Prom 71 - 4.09.13: Górecki, Vaughan Williams & Tchaikovsky

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.30pm – c. 10.05pm
Royal Albert Hall

Górecki
Symphony No. 3, 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' (60 mins)
INTERVAL
Vaughan Williams
Four Last Songs (orch. A. Payne) (c12 mins)
BBC Commission, World Premiere
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, 'Pathétique' (48 mins)

Ruby Hughes soprano
Jennifer Johnston mezzo-soprano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Osmo Vänskä conductor

The BBC Symphony Orchestra & Osmo Vänskä live at the BBC Proms. Gorecki's famous 3rd Symphony, Vaughan Williams' Four Last Songs, & Tchaikovsky's great and final 6th Symphony.

A series of farewells as Osmo Vänskä conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a programme concluding the season's focus on Polish music and premiering Anthony Payne's orchestration of Vaughan Williams's Four Last Songs. BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Ruby Hughes and Jennifer Johnston are the soloists, Hughes singing the three Polish texts of Henryk Górecki's 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs', Johnston singing Procris, Menelaus, Tired and Hands, Eyes and Heart in the Vaughan Williams. Tchaikovsky's 'Pathétique' is the penultimate instalment of this summer's cycle of his symphonies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So Anthony Payne orchestrates VW too. Should be worth hearing.

[jayne lee wilson]

Very intriguing programme - a Concert of Sorrowful Songs - which you'd fully expect this conductor to make the most of... Remember when the Gorecki became famous? You'd sense the 2nd movement floating into your consciousness from... almost anywhere, it was in Classic FM's Top Twenty for, like, EVER..

Looks like a very late finish too... I'm off to fuel up on Chilli Noodles.

[BBMmk2]

I didn't know about this till this evening!!

[DracoM]

Sorry, but that Gorecki is so unbelievably DULL. Does it actually change key much? How on earth did it get to be intergalactic CFM etc fave?
And for crying out loud, those b****y prommers clapping in every available space

[Petrushka]

Sorry, but that Gorecki is so unbelievably DULL. Does it actually change key much? How on earth did it get to be intergalactic CFM etc fave?
And for crying out loud, those b****y prommers clapping in every available space

I heard it once and found it interminably dull. I thought I'd try again tonight after all these years but switched off after a while unable to take any more.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, you both knew what to expect, so why listen to Gorecki's 3rd just to have your pre-judgement confirmed? It is what it is, three sound-images, mobiles turning slowly in the dark grey light of their tragic texts. It needs a different kind of attention to the usual symphonic repertoire. It's never going to turn into something else.

I felt Ruby Hughes' voice loomed a little too large and vibrantly operatic for the piece, at least as relayed on HDs. Personally I would prefer a smaller, purer, more distanced tonal character - especially in such a large acoustic. So it was a little harder than it should be to sink into its bleakly consoling evocations.

[Resurrection Man]

Well, you both knew what to expect, so why listen to Gorecki's 3rd just to have your pre-judgement confirmed? It is what it is, three sound-images, mobiles turning slowly in the dark grey light of their tragic texts. It needs a different kind of attention to the usual symphonic repertoire. It's never going to turn into something else.

I felt Ruby Hughes' voice loomed a little too large and vibrantly operatic for the piece, at least as relayed on HDs. Personally I would prefer a smaller, purer, more distanced tonal character - especially in such a large acoustic. So it was a little harder than it should be to sink into its bleakly consoling evocations.

Fully agree with you. Dawn Upshaw is still my favourite. Do you have any other recommendations?

As for those damn happy-clappers.....idiots....have they no feeling for time and occasion ?

[teamsaint]

I like the Gorecki.
And Ruby sounded oK on the car radio.

Which is the acid test, No?!

[EdgeleyRob]

I bought the Dawn Upshaw/David Zinman CD of the Gorecki when it was all the rage and have loved the work ever since,such simple sounding music and yet so deeply affecting.
I enjoyed the performance this evening but has inter movement applause ever seemed so inappropriate ?

I prefer the RVW songs with piano accompaniment,I'm glad I listened to the orchestrated version though.
You can keep your Schubert etc,'Tired' is my favourite song by any composer.

Not in the mood for the Pathetique.

[Alison]

The sound of the BBCSO at full tilt in the Tchaikovsky still doesn't quite fill the hall somehow.

I preferred the Oslo band in their Winter Daydream.

Head east to the Barbican and I'd probably take the BBC orchestra.

[Alison]

I enjoyed hearing the Gorecki again. No masterpiece, it has a valid place in the orchestral repertoire.

[jayne lee wilson]

Devastatingly intense Pathetique... after that, I'm just unable to comment on any quality of detail or interpretation...

But tonight we heard two tragic symphonies. Narratives of suffering, both with Moments of Reprieve. One ends with the soft, dark glow of maternal love-in-death and the radiance of the Queen of Heaven; the other in stark and desolate tragedy.
Gorecki's 3rd speaks from a culture, a religion, a history, as part of the fabric of folk-memory. Tchaikovsky's 6th, like that of Mahler, feels more like notes for (or from) an autobiography.

Yet for me, both achieve the greatness of a universal statement; and especially at a time of such hatreds, the deliberate affliction of war, oppression and suffering of minorities, peoples and ethnic groups, both relate intensely to the broader experience of the human condition.

[EdgeleyRob]

Devastatingly intense Pathetique... after that, I'm just unable to comment on any quality of detail or interpretation...

But tonight we heard two tragic symphonies. Narratives of suffering, both with Moments of Reprieve. One ends with the soft, dark glow of maternal love-in-death and the radiance of the Queen of Heaven; the other in stark and desolate tragedy.
Gorecki's 3rd speaks from a culture, a religion, a history, as part of the fabric of folk-memory. Tchaikovsky's 6th, like that of Mahler, feels more like notes for (or from) an autobiography.

Yet for me, both achieve the greatness of a universal statement; and especially at a time of such hatreds, the deliberate affliction of war, oppression and suffering of minorities, peoples and ethnic groups, both relate intensely to the broader experience of the human condition.

Jayne,that is brilliant (as all your posts are),many thanks.

[carol_fodor]

Devastatingly intense Pathetique... after that, I'm just unable to comment on any quality of detail or interpretation...

But tonight we heard two tragic symphonies. Narratives of suffering, both with Moments of Reprieve. One ends with the soft, dark glow of maternal love-in-death and the radiance of the Queen of Heaven; the other in stark and desolate tragedy.
Gorecki's 3rd speaks from a culture, a religion, a history, as part of the fabric of folk-memory. Tchaikovsky's 6th, like that of Mahler, feels more like notes for (or from) an autobiography.

Yet for me, both achieve the greatness of a universal statement; and especially at a time of such hatreds, the deliberate affliction of war, oppression and suffering of minorities, peoples and ethnic groups, both relate intensely to the broader experience of the human condition.

Beautifully put.