Prom 36 - 13.08.14: VW/Alwyn Prom, BBC SO, Jansen / Oramo

[Nick Armstrong]

Caliban - were you in Stalls G/H by any chance? Your description is ringing bells with me.

YES!

[EdgeleyRob]

Thanks for the reviews guys,top stuff.
Simon B,yes I'd seen that,thank you,I will be there.

BBC Philharmonic
Vassily Sinaisky conductor | Leonard Elschenbroich cello

Lyadov Eight Russian Folk Songs | Prokofiev Sinfonia concertante for cello and orchestra | Vaughan Williams Job

Friday 20 March 2015 7:30 PM The Bridgewater Hall

[Ferretfancy]

A very good Wasps Overture and Lark, I spoke to listeners who had been in distant seats but could still appreciate Janine Janson's quietest tone. I've loved VW's Job since I first heard a snatch of Boult's first LP recording standing by a small loudspeaker in an army tent in Egypt listening to Music Magazine on the BBC World Service.
Tonight's performance was excellent, the BBC SO strings were particularly good, and of course the organ was thrilling. Somebody pointed out at the pre=Proms talk that when Satan sat on God's throne he did it accompanied by God's instrument, a nice ironic touch from RVW.

The Alwyn? Well, for me it was just dutiful rhetoric without anything significant to remember it by. There was an awful lot of well crafted but essentially faceless music being produced by English composers in the 1940s and 1950s, and this was a typical example. Life's too short to bother when there's so much better stuff around.

[Blotto]

I went looking after reading the general enthusiasm for Job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwJqhXbS2xE A great pleasure to watch Boult conduct - there's something quite compelling in the aptness of his gestures.

Is there a hint of Holst in the Devil's Dance and more than a hint of Britten's Storm interlude from Peter Grimes? Instrumentation and phrases seemed to be everywhere.

... there's some coughing, too.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Back from the RAH:
A packed house and good to see the coughers made a special effort to get off their sick beds and drag themselves into the hall. So pleased.
Mrs B-o-D remarked that JJ's Lark was much quieter than an earlier performance we caught at the RAH some years ago - and I would agree with her. Of course the acoustics of the hall can play tricks - yesterday we were in Stalls J, before we were higher - but this was certainly a more delicate rendition. I found JJ's prediliction for whole body movement in the more energetic sections a little visually off-putting but she held that silence superbly at the end, hovering her bow above the strings for what seemed an age, allowing that lark to fly away into the rafters and off into the sky.

I'd never heard Job complete before which is some kind of frightful confession considering that I have been listening to English music for nigh on 50 years. A wonderful performance with Oramo holding the most delicate of near silences at the end for what seemed an eternity - and, thankfully, by then the coughers had given up .

Alwyn: this was the piece I had come to hear. And despite Ferret's dismissal of it as rather run-of-the-mill piece (a view which I thought was rather unfairly emphasised in the programme notes with quotes from critics of the first performance in 1950) I find Alwyn's music - the symphonies especially - quite riveting. Its a little difficult to put into precise meaning but I find a sense of a reflection of an Englishness of my childhood (50's) as much as VW's sense in the Lark of a world that was about to vanish. Perhaps its the snatches of lyricism reflecting a sunny carefree summer or the the familiar (but not quite recognisable) phrasing which could have come from any number of British films of the 40's and 50's that strikes an aural chord with me but it is the fff climaxes in his symphonies that still bowl me over some 40+ years since I first came across the Lyrita LPs. The First has never been my favourite of the ALwyn symphonies but I'll take any live performance I can get - and this one didn't disappoint.

(On the crush of the no.52 bus making our way back to Victoria we struck up a conversation with a lady who had been at the performance. I asked her what piece she had particularly come for that evening and she replied "the Lark - the others were rather heavy going". I wondered to myself if the packed house was made up of a fair proportion of those who only knew the Lark from R3 and CFM. She did get off at Knightsbridge so perhaps she wasn't typical. )

PS: On the train going home I was persuing the programme and I noticed that the late night Prom that followed had listed Rameau as the composer of Desert Music rather than Steve Reich.

[antongould]

Thanks to Bax and others for wonderful reviews .....scarily for the first time in years I find I have a tickly cough!

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks to Bax and others for wonderful reviews .....scarily for the first time in years I find I have a tickly cough!

