Prom 71 - 4.09.13: Górecki, Vaughan Williams & Tchaikovsky

[Hornspieler]

I'm now listening to the second part of last night's concert which, so far seems to have escaped everyone's notice:

Vaughan Williams: Four last songs.


Well, it's typical RVW through and through, isn't it?

Congratulations to Antony Payne for his skill in keeping the feeling that they are original RVW settings. Some competent singing by the young mezzo and, for me, a welcome relief from what had gone before.

Tchaikowsky: Symphony Nº 6

I could hardly hear the opening, but I did hear something which indicated that this edition is not the version to which I am accustomed.
I also noticed some atrocious intonation from the clarinet* just prior to the full tutti in the first movement.

So far, I am getting a feeling that the BBCSO and Osmo Vanska do not quite have an understanding either in interpretation or tempo.

*The trombones in the last three notes of the 1st movement are noticeably sharper than the three notes preceding them. Is there a temperature problem - or is the iPlayer acting up? (or is it just me?)

{Pause for afternoon tea back later.}

Opening of the third movement was a shambles. What is wrong with the orchestra/conductor relationship?
A sensible segue into the last movement. That will quieten the clappers. Let's hope that they will have the sense not to shout "Bravo" before the final chords have died away.

Well done the 'customers'


HS

[Nachtigall]

As someone has suggested, the Górecki is probably marmite: "mawkish" to a reserved British emotional palate, simplistic to those who prefer musical complexity but moving to those who can hear it in context. i must confess that I didn't hear the broadcast and haven't listened to the symphony for quite some time, but I would suggest listening to it in the context of Tony Palmer's film about the composer. "If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst" (Thomas Hardy).

[Richard Barrett]

"mawkish" to a reserved British emotional palate, simplistic to those who prefer musical complexity but moving to those who can hear it in context.

Those are not the only possibilities of course, and I'm sure you wouldn't wish to suggest this but I would say it's also possible to hear it "in context" and not be particularly moved by it. The musical expression of the kind of material that Górecki is dealing with in this piece could take an infinite variety of forms and he seems to have chosen a bold but unsubtle approach (not at all the same thing as saying it's simplistic), which achieves its ends by a kind of hypertrophy of familiar expressive devices.

[edashtav]

Oops, I must have missed that. I don't really see that as much of an explanation though.

I wasn't suggesting for one moment (of course) that any piece of music can "encompass all aspects of social and political issues", and I don't really understand what you mean by the rest of the sentence in relation to what I wrote, but apart from that I think I didn't express what I was trying to say clearly enough. By "some kind of vision" I mean expressing a sense that keening and lamenting aren't the only things to do. For me this is expressed succinctly by Edward Bond in the preface to Saved (not generally regarded as embodying a particularly hopeful view of humanity, to be sure):

... if the spectator thinks this is pessimistic that is because he has not learned to clutch at straws. Clutching at straws is the only realistic thing to do. The alternative, apart from the self-indulgence of pessimism, is a fatuous optimism based on superficiality of both feeling and observation.

Hs's "too depressing" is sufficient if one accepts that his reaction is a universal one. The Gorecki didn't depress me.

As for your eloquent Edward Bond quotation, it's fine, no doubt, in context, but as a general rule it's an example of hyperbole.

We expect, even need , artists, writers and composers to use hyperbole to intensify what we may sense dimly; we can't live in their hyperbolic world. The existence of inhumanity doesn't invalidate humanity and optimism. It's optimism that encourages "clutching at straws".

[jayne lee wilson]

I agree with you, up to a point, ferney, but, the question's been asked before,"Was Luigi Nono the Angriest Composer in History?". Many would answer,"Yes, Comrade." I'm not decrying his anger : it's both compelling and discomforting. We need to hear Nono at the Proms: not a piece of his has been heard in a quarter of a century. It would have been his 90th birthday in 2014; time to make amends?

Turning to Gorecki's piece, it's name gives the game away, it's sorrowful, & it's a Catholic work of consolation and loss that offers hope and ends with a holy chord of eternal faith. It's not, primarily, cathartic but is a commentary on the drama of Golgotha. Of course, for the faithless, all that is no more than baloney. The piece, whilst at one level simple, does bear analysis, it is not "simples" like American minimalism, the chords and clusters derived from the symphony's opening canon, for instance, are not predictable and have an intoxicating variety. Incidentally, when you first heard it, ferney, I believe that the world and Gorecki did not know that the young female prisoner survived and lived on for many years after the war. Gorecki was happy when he heard that she been saved, as I'm sure that we all are. "No,Mother do not Weep...."

