Prom 62 - 3.09.14: Stuttgart RSO, Norrington

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wednesday, 3 September
7.30 p.m. – c. 9.35 p.m.
Royal Albert Hall

Beethoven: Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op 93
Berlioz: Roméo et Juliette, Op 17 - Roméo seul (Romeo Alone)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor ('From the New World'), Op 95

Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR)
Sir Roger Norrington, conductor

Following his St John Passion earlier in the season, Roger Norrington returns tonight as Honorary Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Much-loved symphonies by Beethoven and Dvorak bookend a programme of big musical emotions that has at its core the wistful romance 'of the Romeo Alone section of Berlioz's sprawling choral symphony.

Beethoven's 'little symphony in F' brings joy and wit to the mix, belying the composer's troubled personal life with its sunny good humour. By contrast, biography is woven tightly into the melodies and rhythms of Dvorak's final symphony - the elegiac testimony to his love of his Bohemian homeland and his new-found fascination for the stories and traditions 'of America. 

[Nick Armstrong]

Rather tempted by this one, after the various opinions expressed about an orchestra and conductor I've never heard live. Will be interesting to hear what RN's approach does with such familiar music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Will be interesting to hear what RN's approach does with such familiar music.

I think it's fairly predictable.

[vinteuil]

I think it's fairly predictable.

Alpensinfonie's reaction to Norrington predictable? Surely not...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think it's fairly predictable.

The Dvorak? A little harsh, Alpie;, not up to the standard of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh or Eighth, but that's probably because it's so frequently played. I'm sure Norrington will find insights that restore the freshness we encountered when we first heard it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I do like a good school orchestra.

[Pulcinella]

Nearly switched off already!
Why is everything Sir Rog conducts so like an Olympic race?
First movement far too fast, and a blur of sound, with all detail lost.

IMVHO, of course!

[Flosshilde]

I think it's fairly predictable.

Yes, not one of the season's most exciting programmes.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Now to bless the interval, we have Sir Roger talking about himself - AGAIN.

[Lento]

The first 2 mvts of the Beethoven felt a notch or 2 too fast to me, though I suspect Norrington was using Beethoven's metronome markings, and who am I to argue with either of them?

[bluestateprommer]

The first 2 mvts of the Beethoven felt a notch or 2 too fast to me, though I suspect Norrington was using Beethoven's metronome markings, and who am I to argue with either of them?

Richard Taruskin did just that back in an essay for the New York Times back in 1990:

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/29/arts/the-spin-doctors-of-early-music.html

For example:

'Roger Norrington launches a meteoric career as ''historical'' performer of the standard classical repertory with a cycle of Beethoven symphonies on CD in which the composer's metronome indications are not only (pretty much) followed, but also emblazoned on the containers in an act of pious bravado. Having set the tempos, however, the conductor adheres to them with dogged rigidity, contradicting every eye-witness report we have of Beethoven's own conducting, as well as the explicit instructions of 18th-century conducting manuals.....

'The text-centricity of Early Music is self-evident, and so is its literalism. That is what Early Musickers usually mean when they speak of fidelity to the composer's intentions. Pushed to a new level, it has brought us Mr. Bilson's Mozart, refreshingly re-articulated in conformity with a newly cleansed text; and it has brought us Mr. Norrington's Beethoven, radically re-imagined so as to make those metronome settings work. (And they do!)'

But then Taruskin comments (feel free to agree or not):

"The impersonalism of Early Music has resulted in performances of unprecedented formal clarity and precision. It has also resulted in a newly militant reluctance to make the subtle, constant adjustments of tempo and dynamics on which expressivity depends, for these can have no sanction but personal feeling. That is why Mr. Norrington's tempos, though set in unprecedented conformity with Beethoven's prescriptions, are completely un-Beethovenian past the first measure, when Beethoven assumed that what he called the ''tempo of feeling'' would take over. It is an assumption the 20th century (and only the 20th century) has refused to make, and Beethoven would have listened to Mr. Norrington's renditions with utter discomfort and bewilderment."

I'll admit that I loved hearing Norrington's recording of LvB 2 and 8 with the London Classical Players, for the breath of fresh air that those recordings brought to LvB.

[mercia]

does a Norrington-conducted opera have vibrato-less singing ?

[Tony Halstead]

does a Norrington-conducted opera have vibrato-less singing ?

I do hope so!

[Bryn]

I do hope so!

Oh dear. I feel quite queasy. The horrible experience of hearing that dreadful soprano in Fould's World Requiem just entered my mind's ear.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm sure Norrington will find insights that restore the freshness we encountered when we first heard it.

You are right, Ferney. It's made me want to hear my first recording of the work - the Czech PO with Karel Ancerl.