Prom 33 - 8.08.13: Beethoven, Berlioz

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I withdraw my previous suggestion of stinginess, with this "substantial" encore.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Does KD think she's a football commentator?

[johnb]

Dammit, I forgot this was being broadcast on BBC Four and only started recording it towards the end of the Mozart.

[Edit: as Bryn pointed out, I should have typed 'Beethoven' not 'Mozart'.]

I don't always like MU's recordings but when I have been present at her recitals she has always had great presence on the platform and I always had the sense of a 'real' performance unfolding before me. (Yes, I know what you are going to ask: "when is a live performance not 'real'.)

[Bryn]

Dammit, I forgot this was being broadcast on BBC Four and only started recording it towards the end of the Mozart.

Eh? What Mozart. I seem to have missed that altogether.

[Mary Chambers]

Best to stick to Radio 3 with old Mitsuko or sit well back in the stalls and forget your glasses.

I think she is getting more animated at the piano - I saw her accompany Ian Bostridge in Die Schone Mullerin at Aldeburgh a few years back and I do not recall all that gurning and surprised eyebrow stuff then .
.

If that was at the Bridgewater Hall, I was there, too, and I certainly remember distracting face-pulling, and also she mouthed all the words. She was having a wonderful time, but it spoilt the concert a bit for me.

I almost forgave her tonight. It was such a wonderful performance, encore included.

[johnb]

Mozart !?!

I really must engage my brain (what little I have) before putting fingers to keyboard.

Of course, I should have typed Beethoven.

[Barbirollians]

If that was at the Bridgewater Hall, I was there, too, and I certainly remember distracting face-pulling, and also she mouthed all the words. She was having a wonderful time, but it spoilt the concert a bit for me.

I almost forgave her tonight. It was such a wonderful performance, encore included.

No it was at Snape during the Festival - I suspect I was listening rather than looking that evening.

[Alf-Prufrock]

What a miserable lot there are on this board. I think I will end my membership.

[Mr Pee]

What a miserable lot there are on this board. I think I will end my membership.

It does seem off that there is as much discussion about Ms.Uchida's facial expressions as the actual performance, which was quite wonderful. The use of expressions such as "gurning" and "face-pulling" do no credit to those who post them. I saw a superb artist, totally absorbed in the music. Concentrate on that, for heaven's sake.

[Barbirollians]

[QUOTE=Mr Pee;320609]It does seem off that there is as much discussion about Ms.Uchida's facial expressions as the actual performance, which was quite wonderful. The use of expressions such as "gurning" and "face-pulling" do no credit to those who post them. I saw a superb artist, totally absorbed in the music. Concentrate on that, for heaven's sake.[/QUOTE

Get a life - some people found her facial contortions distracting .

i didn't - although I did find them more marked than before .

[LaurieWatt]

[from Brassbandmaestro -' Could have chucked an overture or something similar in as well.']

...or even the repeat in the March to the Scaffold.

But what wonderful playing from this great orchestra, what beauty of sound in an extraordinarily civilised performance ... which ultimately bored me out of my mind. Cutely formed shimmering thunder at the end of the Scene du Champs. Where were the wonderful rasping raspberries from the bass trombone in the March to the Scaffold? What about the tinkling doorbell they used for the last movement and so on. Oh dear!

But I loved the Beethoven. I loved Uchida's way with this most gorgeous of Beethoven's concerti and beautifully accompanied by the Bavarians. I listened on the radio so had no distractions from any stage mannerisms with which she appears to have irritated some correspondents!

[cloughie]

No; I thought you summed it up rather well.

Janssons has been very ill recently, and the Fantastique is a demanding work even for Musicians in the peak of health and fitness - perhaps that explains the short duration of the concert (in total, about the length of a Mahler Symphony)? Understandable, if so, but a pity some inventive programming isn't brought into play for these events - Ms Uchida performing a Mozart Fantasia, perhaps - or (at the RAH) a Bach or Messiaen Organ work - or one of Jansons' conducting students doing a Haydn Symphony (or Webern's!) - or one of Ms Uchida's students playing some Alkan?

Has the BavRSO not got a young assistant conductor who is the next Kubelik who could help shoulder the load. Or maybe he could follow Klemperer's lead who in his latter years would conduct seated.

[edashtav]

... what wonderful playing from this great orchestra, what beauty of sound in an extraordinarily civilised performance ... which ultimately bored me out of my mind. Cutely formed shimmering thunder at the end of the Scene du Champs. Where were the wonderful rasping raspberries from the bass trombone in the March to the Scaffold? What about the tinkling doorbell they used for the last movement and so on. Oh dear!

But I loved the Beethoven. I loved Uchida's way with this most gorgeous of Beethoven's concerti and beautifully accompanied by the Bavarians. I listened on the radio so had no distractions from any stage mannerisms with which she appears to have irritated some correspondents!

I had a ticket for the RAH but I'm suffering from a dry cough, so this coffin wrecker stayed at home with radio 3. I thought Uchida's Beethoven was manna from heaven. What I like about her and Jansons is that they think through each bar and phrase of the music, but neither gets stuck in "the beauty of the moment", the moment is held within the proper vice of structure. And what divine touch Ms Uchida possesses. I noted chords in the first movement that were exemplary for the unanimity of attack and the balance maintained between and across the contributing notes. Arpeggiated passages flowed with graceful shapes, each note placed correctly in time and with a dynamic that contributed to and supported the curve of the phrase. Pure, aristocratic magic. A performance to treasure that calmed my fevered brow. Thank you, one and all and bless you, Uchida for adding the refreshing Bach encore.

I was a little less sure about the Berlioz, as you were Laurie. Berlioz's wonderful orchestral colours were fully buffed, but the piece came across as 1001 drugged nights. It's all about surface, much ado about not a lot. The lack of profundity at its core meant that there was insufficient to engage either Jansons or myself. A shame.

But.. did I warm to the generous dollop of Ligeti's early Concert Romanesc, a sort Enescu Rumanian Rhapsody on speed, propelled into orbit by those two Hungarian masters : Kodaly and Bartok. It was great to have an encore that was a real novelty.

I do hope that Jansons returns to full health so that we can enjoy many happy returns to the Proms - and do bring Ms Uchida with you Mariss - you work so well with her and I, for one, am unlikely to be around if the gap between her appearances is maintained at 21 years.

[Mary Chambers]

It does seem off that there is as much discussion about Ms.Uchida's facial expressions as the actual performance, which was quite wonderful. The use of expressions such as "gurning" and "face-pulling" do no credit to those who post them. I saw a superb artist, totally absorbed in the music. Concentrate on that, for heaven's sake.

I agree the performance was aurally wonderful, but a real concert performance (as opposed to a CD) is partly a visual experience as well. It matters. The distractions worried me, but they were less important in the Beethoven than they were in the Schubert recital mentioned earlier. If the singer is giving a marvellous interpretation of Schubert songs, I do not want to see the pianist mouthing all the words and generally giving her own entirely separate performance. It was impossible to ignore. But then, Uchida is not really an accompanist.

Some cellists are hard to watch, too. For some reason I've never noticed problems with violinists.

[Mr Pee]

Get a life - some people found her facial contortions distracting .

i didn't - although I did find them more marked than before .

I've got a life, thank you very much, although it is not improved by such rudeness.