There is room in the world, and in the Proms, for simple faith (Gorecki) as well as compelling anger (Nono) for none of us know our future.

I feel Ed hits the spot here. But as with a mass by Bach or Zelenka, I don't need to share that faith to be moved to tears by Gorecki. The soft radiance in the music, glistening like shot silk, offsets the tragic textual evocations and so for me extends the emotional range of the piece beyond repetitive lament. I do think it important to know the texts as, or before, you listen. The use of the Aeolian scale in the 1st song, and those dark lower registers in the soprano and the strings after the start of the 2nd song are examples of the unique atmosphere of the 3rd, a strength in sorrow, which made it so immediately memorable. The hope found in faith in "Mother, don't cry" shines its light upon the longer, death-haunted evocations either side... but yes, it is a piece you have to sink into, submit to - if the mobile doesn't catch your eye as it turns, no more deliberate attention can help...

It is folk-based, both textually and melodically. You go wrong trying to place it in any supposed central symphonic tradition or repertoire. The scale of the piece demands a concerthall presentation, but that very context can work against it (as it did for Max Davies' Worldes Blis and many others)...

As for Nono, there aren't many more ferocious outbursts than some of those in the tape, or tape-accompanied pieces like THE FOREST IS YOUNG AND FULL OF LIFE or CONTRAPPUNTO DIALETTICO, not to mention AL GRAN SOLE. They can be physically (emotionally and aurally) hard to stay with - yet Nono could give us consoling tranquillity (of a remote, almost alien kind), in SOFFERTE ONDE SERENE...

[edashtav]

I'm now listening to the second part of last night's concert which, so far seems to have escaped everyone's notice:


Tchaikowsky: Symphony Nº 6

I could hardly hear the opening, but I did hear something which indicated that this edition is not the version to which I am accustomed.
I also noticed some atrocious intonation from the clarinet* just prior to the full tutti in the first movement.

So far, I am getting a feeling that the BBCSO and Osmo Vanska do not quite have an understanding either in interpretation or tempo.

*The trombones in the last three notes of the 1st movement are noticeably sharper than the three notes preceding them. Is there a temperature problem - or is the iPlayer acting up? (or is it just me?)

{Pause for afternoon tea back later.}

Opening of the third movement was a shambles. What is wrong with the orchestra/conductor relationship?
A sensible segue into the last movement. That will quieten the clappers. Let's hope that they will have the sense not to shout "Bravo" before the final chords have died away.

Well done the 'customers'


HS

That's a worrying report from you, HS, for I had similar thoughts in Vanska's first concert: the opening night of the Proms. I had hoped that was a passing phase, just the need to adjust to the conductor's beat and mannerisms. In a later concert, I found that their Enigma Variations were splendid both in vision and execution. The Proms are a hectic period for the BBC SO, and it has been in the doldrums, so I hope that things will settle as things become less pressured.

[Nachtigall]

Those are not the only possibilities of course, and I'm sure you wouldn't wish to suggest this but I would say it's also possible to hear it "in context" and not be particularly moved by it. The musical expression of the kind of material that Górecki is dealing with in this piece could take an infinite variety of forms and he seems to have chosen a bold but unsubtle approach (not at all the same thing as saying it's simplistic), which achieves its ends by a kind of hypertrophy of familiar expressive devices.

I wouldn't deny the "hypertrophy of familiar expressive devices" but in a way the hypertrophy seems right in view of the enormity of the events it alludes to. I also agree with Jayne when she says that traditional academic analysis can miss the point since the "symphony" is textually and melodically folk-based. However – and I am now listening to the performance in iPlayer – the cretinous applause between movements certainly militates against any involvement in the work's emotional narrative.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Il Canto Sospeso, I assume you mean...

Indeed.

[Stunsworth]

If the BBC is trying to use the proms to attract a wider listening audience, The Lone Ranger would have been a better starter for the evening

I remember a Halle concert years ago where they played the Lone Ranger overture (apparantly it was later nicked by some Italian bloke). Anyhow, there was a party of primary schoolchildren in the Free Trade Hall, and when the music really got going, they got _very_ animated. Quite amusing at the time.

[Simon B]

That's a worrying report from you, HS, for I had similar thoughts in Vanska's first concert: the opening night of the Proms. I had hoped that was a passing phase, just the need to adjust to the conductor's beat and mannerisms. In a later concert, I found that their Enigma Variations were splendid both in vision and execution. The Proms are a hectic period for the BBC SO, and it has been in the doldrums, so I hope that things will settle as things become less pressured.

