Prom 64 - 30.08.13: Bantock, Prokofiev, Sibelius & R. Strauss

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Friday 30 August
7.30pm – c. 9.45pm
Royal Albert Hall

Bantock
The Witch of Atlas (15 mins)
Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major (28 mins)
INTERVAL
Sibelius
Pohjola's Daughter (14 mins)
Strauss
Also sprach Zarathustra (32 mins)

Anika Vavic piano, Proms debut artist
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Tonight's Prom traces the development of the tone-poem in music inspired by Nietzsche, Shelley and the Finnish epic, the Kalevala. The concert opens with Granville Bantock's 1902 tone-poem 'The Witch of Atlas', based on Shelley's eponymous poem. The Serbian-born pianist Anika Vavic joins the LPO, making her Proms debut in Prokofiev's virtuosic Piano Concerto No 3. The second half of the concert starts with Sibelius's dark fantasy 'Pohjola's Daughter', and concludes with the great sunrise of Richard Strauss's thrilling 'Also sprach Zarathustra'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's nearly as much Bantock as there is Verdi this year.

[Tony Halstead]

There's nearly as much Bantock as there is Verdi this year.

Amen to that.

[Petrushka]

This will be my penultimate visit to the Proms this season. Rather odd to find the season fizzling out in the final week (VPO Bruckner 8 apart) this year. I have so many happy memories of the really great Proms that were on in the first week of September in previous seasons so I feel a bit short-changed as we approach the season's end.

Somewhat to my surprise, I've never heard Zarathustra live and am looking forward to a massive wall of sound from the organ and timps in the first 40 seconds. LPO/Jurowski Proms are always an event and this looks to be no exception.

[BBMmk2]

There's nearly as much Bantock as there is Verdi this year.

Would you believe it! Is this the start of a resurgence by the 'powers that be'?

[Simon B]

This will be my penultimate visit to the Proms this season. Rather odd to find the season fizzling out in the final week (VPO Bruckner 8 apart) this year. I have so many happy memories of the really great Proms that were on in the first week of September in previous seasons so I feel a bit short-changed as we approach the season's end.

I have much the same feeling - Parsifal was to have been my last visit this season. From that point forward there wasn't much that appealed bar this LPO concert. Bit of a peculiar balance to the season as a whole really...

Maazel conducting anything is not for me based on several encounters in recent years, so that's the VPO/Bruckner 8 out. While I'm a tediously repetitive advocate of Petrenko in some repertoire, the only Bruckner I've heard from him (the 7th) was typically committed but a bit... odd. The other Oslo programme appeals up to a point (principally the Szymanowski) but not enough to justify price code C for me.

Since my plan to get to the Edinburgh Festival for the RSNO this evening has gone completely wrong (400 miles away and ticket in the bin job) I've just cheered myself up with a ticket for the LPO Prom.

I don't want to say too much in case it spoils any "surprise" good or bad, but Jurowski/LPO did Zarathustra at the RFH in January in an all Strauss concert that culminated with an all-guns-blazing Salome closing scene (Karita Mattila). As often with Jurowski much of it was interestingly "different", definitely emphasising the more cerebral elements of ASZ over the sensuous romanticism. Or to put it another way, e.g. the sunrise was a bit matter-of-fact in a fairly loud sort of way! Might be completely different this time, we shall see...

[Petrushka]

I have much the same feeling - Parsifal was to have been my last visit this season. From that point forward there wasn't much that appealed bar this LPO concert. Bit of a peculiar balance to the season as a whole really...

Maazel conducting anything is not for me based on several encounters in recent years, so that's the VPO/Bruckner 8 out. While I'm a tediously repetitive advocate of Petrenko in some repertoire, the only Bruckner I've heard from him (the 7th) was typically committed but a bit... odd. The other Oslo programme appeals up to a point (principally the Szymanowski) but not enough to justify price code C for me.

Since my plan to get to the Edinburgh Festival for the RSNO this evening has gone completely wrong (400 miles away and ticket in the bin job) I've just cheered myself up with a ticket for the LPO Prom.

I don't want to say too much in case it spoils any "surprise" good or bad, but Jurowski/LPO did Zarathustra at the RFH in January in an all Strauss concert that culminated with an all-guns-blazing Salome closing scene (Karita Mattila). As often with Jurowski much of it was interestingly "different", definitely emphasising the more cerebral elements of ASZ over the sensuous romanticism. Or to put it another way, e.g. the sunrise was a bit matter-of-fact in a fairly loud sort of way! Might be completely different this time, we shall see...

I rather think that the RAH organ might add a bit of 'all guns blazing' to Zarathustra as well!

I'm something of a Maazel sceptic as well but the VPO in Bruckner 8 was too good a chance to miss whoever is waving the stick. We'd all love it to have been Bernard Haitink but sadly not...

[LaurieWatt]

I rather think that the RAH organ might add a bit of 'all guns blazing' to Zarathustra as well!

I'm something of a Maazel sceptic as well but the VPO in Bruckner 8 was too good a chance to miss whoever is waving the stick. We'd all love it to have been Bernard Haitink but sadly not...

