPad screens and mobile phones was distracting and most irritating.