Since giving up smoking precisely one year ago, I have suffered the worst cough I can remember, lasting at least two months, and accompanied by a sensation as if I have an undislodgeable bunch of nettle leaves stuck at the back of my throat! It seems to be doing the rounds - slowly - and has been suggested as being connected with the high pollen levels of this summer.

[Alison]

I loved the Alwyn symphony, so fresh and teeming with life. An absolute treat to hear Oramo conducting with his own orchestra.

[Tevot]

The Alwyn struck me as being anonymous tbh.

However, I thought that Job was magnificent. The ending was so beautiful

[pureimagination]

prom 36

YES!

Hi, new to forum but wanted somewhere to vent my annnoyance/anger/wrath etc at inconsiderate audience members and praise orchestra conductor and soloist at last nights prom. Firstly the coughers, (the in between movement clappers are also an irritation but not all audience members are regular prom goers so you can't expect them to know the (perceived) etiquette), there is a note in the each prom programme (£4 i know!) that asks that people stifle coughing. Time for this to be added to the same in house announcement that asks for phones to go off etc. My enjoyment of the concert was not drastically ruined but the very quiet moments of Lark and Job were spoiled by coughs because you are listening so intently that any extra sound is distracting (including someone talking during Job). Janine Jansen did seem to give the latter part of Lark more space but it gave it a uniqueness that all performances should have. Always nice to hear the organ at the RAH so it's part in Job is duly noted as was the orchestra leaders violin solo in Job [sorry no name check - programme is at home]. Alwyn's Symphony 1 was nice to hear if not memorable.
Finally, let's not criticise others musical preferences (personally I can't listen to Birtwistle Maxwell Davies et al) and if their tastes are dictated to by Classic FM then each to their own (unless ofcourse they think Andre Rieu brings anything to music!)
Sorry for lengthy first post. Next prom Sunday.

[Tevot]

Hi, new to forum but wanted somewhere to vent my annnoyance/anger/wrath etc at inconsiderate audience members and praise orchestra conductor and soloist at last nights prom. Firstly the coughers, (the in between movement clappers are also an irritation but not all audience members are regular prom goers so you can't expect them to know the (perceived) etiquette), there is a note in the each prom programme (£4 i know!) that asks that people stifle coughing. Time for this to be added to the same in house announcement that asks for phones to go off etc. My enjoyment of the concert was not drastically ruined but the very quiet moments of Lark and Job were spoiled by coughs because you are listening so intently that any extra sound is distracting (including someone talking during Job). Janine Jansen did seem to give the latter part of Lark more space but it gave it a uniqueness that all performances should have. Always nice to hear the organ at the RAH so it's part in Job is duly noted as was the orchestra leaders violin solo in Job [sorry no name check - programme is at home]. Alwyn's Symphony 1 was nice to hear if not memorable.
Finally, let's not criticise others musical preferences (personally I can't listen to Birtwistle Maxwell Davies et al) and if their tastes are dictated to by Classic FM then each to their own (unless ofcourse they think Andre Rieu brings anything to music!)
Sorry for lengthy first post. Next prom Sunday.

Hi pureimagination. Welcome !! Thanks for a great post. Look forward to reading more.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[french frank]

wanted somewhere to vent my [Enter appropriate feelings]

Welcome As Tevot says, hope to hear more from you - 'venting' is what the place is for ...

[EnemyoftheStoat]

...the orchestra leaders violin solo in Job [sorry no name check - programme is at home].

From the pictures it looks like Cleo Gould. Welcome to the forum, pureimagination - and carry on with the venting; it's a message that needs to be got across.

[Sir Velo]

It was Cleo Gould. She was announced as such by Andrew McGregor. She was the guest leader for the Fliter/Pons concert earlier this season.

[Nick Armstrong]

Hi, new to forum but wanted somewhere to vent my annnoyance/anger/wrath etc at inconsiderate audience members and praise orchestra conductor and soloist at last nights prom. Firstly the coughers, (the in between movement clappers are also an irritation but not all audience members are regular prom goers so you can't expect them to know the (perceived) etiquette), there is a note in the each prom programme (£4 i know!) that asks that people stifle coughing. Time for this to be added to the same in house announcement that asks for phones to go off etc. My enjoyment of the concert was not drastically ruined but the very quiet moments of Lark and Job were spoiled by coughs because you are listening so intently that any extra sound is distracting (including someone talking during Job)

Nice first post, pureimagination, and you'll have read mine last night and realise that we're ad idem on the music and the morons. Welcome... Vent on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries 'Hold, enough..'

PS were you in the same area as Simon B and me?