Petrushka, you will get your huge C major, massively organ laden, wall of sound, but only in the nineteenth and twentieth bars (and at the end of the first part, of course). Save for the two sets of opening tymp triplets which crescendo from p to ff, VJ does a very gentle build up to that point! All the more effective in my view. Also his vision of the work is truly cumulative building up to the final bell laden climax just before the quiet ambiguous ending.

[Alison]

I always look forward to the LPO prom. Marvellous performances of the Faust and Manfred symphonies in the last couple of seasons. I'd expect a certain severity in ASZ as opposed to creamy luxuriance. The LPO timps can disappoint just a little these days in comparison with the Russell Jordan era - IMVHO etc.

[LaurieWatt]

. The LPO timps can disappoint just a little these days in comparison with the Russell Jordan era - IMVHO etc.

Alison, you always say this about Simon Carrington and I have never understood why. Each to his or her own, of course, but, IMEVHO, you are so way off the mark here! Russell is, indeed, a very fine tympanist and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden is lucky to have him but he has nothing on the subtlety, technical skill and range of Simon's playing which is also equally powerful when required! He has done a few ASZ's with the LPO now and I am sure will not disappoint!

[BBMmk2]

I better listen to this one as I be working with them next term!

[Alison]

Alison, you always say this about Simon Carrington and I have never understood why. Each to his or her own, of course, but, IMEVHO, you are so way off the mark here! Russell is, indeed, a very fine tympanist and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden is lucky to have him but he has nothing on the subtlety, technical skill and range of Simon's playing which is also equally powerful when required! He has done a few ASZ's with the LPO now and I am sure will not disappoint!

Sorry Laurie, I have always been very pro LPO and its the child in me who has has never quite got over Russell's departure from the orchestra. I simply adored his playing! I can't wait to hear the forthcoming Vw5 as I was sat just behind RJ and can still remember the uplift from his contribution. What about those Brahms 1 introductions under Tennstedt ? Simply magnificent stuff!

If he doesnt mind me saying, Simon B will most probably understand as he had a similar sense of devastation at the loss of a principal trumpet from another orchestra! I guess I have it out of proportion but for my money Russell was exceptional.

[Petrushka]

Sorry Laurie, I have always been very pro LPO and its the child in me who has has never quite got over Russell's departure from the orchestra. I simply adored his playing! I can't wait to hear the forthcoming Vw5 as I was sat just behind RJ and can still remember the uplift from his contribution. What about those Brahms 1 introductions under Tennstedt ? Simply magnificent stuff!

If he doesnt mind me saying, Simon B will most probably understand as he had a similar sense of devastation at the loss of a principal trumpet from another orchestra! I guess I have it out of proportion but for my money Russell was exceptional.

Russell Jordan was in the LSO percussion section in the late 1970s when I first started seeing them but I can only agree about his contribution to those wonderful Tennstedt performances in particular. When was his exact time with the LPO?

Anyway, orchestra personnel changes all the time though I have to say that I still find it a shock that the LSO I got to know so well in the late 70s/early 80s has completely disappeared!

[Simon B]

If he doesnt mind me saying, Simon B will most probably understand as he had a similar sense of devastation at the loss of a principal trumpet from another orchestra! I guess I have it out of proportion but for my money Russell was exceptional.

Indeed, and my pet theory for the day is that reasons for this feeling may be principally twofold:

(i) With musicians of this calibre, there are few or no technical limitations for them to transcend and what we hear/perceive is the personality of the individuals, or at least we perhaps wrongly internalise it as such.

(ii) Some of the individuals that might be talked about in these terms come from a different generation where the path to the top was rather different to now, more diverse, sometimes being largely self-taught from a start point of innate brilliance. They tended to be more individual, idiosyncratic even, perhaps stronger in that perceived "personality" and therefore less interchangeable.

Specifically on Simon Carrington, for what my opinion is worth (i.e. approximately zilch!) I'm not sure I can think of any current player with more impressive but lightly worn technical flawlessness and pinpoint rhythmic accuracy. He can deliver immense power and drive at times, but perhaps deploys it rather more sparingly than some. He isn't averse to some techically breathtaking pedalling in all the "wrong notes" in e.g. Tchaikovsky or Verdi either, but tends to be less outrageous than the LSO's Nigel Thomas and his chromatic scales in Tchaik 6! That is, he's a different musical personality - and one which fits well with the current LPO IMO, somewhat sweepingly but somewhat accurately described occasionally as the "Intellectual" among London's big 3 orchestras.

Regardless of any of this, I'm looking forward to the LPO Prom, which I would agree has tended to be one of the highlights of the season through the Jurowksi era.

[Alison]

Very good points from Simon as ever. After all the LPO isn't the same 'most Romantic orchestra in the world' anymore as Tennstedt used to have it. I can quite see (hear?) how the big ripe almost OTT timpani thwacks at the beginning of Brahms 1 - to use that example again - wouldn't really fit the leaner revisionist approach of Jurowski. It's not so much competence as style. It's about time for me to move on too !