Prom 1 - 18.07.14: The First Night - Elgar: The Kingdom, BBC SO / A. Davis

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I missed most of the First Night, being on holiday, and forgot to set the recorder. So I tried listening on iPlayer. A fine performance in many ways, but the sound was dreadful, rather like one of those old portable cassette recorders with automatic recording level. But listening live this evening is a far better experience from a sound quality point of view.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The last post may well bw inaccurate. Today I installed a Humax Freesat+ box with "free time" replacing an old HDD/DVD recorder, and as it has iPlayer with bells and whistles, and Elgar's The Kingdom is Desert Island fare for me, I shunned planned activities to listen to this perforkance again. I just wish I could keep it for longer. The dynamics are still compressed but not by as much as I suggested when I listened via my computer.

[johnb]

I recorded the TV broadcast of The Kingdom on my Humax but found the sound very off-putting (because of the crackling reminiscent of badly cared for LPs).

As an experiment I substituted the R3 AAC 320 kbps* (converted to PCM) for the TV broadcast's audio, cut the start back to where the camera focuses on the auditorium (in order to avoid a clash between the R3 and TV announcers) and the result is surprisingly good and I *seem* to have avoided any lip-synch problems. I'll do a few tests then save it to DVD.

(By the way, the dynamics on the TV broadcasts are always very compressed compared with the iPlayer streams.)

* Legally recorded live, of course.

[bluestateprommer]

To me the "libretto" looks terribly dull on paper and I am impressed by the extent to which Elgar's music brings it to life, for much of the time. In purely musical terms there is much to enjoy, IMV, and the Prelude strikes me as a splendid piece of music.

There's an amusing review from Richard Morrison in The Times, whether one agrees with all of it or not. He comments on Andrew Davis' tempi in a not entirely complimentary way:

"His speeds may sometimes remind one of a vintage Daimler ascending Highgate Hill with the handbrake still on, and there were many moments when he allowed the plump Edwardian orchestrations to sprawl over the vocal soloists, but he understands rubato — the ebb and flow of tempo within phrases — and that is the key to interpreting Elgar".

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/m...cle4152268.ece

While, being the village non-religious person (on this side of the pond), I may not necessarily be "sympathetic" to the general concept of this kind of composition, I have to say that Sir Andrew did an exceptionally fine job leading The Kingdom back on the First Night, with all the soloists and the choruses likewise on very good form. If only on musico-dramatic grounds alone, I found this much more compelling than The Apostles, based on my listening to the Halle's Prom of it a few seasons back (and this is no bad reflection on Sir Mark Elder and his musical forces there, not at all). So I would dissent from the tone of the separate thread about the "terrible start to the Proms" in that regard.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

While, being the village non-religious person (on this side of the pond), I may not necessarily be "sympathetic" to the general concept of this kind of composition, I have to say that Sir Andrew did an exceptionally fine job leading The Kingdom back on the First Night, with all the soloists and the choruses likewise on very good form. If only on musico-dramatic grounds alone, I found this much more compelling than The Apostles, based on my listening to the Halle's Prom of it a few seasons back (and this is no bad reflection on Sir Mark Elder and his musical forces there, not at all). So I would dissent from the tone of the separate thread about the "terrible start to the Proms" in that regard.