Prom 35 - 12.08.14: BBC NOW, Bevan / Whately / Ehnes / Søndergård

[Tevot]

I'd have to and regrettably agree with much of the above. Sibelius 5 is a favourite of mine - but this performance surprisingly (given Sondergard's earlier performance of Nielsen 5) didn't make me sit up and listen attentively throughout...

Note of dissent from earlier posts. The finale is imho glorious...

So there !!

[Lento]

Note of dissent from earlier posts. The finale is imho glorious...
So there !!

Perhaps the swan theme should be renamed the marmite theme.

[Tevot]

Perhaps the swan theme should be renamed the marmite theme.

[Rolmill]

Sibelius 5 is a favourite of mine - but this performance...didn't make me sit up and listen attentively throughout...

Whereas it held my attention from first note to last - variations in response to a concert are always fascinating, but I have rarely seen my own view of a performance so comprehensively outvoted as on this thread!

In the hall, many of my reactions were quite the opposite of those subsequently posted here:

- I enjoyed the whole concert enormously, but the second half slightly more than the first, probably because I preferred the music.

- I found the performance of the Sibelius 5 exciting, especially the last movement, and the playing seemed generally excellent to me.

- I thought the strings (quite visibly led by Leslie Hatfield) sounded terrific - far more biting and committed than the BBC Phil last Friday, for example (though different seats may be a partial explanation of this!).

I'll have to Listen Again to see where my ears went wrong...

[jayne lee wilson]

I join Tevot in counting Sibelius 5 as an out-and-out masterpiece! But the finale can be difficult to bring off, especially live - the strings have to really take off tight & fast, those horns need to be really full and clear, then the woodwinds' chant singing out clearly across all that, you need the tension not to drop too much in the quieter sections, and then - I love the way the "Swan Hymn" is used in a crescendo to its own apotheosis in the climaxing stretto. Yet how often you feel that it didn't quite blaze enough... the conductor really has to let rip here. Those last six chords remain a strikingly original way to end a symphony (see Max Davies 1st for a worthy successor!)... you'd never mistake it for anything else.

There's a huge buildup of tension through both the first 3 movements, despite the end of the scherzo - fascinating how much power a conductor gives to it here...and that's why the finale has to be this proto-minimalist, almost simplistic or even animalistic, release of tension. (The 3rd symphony does something similar in a smaller way).

If you really want it to knock you for six - alongside the famous ones like Barbirolli try Rozhdestvensky; never mind pacing about - after that, you'll be sprinting down the road!
And do seek out the original 4-movement 5th (2nd movement separate, that famous transition came later)with Lahti/Vanska on BIS. Might even get you into the piece if you have a problem with it...

[Rasluap]

I'm with Rolmill on the matter of enjoyment of this concert: I too was in the Hall and the string sound (questioned above by others) was admirable from a forward position in the Arena.

However, I wonder about the advisibility of two such heavy-duty programmes on consecutive nights, and soon after the outstanding Wigglesworth Prom. We know that for reasons of economy, a visit from a prominent foreign orchestra entails successive evenings of music-making - most remarkably of late from the WEDO, but if it's not asked of the BBCSO (either this season or in the recent past) then why ask it of BBC NOW.

The concert was televised for future transmission: it's worth watching just for the Ehnes encore let alone his Walton rendition, and will be an opportunity for re-assessment by those less than satisfied with the radio transmission.

[Master Jacques]

I was also in the hall, and enjoyed the Sibelius 5 a great deal. Søndergård had a firm grasp of the architecture, making sense of all the difficult 'fast v. slow' superimposed transitions which mark the piece, and the string playing in particular was precise and exciting.

There was one, arresting and controversial detail in the playing of the magnificent "swan" theme of the last movement: the rattling spiccato delivery by the double basses of their semiquavers. I took a look at the score when I got home. The passage is indeed marked Giù arco, i.e. with downbow, in the score, with staccato and fortissimo, and is evidently meant to stand out in - something like - the way it did. However, it is also written on specific notes (C - E flat - D etc.) which were ditched by the full-on spiccato attack. The effect of one of skeletal wing pinions, and I was glad to hear it done this way - once!

