Prom 74 - 6.09.13: Vienna Philharmonic

[Tony Halstead]

it was a hologram conducting what is otherwise one of my favourite symphonic works 

Lovely!

[edashtav]

This has got to be the worse organ playing that I have ever heard - and I've been to a few weddings in the local churches.
Sounds like someone playing in a duffle bag. Shame its not a MUFFLE BAG!

NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

HS

Quick response from one in the Hall ( I've returned to find a 70 foot willow has crashed from our garden across the local river!).

I'm close to HS: this was some of the dullest Bach playing that I've heard which neither exploited the huge RAH organ in the good, old Thalben-Ball tradition nor try to find registrations and phrasing to attain something closer to Bach's time. He did seem uneasy and was not helped by the apparent failure of the communication system from "continuity" to indicate that it was time that he started. The choice of programme seemed quixotic, too.

To get back to HS's weddings in local churches remark: there a lack of occasion and the player seemed to fail to rise to the occasion. It was akin to a set of play-throughs, and if asked, I felt he could have carried joylessly on through the rest of Bach's organ works. What a shame.

[edashtav]

Not as bad as I'd expected! I revelled in the glorious, burnished string tone and the magnificent brass. Maazel didn't do too much on the podium - a case of setting the pulse and maintaining it - and the performance was rather good, excepting the third movement, which I found way too slow for my taste.

.

Like you, IGI, I went fearing it would be mediocre, and the leaden first half had left me even more distressed. I agree entirely with your assessment. I shall add a positive note. Technically, Lorin's conducting was excellent, using no score, the precision and economy of his movements were marvellous. But... there was no risk, everything was carefully paced, nobody was asked to bow or blow the extra mile and the result sounded sanitised. Lorin took a swig from a bottle of mineral water after each movement. I wanted to slip something liberating, a swig of real spirit into it.

But... the appalling Bach made one respect Maazel's interpretation all the more!

[Mr Pee]

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/prom-74-sonnleitner-vienna-philharmonic-orchestra-maazel

[DracoM]

Ref The Arts Desk: sure as heck listening to a different Bach recital to me.
And, yes, as a radio listener, the Bruckner DID indeed sound like one thing after another with some now and again shabby ensemble. Maybe this is how the VPO register disapproval of a guy with the stick. I know they've played with him a bit, but by many standards, this was not the VPO at their effulgent best, sounded just a bit complacent. And Maazel LET them sound that way - no challenge, no demands, just cosy decent, un-fire-lighting music-making. If that's what you want, OK.

My guess is that many concert goers would have anticipated with some relish the notion of Bruckner / VPO / spaces of RAH. And then came the event, and then the sense of 'is that it?'

[edashtav]

Ref The Arts Desk: sure as heck listening to a different Bach recital to me.
'

By 'eck, you're right DracoM !

[Petrushka]

.I'm close to HS: this was some of the dullest Bach playing that I've heard which neither exploited the huge RAH organ in the good, old Thalben-Ball tradition nor try to find registrations and phrasing to attain something closer to Bach's time. He did seem uneasy and was not helped by the apparent failure of the communication system from "continuity" to indicate that it was time that he started. The choice of programme seemed quixotic, too.

To get back to HS's weddings in local churches remark: there a lack of occasion and the player seemed to fail to rise to the occasion. It was akin to a set of play-throughs, and if asked, I felt he could have carried joylessly on through the rest of Bach's organ works. What a shame.

That seems a fair enough summary to me.

I seemed to like the Bruckner performance more than most. True, the first movement was much too slow which didn't augur well but I had no feeling that the remainder of the work was ponderous. The great Adagio climax was tremendous and the end of the whole work was a true culmination. Not a great performance maybe but a very good one. I'm glad I was there.

[Richard Tarleton]

I'm close to HS: this was some of the dullest Bach playing that I've heard which neither exploited the huge RAH organ in the good, old Thalben-Ball tradition nor try to find registrations and phrasing to attain something closer to Bach's time. He did seem uneasy and was not helped by the apparent failure of the communication system from "continuity" to indicate that it was time that he started. The choice of programme seemed quixotic, too.

To get back to HS's weddings in local churches remark: there a lack of occasion and the player seemed to fail to rise to the occasion. It was akin to a set of play-throughs, and if asked, I felt he could have carried joylessly on through the rest of Bach's organ works. What a shame.

To me (2nd Tier, almost dead centre) it had a similar effect to the smell of school food - BWV 662 in particular brought back memories in a Proustian sort of way of filing into chapel (I went to that sort of school) while the music master doodled away disconsolately on the organ.

Others have summed up what I felt about the Bruckner - beautifully played but I missed any sort of tension especially between the paragraphs of the last movement. No cathartic release following those thudding chords at the end - I didn't feel like cheering. He was conducting without a score, the only things on his music stand being a glass and a small bottle of mineral water which looked as if they might be swept off with a lunge of the baton (not that he got that excited, in fact he was holding the podium rail for support at times).