Ed, the first night and the concert concluding with the Enigma Variations were conducted by Sakari Oramo (and in contrast with your assessment, only a few of the subsequent concerts have eclipsed the first night's RVW for me).

Only last night was conducted by Osmo Vanska. By-the-by, his concerts don't usually do much for me, though I'm sure he'd get over that bombshell in femtoseconds if it came to it!

[Tony Halstead]

*The trombones in the last three notes of the 1st movement are noticeably sharper than the three notes preceding them. Is there a temperature problem - or is the iPlayer acting up? (or is it just me?)

No, it's not 'just you'...!
Unfortunately I don't have a score immediately to hand, but I think the lower two trombones were OK pitch-wise, whereas the player ( 1st?) entrusted by Tchaik with the D# evidently belongs to the 'David Willcocks school of tempered intonation', playing it very sharp 'so as not to sound flat'!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As someone has suggested, the Górecki is probably marmite: "mawkish" to a reserved British emotional palate, simplistic to those who prefer musical complexity but moving to those who can hear it in context. i must confess that I didn't hear the broadcast and haven't listened to the symphony for quite some time, but I would suggest listening to it in the context of Tony Palmer's film about the composer. "If a way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst" (Thomas Hardy).

Hmm. Well, it's the first time in my life that I've been accused of having a "reserved British emotional palate", so thanks for the new experience - but I was expressing a personal response to the sounds of the Gorecki. The "context"? As I've said, Nono (or Penderecki or even Reich) give me personally a greater sense of involvement in the context; the suggestion that the work benefits from a documentary about the composer does little to raise my regard for it.

Other features people have mentioned: the "folk material-based Symphony" - RVW and Sibelius and Nielsen did this much more convincingly. Canonic modal String writing? Lutoslawski (Musique Funebre) Britten (Phaedra) and Aldo Clementi did this much more successfully. Expression of a simple faith? I don't see the need for this: Stravinsky, Webern, Plainchant and Highland Keening are all crystal clear, and far much more interesting Music.

I'm honestly glad that there is such admiration for the work, but, for me it fails at every level - technical, emotional, expressive, aesthetic.

[Hornspieler]

Hmm. Well, it's the first time in my life that I've been accused of having a "reserved British emotional palate", so thanks for the new experience - but I was expressing a personal response to the sounds of the Gorecki. The "context"? As I've said, Nono (or Penderecki or even Reich) give me personally a greater sense of involvement in the context; the suggestion that the work benefits from a documentary about the composer does little to raise my regard for it.

Other features people have mentioned: the "folk material-based Symphony" - RVW and Sibelius and Nielsen did this much more convincingly. Canonic modal String writing? Lutoslawski (Musique Funebre) Britten (Phaedra) and Aldo Clementi did this much more successfully. Expression of a simple faith? I don't see the need for this: Stravinsky, Webern, Plainchant and Highland Keening are all crystal clear, and far much more interesting Music.

I'm honestly glad that there is such admiration for the work, but, for me it fails at every level - technical, emotional, expressive, aesthetic.

We don't always agree, FHG, but I am 100% with you here.

My School Music teacher used to say "... all that is required of a musician is to play the right note, in the right place, the right way."

Well, I can have no opinion regarding the right way, but for me, I heard the right notes (I have no reason to think otherwise) in the wrong place.

HS

[Hornspieler]

No, it's not 'just you'...!
Unfortunately I don't have a score immediately to hand, but I think the lower two trombones were OK pitch-wise, whereas the player ( 1st?) entrusted by Tchaik with the D# evidently belongs to the 'David Willcocks school of tempered intonation', playing it very sharp 'so as not to sound flat'!

HS

[Nachtigall]

Hmm. Well, it's the first time in my life that I've been accused of having a "reserved British emotional palate", so thanks for the new experience …
I'm honestly glad that there is such admiration for the work, but, for me it fails at every level - technical, emotional, expressive, aesthetic.

I wasn't particularly directing that comment at you, FGH, but it's obvious that you aren't going to be convinced. To be honest, I'm not sure that I would be convinced by the Proms performance I heard. Dawn Upshaw and David Zinman did it proud on that first ever recording. I still think it's worth seeing the Tony Palmer documentary.

Btw, brilliant the way Vänska defeated the serial clappers by attacking the final movement of the Tchaikovsky with ne'er a microsecond's pause!