Prom 35 - 9.08.13: Mahler – 'Resurrection' Symphony

[Simon B]

There was nothing 'somnolent' about the BRSO performance in Edinburgh yesterday - fabulous playing, & an exciting account. The Festival Chorus were superb, as were the soloists.

Glad you enjoyed it! Impossible to prove, but I suspect had the Proms performance been magically transported to the Usher Hall it would have instantaneously sounded vastly grander and more impressive at a purely sonic level... Is there any major orchestral venue in Britain with a more flattering/immediate/frankly loud acoustic than the Usher Hall? If so I've never been to it...

The Usher acoustic is fantastic for a lot of repertoire. Though I'm not sure I'd want to hear a truly barnstorming Mahler 2 there from anywhere other than the back of the upper circle as it would just be too much. "Mere" Puccini, in the form of La Fanciulla del West at the EIF a few years back was a cataclysm of decibels from about halfway back downstairs!

Having the large (and based on past experience, disciplined and incisive) festival chorus was probably a major bonus in the Mahler too, though presumably the (also pretty impressive) Usher Hall organ was substituted by its feeble electronic imitator?

Of course, none of this could really explain the non-somnolence - it may well have just been a significantly different performance as often happens.

[Nick Armstrong]

I remember seeing one performance where the choir remained seated for the early choral part but then, as one, stood at the same time as singing out in a very ecstatic fashion. Can anyone tell remind which that one was, please.

I think it was this one I went to at which the choirs stood up and that alone made the hairs stand up on my neck... let alone the sound they went on to produce:


Sunday 28 July 1985
7.30pm
Royal Albert Hall
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 2 in C minor, 'Resurrection'
Christa Ludwig mezzo-soprano
Karita Mattila soprano
Claudio Abbado conductor
BBC Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Chorus, Vienna Youth Choir
European Union Youth Orchestra

There's a complete recording of the Vienna concert on that tour at the link below - one Jessye Norman instead of Christa Ludwig, which I remember being disappointed about as I was a big fan of Ms N.

It's a bit difficult to tell but if you look at the choir at 1h 20' they appear to be singing sitting down (only Mattila is standing); whereas the same camera angle at around 1h 27' shows them all standing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZeHGKHEcgI

THAT's a performance!

Has the duet after 1h 25' 20" ever been better done?! Jessye N in her prime!!

Were you at the Proms sequel in 1985, Rezza?


I realise that I also went to Ozawa's Boston SO performance the previous year, which Jessye did do... but I only remember it for thinking what a stylish conductor Ozawa was... not for the music...

EDIT: (I just noticed that Petrushka agrees in #51 above that in his recollection the Ozawa pales in comparison with the following year...)

[Flosshilde]

The Usher acoustic is fantastic for a lot of repertoire. Though I'm not sure I'd want to hear a truly barnstorming Mahler 2 there from anywhere other than the back of the upper circle as it would just be too much.

Which is where I was . The stage - a box opening onto the auditorium, rather than being in the auditorium - seems designed to project the sound out.

Having the large (and based on past experience, disciplined and incisive) festival chorus was probably a major bonus in the Mahler too, though presumably the (also pretty impressive) Usher Hall organ was substituted by its feeble electronic imitator?.

The Usher Hall organ was silent (either the Hall or Festival management seem to be making a tentative foray into RAH territory, with a lurid pink light shining off the openings - throat? - of the organ pipes). The chorus were indeed magnificent - for their first entry they stayed seated, & were so quiet that I had to look very closely to confirm that they, & not an off-stage chorus, were singing.

(just seen RM's comments re the chorus sitting, & then standing, which is what happened on Monday. In addition they were singing without a score, which I've only just realised. I thought at the time they looked somehow - different - & of course it was because they were standing with their arms by their sides, so no movement when they turned the pages)

[Resurrection Man]

Good sleuthing, Caliban. TBH I had a sense that I went to one with a US orchestra which would align with Ozawa. Nice link to the EUYC.....

The youtube rh column listed quite a few Mahler 2's including the Dudamel Prom...which, of course, I had to dip in again to confirm that I still didn't like it!