I'm looking forward to hearing the Orchestra of WNO play this next April under Lothar Koenigs - if their 7 was anything to go by they will play it as if their lives depend on it.

[ahinton]

Others have summed up what I felt about the Bruckner - beautifully played but I missed any sort of tension especially between the paragraphs of the last movement. No cathartic release following those thudding chords at the end - I didn't feel like cheering. He was conducting without a score, the only things on his music stand being a glass and a small bottle of mineral water which looked as if they might be swept off with a lunge of the baton (not that he got that excited, in fact he was holding the podium rail for support at times).

I'm looking forward to hearing the Orchestra of WNO play this next April under Lothar Koenigs - if their 7 was anything to go by they will play it as if their lives depend on it.

This broadly coincides with my impression, albeit only of the last two movements of the Bruckner. To say that the VPO played well feels almost like an insult, for that's usually worse than the worst that they do! The problem - even without so lacklustre an approach as Maazel seems to have adopted towards this monumental work on this occasion - is that unless organic development and seeing a narrative through remain high priorities throughout, the symphony (or at least certain parts of it) risks lapsing into mere pedantry - and the depressingly episodic nature of last night's traversal of the finale in particular certainly came across that way to me. Not only that - I could believe my own thoughts when I felt that the sublime close of what must surely be one of Bruckner's most ambitious and moving adagios just seemed to go on and on noodling and I wished that it would stop; I've never has such a reaction to this music before.

Earlier this year I heard a performance of it conducted by Barenboim that was far from the best that he can give but it left last night's way behind; one could not say of a bar of it that the conductor didn't really seem to care.

VPO are such a wonderful ensemble that one could almost imagine that they might have perfomred this symphony better without a conductor at all.

Cheering? All that I felt like doing at the end of it was trying to forget about it and do something else for an hour or two and then listening to a really fine performance of it to ensure that the taste of the Prom one was wholly removed failing to do that was probably a mistake on my part. Very sad indeed

[Vile Consort]

The organ playing was dull until the A minor P+F, which was so full of incident as to keep the listener on the edge of his seat. The pedal line fell apart towards the end of the prelude, whilst the fugue had split notes, wrong notes, late notes and missing notes galore.

[AjAjAjH]

All the Bruckner at this year's Proms was disappointing. Last night's No.8 was so slow that it was soporific.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical...chestra-maazel

Geoff Brown cannot count. There were SEVEN women in the ranks of the VPO last night: five strings, two harps.

[DracoM]

This broadly coincides with my impression, albeit only of the last two movements of the Bruckner. To say that the VPO played well feels almost like an insult, for that's usually worse than the worst that they do! The problem - even without so lacklustre an approach as Maazel seems to have adopted towards this monumental work on this occasion - is that unless organic development and seeing a narrative through remain high priorities throughout, the symphony (or at least certain parts of it) risks lapsing into mere pedantry - and the depressingly episodic nature of last night's traversal of the finale in particular certainly came across that way to me. Not only that - I could believe my own thoughts when I felt that the sublime close of what must surely be one of Bruckner's most ambitious and moving adagios just seemed to go on and on noodling and I wished that it would stop; I've never has such a reaction to this music before.

Earlier this year I heard a performance of it conducted by Barenboim that was far from the best that he can give but it left last night's way behind; one could not say of a bar of it that the conductor didn't really seem to care.

VPO are such a wonderful ensemble that one could almost imagine that they might have perfomred this symphony better without a conductor at all.

Cheering? All that I felt like doing at the end of it was trying to forget about it and do something else for an hour or two and then listening to a really fine performance of it to ensure that the taste of the Prom one was wholly removed failing to do that was probably a mistake on my part. Very sad indeed

Precisely - admirably put. Agree with everything.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

VPO are such a wonderful ensemble that one could almost imagine that they might have perfomred this symphony better without a conductor at all.

There have been occasions when the VPO hass played conductorless. Kertesz died before completing his recording of Brahms' St Antony Variations, so the orchestra recorded the finall variation with no conductor.
The first time I heard the VPO live was in the RAH in 1971. Bernstein was conducting, but abandoned the podium to be the Ravel Piano Concerto soloist - which is rather different from playing and conducting a Mozart concerto. The orchestra just got on with it. Interestingly, to avoid being at sea in this complex score, several of the players resorted to visible tapping of the feet to keep in time. The mythical Siegfried Idyll recording, however, was not conductorless according to John Culshaw in Ring Resounding.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

There have been occasions when the VPO has played conductorless.

Let's not forget the 2009 Prom with Franz Welser-Möst on the podium. In Haydn's Symphony No. 98, the players of the VPO barely glanced at him...