Prom 26 - 5.08.14: EUYO / London Voices, Petrenko

[Stanley Stewart]

Thanks Ams! Off to see The Pajama Game tonight, not in Hernando's Hideaway, but the Shaftesbury will do very nicely!

Indeed, Ferret, tonight's performance will, indeed, be your 'Once a year day'.
Many happy returns.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Happy Birthday, Ferretf!

I'm afraid that the powers that be at the Beeb can't just decide to televise and record at will. These things need tricky negotiation with all concerned. No doubt there were contractual difficulties in this case. Anti modernism would hardly be a factor, consider the BBC reputation for commissioning new work.

Weeeeeeelll ... except that the "new work" that they do commission is itself largely of an anti-modernist stance. (BBC Prom commissions from Chris Fox? Aaron Cassidy? Richard Barrett? Rebecca Saunders? Brian Fingummy? Salvatore Sciarrino? Helmut Lachenmann? Pierluigi Bilione? Beat Furrer? Bryn Harrison? Richard Glover? James Saunders? Liza Lim? etc etc etc ... )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Would he have been a more lucid, concise composer in less awful times, I wonder, or would he have lost his motivation as a musical chronicler of soviet life?

Dunno - but the Second Symphony lasts a mere 19 minutes and the Third about 25, so concision isn't at issue here.

And did he feel that this symphony does not work, and was that another reason for him to suppress it?

No, and No. (He was alive and well when the work was un-suppressed and first performed. If he felt it hadn't "worked", he would have destroyed it, and there would be Fourteen Symphonies, with the Fifth [provocatively, defiantly so named in order to make clear that there was a Fourth there somewhere] called "Number Four".)

The Fourth Symphony is "lucid" and "concise" - taking exactly as long as it needs to deliver the world of ideas it has to communicate. It needs and repays time and repeated attention, but it soon becomes clear that this astonishing marriage of Mahler and The Rite of Spring (with a bit on the side with Mossolov) - all filtered through the composer's absolutely individual voice - is just simply magnificent. Best thing he ever did.






Except, possibly, the Fifteenth.

[Blotto]

It needs and repays time and repeated attention, but it soon becomes clear that this astonishing marriage of Mahler and The Rite of Spring (with a bit on the side with Mossolov) - all filtered through the composer's absolutely individual voice - is just simply magnificent. Best thing he ever did.

Oh?! and

That's a great surprise

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oh?! and

That's a great surprise

I'm full of 'em - people are always saying it. (Or something like it ) But, of all the Shostakovich scores I've studied, the Fourth is the one that most repays returning to, and it's the one I'd recommend anyone to give time to.









Well; that and the Fifteenth.

And none of this is to say that all the others are "rubbish", just that there is something really special about the Fourth.



And Fifteenth.

[Blotto]

I'm full of 'em - people are always saying it. (Or something like it ) But, of all the Shostakovich scores I've studied, the Fourth is the one that most repays returning to, and it's the one I'd recommend anyone to give time to.

Well; that and the Fifteenth.

And none of this is to say that all the others are "rubbish", just that there is something really special about the Fourth.

And Fifteenth.

When I see opinions expressed with such quiet confidence, I must take notice. My own experiences of the symphony are on the previous page; if I had to summarise my response, I'd say it was as if I'd sat in on a run through. The others of his symphonies and their reputations have explained themselves immediately but this one barely spoke above a whisper to me. Perhaps it's simply not to my taste but perhaps also my difficulty with the Berio had a bearing on my approach to the orchestra and occasion. I will try again.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Lento]

The Fourth Symphony is "lucid" and "concise" - taking exactly as long as it needs to deliver the world of ideas it has to communicate. It needs and repays time and repeated attention

Not sure I'll be committing to that: I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, about this symphony, at least!

[Nick Armstrong]

... the Fourth is the one that most repays returning to, and it's the one I'd recommend anyone to give time to.

Well; that and the Fifteenth.

... there is something really special about the Fourth.

And Fifteenth.

I love the Fifteenth, which as regular readers will recall was my entry-point into 'classical' music; but I've never been able to get the Fourth, including listening last night on the radio.

To quote Frasier: "What is a boy to do?"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To quote Frasier: "What is a boy to do?

I only know him saying "We're doomed, I tell ye; doooomed!"

[Nick Armstrong]

I only know him saying "We're doomed, I tell ye; doooomed!"

Wrong opera!!!

[Dave2002]

I love the Fifteenth, which as regular readers will recall was my entry-point into 'classical' music; but I've never been able to get the Fourth, including listening last night on the radio.

To quote Frasier: "What is a boy to do?"

You should have been there! Amazing sound - no way your radio would have come close.

I agree it's a puzzling work, and I'm still confused by it, but parts are fantastic. I hope it will reveal more with repetition, and so far I've not given up on that.

[teamsaint]

]My original quibble seems to have been misread,[/B] my comment was not that the voices were hard to decipher, although from my vantage point they were. My complaint was the amplification of the voices in this case masked the intricate web of musical quotations in the orchestra.

I did notice a resemblance to Ligeti in the first movement of the Berio, particularly to Clocks and Clouds, which was written seven years after the Sinfonia.
That's another favourite piece which I have yet to hear in a live performance, come on Esa-Pekka !

Ah, the perils of internet discussion !!

Happy birthday, FF.

[Beef Oven!]

As FF mentioned, my main problem with the Berio was the inaudubility of too much of the spoken parts. Maybe they got lost in the mix with the audience dampening the acoustic as compared to rehearsal time? That apart it is an extraordinary experience, and pulled off with great skill all round. It must be a difficult work to perform. As for the work itself, one could post many thoughts , but people will have their own opinions. It is so different from so much else that gets to the concert platform that it is striking for this alone. Each performance must certainly be an "occasion". Good, bold programming, and had the audience part intrigued, part gripped.
Don't have much to say about the DSCH other than to reiterate how fabulous it was, really from beginning to end. The energy of the orchestra was a sight to see, and Petrenko was masterly. My first time seeing him, and I sincerely hope not my last. The band must have loved playing for him.
A huge and heartfelt ovation, and a lovely reaction from the players at the very end.

A heart warming,top class , five star evening .

Shame about the audibility problem with the spoken parts, but it sounds like it was a great concert all the same.

I attended the Swingle Singers, Sao Paulo SO & Marin Alsop in the Berio last October - all was crystal-clear. But to have DSCH 4 as well - I'm gutted that I couldn't be there last night!!

[HighlandDougie]

I love the Fifteenth, which as regular readers will recall was my entry-point into 'classical' music; but I've never been able to get the Fourth, including listening last night on the radio.

To quote Frasier: "What is a boy to do?"

Keep listening to it! While it has been part of my musical pantheon of great works for the last ..err, 40 years (am I really that old?), it's not a work which necessarily makes much sense at first, apart possibly from that minatory coda. It can come across as episodic and unstructured - the parts being greater than the sum of the whole - but it, as FHG wisely says, "(it) is the one that most repays returning to". I've heard it in the flesh a good number of times and I seem to have accumulated about 20 recordings of it but last night's performance, to which I've now listened twice (and our friends at Dutch Radio have it sans Tom Service if anyone wants to hear it again in decent sound), was pretty damned good. I would love to have been there and can only envy those boarders who experienced it live.