The Walton was given a limpid, serene and unusually introspective reading by Ehnes, and the orchestra matched that feeling. I noticed subtle details (in the first movement 'tango' for instance) which I hadn't really before, and was as moved by the heart-on-sleeve tunes just as much as ever. The performance rather went with the idea that the work is about lovely surfaces - which make its occasional plumbing of emotional depths all the more moving.

[gradus]

I heard this afternoon's repeat and thought the Sibelius a fine performance showing this conductor's excellent grasp of the piece and the orchestra in fine form as they were the prevous night in that other great 5th, of Nielsen. For me the acid test is the finale and the shaping of that brass writing before the final chords, in some performances it can sound confused even shapeless, but not here.
The finest I ever heard was Bernstein and the LSO from Edinburgh in the early eighties, I still have it on open reel tape and assuming my ancient Revox is up to it, I'd love to make it available to others to see if my view is shared but don't know if it is legal to do so and where it might be posted. Any ideas anyone?

[Nick Armstrong]

Looking forward very much to hearing the Sibelius from the TV broadcast this evening. Like Tevot and jayne, this is one of my absolute top favourite symphonies, not just of JS but of all time. It's whet my appetite to read the varying opinions about the performance, and I intend to weigh in in due course!

[teamsaint]

I join Tevot in counting Sibelius 5 as an out-and-out masterpiece! But the finale can be difficult to bring off, especially live - the strings have to really take off tight & fast, those horns need to be really full and clear, then the woodwinds' chant singing out clearly across all that, you need the tension not to drop too much in the quieter sections, and then - I love the way the "Swan Hymn" is used in a crescendo to its own apotheosis in the climaxing stretto. Yet how often you feel that it didn't quite blaze enough... the conductor really has to let rip here. Those last six chords remain a strikingly original way to end a symphony (see Max Davies 1st for a worthy successor!)... you'd never mistake it for anything else.

There's a huge buildup of tension through both the first 3 movements, despite the end of the scherzo - fascinating how much power a conductor gives to it here...and that's why the finale has to be this proto-minimalist, almost simplistic or even animalistic, release of tension. (The 3rd symphony does something similar in a smaller way).

If you really want it to knock you for six - alongside the famous ones like Barbirolli try Rozhdestvensky; never mind pacing about - after that, you'll be sprinting down the road!
And do seek out the original 4-movement 5th (2nd movement separate, that famous transition came later)with Lahti/Vanska on BIS. Might even get you into the piece if you have a problem with it...

Alex Ross has plenty of interesting stuff to say, and interesting quotes about this work in " The Rest is Noise".

[bluestateprommer]

Like their other Proms this summer, this Prom generally shows again the fine form that the BBC NOW seems to be enjoying with TS at the helm. The 'weakest link' came at the start with PMD's Caroline Matilde suite, which I found to be somewhat stolid as a work, rather like his 5th Symphony (from the BBC Phil the night after), and stolidness isn't exactly a quality that one wants in music meant to be danced to. However, just as with the BBC Phil concert, it's nice to know that Sir Peter was present at the RAH to take a bow, hopefully past his recent health problems (BTW, did he ever get back all the funds that were embezzled from him?). I thought that James Ehnes did a splendid job in the Walton concerto, with terrific support from TS and the BBC NOW. Very nicely done encore as well.

Also, there was a nice touch from Christopher Cook as presenter to let the PMC announcement of the running collection total be heard over the air just before the start of the 2nd half. In the 2nd half, TS led the Swan of Tuonela very well, with solid work from Sarah-Jayne Porsmoguer on cor anglais. TS also did a very fine job with Sibelius 5, pacing things well (including the transition to the 2nd movement, IMHO), but the finale did slacken in tension to me, probably due to a bit of tiredness that other posters alluded to.

To give this particular Proms audience credit where credit is due, no "happy clappers" inter-movement applause, nor any premature applause before the full 6 final chords were each sounded. Shows you just how varied each night's audience can be in knowing when to applaud, and when to wait.