Checking out forthcoming performances, there is Janson with the Royal Concertgebouw at the end of October but sadly sold out.

[hmvman]

I've only just listened to this broadcast (just in time!) I thought there were some superb moments in the performance but overall it wasn't as moving for me as I'd hoped. I agree with another poster regarding the excellent sound quality of the broadcast.

I'd also like to add my praise to the R3 'presenter' (announcer) Christopher Cook, who I thought was informative, professional, didn't feel the need to say more than was necessary and kept what he did say refreshingly hyperbole-free. Just as it should be!

[LaurieWatt]

I've only just listened to this broadcast (just in time!) I thought there were some superb moments in the performance but overall it wasn't as moving for me as I'd hoped. I agree with another poster regarding the excellent sound quality of the broadcast.

I'd also like to add my praise to the R3 'presenter' (announcer) Christopher Cook, who I thought was informative, professional, didn't feel the need to say more than was necessary and kept what he did say refreshingly hyperbole-free. Just as it should be!

I agree and, I have to confess, I am coming around very much to the considerable merits of this performance. I transferred it to CDR and, with the gaps between the first and second movements shortened to about ten seconds, it fits on one disc with just 12 seconds to spare!!

I then played it at an unsociably concert hall volume and was transfixed/mogrified/ported - aided by probably the finest broadcast I have ever heard; outstanding dynamic range, orchestral balance and quality of sound - best CD quality.

Anyway, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds..."

[Stan Drews]

There's maybe a danger here of turning this into "Mahler/Halls we have known" (again?). However, for my part, I was at the RAH 1978 Haitink (see above) and was blown away - probably about my third or fourth Prom experience. I don't know if Scottish members remember a Kelvin Hall gig with the (R)SNO c.1983, when they still did a proms season, Sir AG up front, I think, but sonically fine in that vast space - probably about the only piece suitable for there! (The Orchestra used to complain that the place still stank of elephants after the circuses had been.)

My big regret is that I missed the Bernstein/LSO M2 performance at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972 (the progenitor of the CBS Ely Cathedral recording); I was still at school and my philistine PT Music dictated the we "could go to hear an orchestra any Friday evening" - so we were shepherded into the King's for a Palermo presentation of Rossini's "Elisabetta, Regina d'Ighilliterra" - a show that was universally slated. Most of us gave up at the earliest opportunity and dashed down the road to buy Bernstein programmes as souvenirs, returning via the pub!

[alywin]

Of course the visceral impact of the bass drum couldn't match the reality (it was like being punched in the solar plexus) but the cymbals came across with great clarity even to that tiny, ultra quiet brush during the trombones intonation of the Dies Irae in the finale. You wouldn't know it was there on many recordings but here it was crystal clear.

(snip) The off-stage brass and percussion sounded magical in the hall, something that no radio relay will ever actually convey but this came as close as it was possible to get.

(snip) All in all, this was one of those rare occasions when I felt that the broadcast did better justice to the performance than the reality. Plaudits for the engineers are in order, I'd say.

"You wouldn't know it was there on many recordings but here it was crystal clear." Something I probably think about most Jansons performances, live or recorded, and which I was reminded of at the Saturday matinee with Andriss Nelsons conducting Dvorak 8 - a similar lack of blurring of detail.

I thought the off-stage musicians were very special too, but then I was probably on a level with them, so don't know how it sounded elsewhere in the hall.

As for sound engineers, Jansons has in the past been so finicky about sound and exact positioning of the various musicians that I wonder whether he makes life rather less complicated for the engineers - again, in recordings as well as live.

[mercia]

Were you at the following night's prom? Handel Concerto Grosso Op6/1, Mozart pf conc 25 (Narine Barrett); STRAUSS EIN HELDENLEBEN (RPO/ KEMPE).

Excuse the caps but that was the really memorable bit - I heard Kempe in Heldenleben!!!!

I think that must be this performance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaVmw8Z1EaU

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/search/1970s/1974/august-28/8643