Prom 64 - 5.09.14: Berlin PO, Rattle

[mlb7171]

Yes, I'll be watching it live via my SMART TV's Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall App, to which I have subscribed for 12 months. Or if I do miss it then I hope it appears in their archives.

I watched the Firebird from Berlin on Saturday night - there was some free introductory offer on the Digital fandangle. Never before seen an audience fail to be whipped into a frenzy at the end, until then. The Berlin audience seemed to just say 'oh, it's the end, better clap now'. Just a bit dull - Mr Rattle was certainly pulling all his trademark faces at the musos, so not sure if it was him or the band. I will be interested to see how it goes tonight.

[Nick Armstrong]

the Digital fandangle

[Simon B]

Fairly often when attending BPO Proms, I've slightly struggled to quite grasp what all the fuss is about. Yes, the sound is distinctive and big, the virtuosity of the players is pretty extraordinary as is the collective unanimity. The actual results have left me cold on occasions, while all around go beserk.

Not so tonight though, at least in the Stravinsky where Rattle's tendency toward micromanagement of detail is a virtue IMV. Paradoxically maybe, the audience adulation seemed a notch less hysterical than usual!

Quite a number of the orchestra have now turned up at the Queen's. Plus, unless I'm hallucinating, John Wilson. Plus a *lot* of Paloma Faith fans. It's a... different vibe to be sure.

Meanwhile, back at earnest informed discussion of the music:

[pastoralguy]

I was at work but managed to 'accidentally' be in a room tending to a patient who likes Radio 3... What I heard was pretty fabulous proving, to me, that the Berlin Philharmonic is the Orchestra that all others must be compared to.

Really looking forward to hearing this concert through the Quads on 'listen again'!

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 64. BERIN PHIL/RATTLE.

RACHMANINOV SYMPHONIC DANCES. HDS RATING: Sound 9/10, Performance 9/10.

Early on in his Berlin directorship, even some UK Press critics were accusing Rattle of "spoiling" or at least diluting, their characteristically rich sound. He hadn't of course, but had simply added lighter, fresher shades to their tonal palette. The archetypally Germanic "Berlin Sound" was always there, to be drawn out or turned on at will.**.
Which is the sound we heard tonight, in this stunningly opulent and virtuosic Symphonic Dances, thrown off by the orchestra with effortless panache and power, almost too party-piece-easy.
(**Rattle himself remarked that, for the first 5 years, when he played a particular Beethoven symphony with them, they gave him Furtwangler.)

No great problems with the balancing, though it occasionally turned a little fierce under the full onslaught of those remarkable strings.

STRAVINSKY FIREBIRD (COMPLETE). Sound 8/10, Performance 7/10.

I began by enjoying this far more - a fresher, sharper sound which painted the fairytale narrative in vivid colours, bringing characters and landscapes to life. One can hardly help gasping at the lightning orchestral responses, the beauty and breathless delicacy of their solos, those threshold-of-audibility pianissimos. But the Princesses' Dance was tonally pallid and lacked schwung, and the Infernal Dance didn't feel either demonic or folkloric enough. I felt this led to a certain drift in the performance's latter half, and wasn't the final tableau just a bit too Great-Gate-of-Kiev-monumental?

Yes, it's a marvellous instrument, this orchestra, but is Rattle really getting the best out of it, (or they, him)? I just wish, in their mainstream concert performances, they would put themselves more often at the service of paths less travelled.

[Alison]

I was thinking only the other day that John Wilson doesn't seem to be everywhere anymore ....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Berlin audience seemed to just say 'oh, it's the end, better clap now'.

At least they know when to clap.

[Simon B]

I was only thinking the other that John Wilson doesn't seem to be everywhere anymore ....

He (or his doppelganger) was at that sensational Elektra (well, the pub afterwards any road!) too. Plus, he conducted a properly thrilling Walton Henry V - with Sam West incandescent as narrator - at 3 Choirs this year. Plus a pretty good RVW 9 with the RLPO not that long ago. Gets about a bit!

Anyway, will get scolded for off-topic by the prefect(s) so, back to the BPO.

1) Thanks to JLW for starting the erudition - which is beyond me tonight(/always)

2) I never had Rattle down as a Puccini man - even with a special verismo barge pole. He's gone up in my (unrepentant Puccini-ite) estimation. Even if the (generally exquisitely played) Manon Lescaut Intermezzo was just a touch heavy handed at times.

[Alison]

How do you feel about the Berlin timps Simon ?

[Simon B]

How do you feel about the Berlin timps Simon ?

Envious. Lovely instruments - not a bad job either.

Sorry! "Berlin" is effectively a particular school of playing - one which many seek to emulate, and which has been instrumental (sorry again!) in the move (back) to calf heads, ringers etc in the UK.

Wieland Welzel is, by definition, one of the leading exponents (along with Rainer Seegers) and was, it must be said, pretty impressive tonight. Some punters - i.e. not timp anoraks - tend to comment adversely on the low roll rate (you could probably hear every strike in the rolls toward the end of the Firebird) but that's part of the style - as you would expect, definitely not a technical deficiency!

[Alison]

Envious. Lovely instruments - not a bad job either.

Sorry! "Berlin" is effectively a particular school of playing - one which many seek to emulate, and which has been instrumental (sorry again!) in the move (back) to calf heads, ringers etc in the UK.

Wieland Welzel is, by definition, one of the leading exponents (along with Rainer Seegers) and was, it must be said, pretty impressive tonight. Some punters - i.e. not timp anoraks - tend to comment adversely on the low roll rate (you could probably hear every strike in the rolls toward the end of the Firebird) but that's part of the style - as you would expect, definitely not a technical deficiency!

[gradus]

I enjoyed the concert and admired the playing. Never been reminded of Petrushka before by the opening bars of the second movt of the Symphonic Dances but the performance overall was not as gripping as others I've heard by less acclaimed orchestras, especially in the closing bars. Loads of lovely playing and detail in The Firebird but oddly uninvolving in the Infernal Dance and a bit flat thereafter. Oh well, I guess you had to be there.
IMV the Manon Lescaut Intermezzo was in a different class and played with passionate intensity, just as it deserves. I'd like to hear Rattle conduct the whole opera, long a personal favourite.

[Ferretfancy]

I was in the very packed hall tonight. There's no doubt that this is still a wonderful orchestra producing beautiful sounds in every department, so why did I find the music making curiously inert ? Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances should have a narrative tension, a hint of the sinister perhaps, tightening the screw as the music progresses with perhaps a slightly headlong quality. I sensed none of that tonight, just a series of events. I was struck by the backward sounding woodwind which never seemed to punctuate the action as surely it should do, it was all too gentle.

Some of the soft playing in the Firebird was nearly lost at a distance of fifty feet or so, and Rattle seemed to want to caress the music just a fraction too slowly in the first half, nearly bringing it to a standstill once or twice. There is after all a story to be told in which Stravinsky's romantic sense is only one part, with a more dangerous menace lying beneath. It was all too considered and safe. Give me a performance any day with a few rough edges compared with what we heard tonight.

I can remember a Festival Hall performance of the Rachmaninov years ago which had me on the edge of my seat, John Pritchard was the conductor. Rattle's performance was the sort of thing I would have expected from Karajan in his later years, all the edges smoothed over as if to make it palatable.

The Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut showed what the Berlin Philharmonic can give us, but it came rather late.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sometimes I think our expectations rise to unrealistic levels when the great orchestras of Berlin and Vienna arrive at the Proms. Both still have their own stunning qualities, but both will show variations over time - and there's nothing wrong with that.

Rattle has done sterling work with the BPO, with an orchestra already at the top of the tree when he inherited his position.

[teamsaint]

Sometimes I think our expectations rise to unrealistic levels when the great orchestras of Berlin and Vienna arrive at the Proms. Both still have their own stunning qualities, but both will show variations over time - and there's nothing wrong with that.

Rattle has done sterling work with the BPO, with an orchestra already at the top of the tree when he inherited his position.

And standards of playing everywhere are surely at extremely high levels?

Maybe just a touch of what has happened to Brazil in football going on....the rest of the world catching up a little perhaps?