Prom 68 - 7.09.14: Cleveland Orchestra, Smith / Welser-Möst

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  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20573

    Prom 68 - 7.09.14: Cleveland Orchestra, Smith / Welser-Möst

    Sunday, 7 September
    7.30 p.m. – c. 9.35 p.m.
    Royal Albert Hall

    Brahms: Academic Festival Overture
    Jörg Widmann: Flûte en suite (UK premiere)

    Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C minor

    Joshua Smith, flute (Proms debut artist as soloist)
    The Cleveland Orchestra
    Franz Welser-Möst conductor

    The Cleveland Orchestra is one of America's great ensembles. After an absence of almost a decade it returns to the Proms under Music Director Franz Welser-Möst for the first of two concerts.
    If Brahms's stormy and intricately structured First Symphony sees the composer at his most serious and structurally ambitious, his Academic Festival Overture is a rare example of his levity - an elegantly constructed musical thank-you-letter to Breslau University, taking its themes from boisterous student songs.
    At the centre of the programme is a concerto commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra for its principal flautist Joshua Smith. Rejecting anything too grandiose, young German composer Jörg Widmann has opted for a suite of dance movements - playful, referential and imaginatively disorienting.
    Last edited by Eine Alpensinfonie; 01-09-14, 12:28.
  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20573

    #2
    Jörg Widmann? Not yet on my radar.

    Comment

    • ferneyhoughgeliebte
      Gone fishin'
      • Sep 2011
      • 30163

      #3
      Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
      Jörg Widmann? Not yet on my radar.
      Rattle's featured his Music in concerts with the BPO (including this Flute Concerto: http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en...mann-beethoven). A sort of German Julian Anderson, perhaps? (And, at 41, "young" is being a bit generous )

      Some stuff on youTube:

      Flûte en suite, für Flöte und Orchestergruppen Year of composition: 2011Josua Smith, FlöteDirigent: Franz Welser-Möst · The Cleveland OrchestraThis, Suite' i...


      Nachtstück, composed 1998, by Jörg Widmannperformed byTrio ClariNordEmilio Borghesan, clarinetJoon ho Shim, celloJie Zhang, piano
      [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

      Comment

      • Eine Alpensinfonie
        Host
        • Nov 2010
        • 20573

        #4
        Thanks, Ferney.

        Comment

        • Petrushka
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 12309

          #5
          Don't forget that this Prom is being broadcast live on BBC4!
          "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

          Comment

          • pastoralguy
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 7802

            #6
            Thank you!

            Comment

            • pastoralguy
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 7802

              #7
              Superb performance of the Brahms overture showing the disciplined virtuosity of this orchestra. (Although they look a pretty glum crew...).

              Interesting music in the flute concerto although, IMHO, it went on a bit. Fantastic flute playing.

              Seem to be a few empty seats around the hall and I notice that the roving camera that moves between the stage and the front of the proms area is missing avoiding those terrible shots of the first violins nostrils.

              Comment

              • Zucchini
                Guest
                • Nov 2010
                • 917

                #8
                Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
                Fantastic flute playing...
                Certainly was

                Comment

                • pastoralguy
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 7802

                  #9
                  Brahms 1 = subtlety, subtlety and yet more subtlety.

                  Wonderful performance.

                  Comment

                  • Cornet IV

                    #10
                    Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
                    Brahms 1 = subtlety, subtlety and yet more subtlety.

                    Wonderful performance.
                    Well, I mean, was that something else, or what?

                    Wonderful performance indeed!

                    The Academic Overture was unusually revealing and I enjoyed a work which I have never thought of as Brahms at his best. I have learnt to avoid anything which is promoted as "premier" of "first performance" so phoned a friend and missed the flute thingy but hung up in time for the Brahms 1. I have never heard a better or more satisfying performance.

                    Many years ago when in Ohio, I attended a Cleveland concert when George Szell was The Man; I thought it a brilliant and extraordinarily cohesive orchestra then and nearly fifty years later, still think it perhaps the best. We had a rare treat tonight.

                    Thanks to Aunty who seems to get so little right these days but scored a real win in inviting this orchestra.

                    Comment

                    • Alison
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 6468

                      #11
                      Plenty of subtlety though I have to say at the symphony's conclusion I wasn't exactly bowled over. Will be interested in other opinions.

                      Comment

                      • Petrushka
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 12309

                        #12
                        A thoroughly satisfying Prom though, like PG, I thought that the Widmann piece, brilliantly played as it was, did go on a bit.

                        The Brahms items were excellent but I do like to hear more forceful timpani in the opening of the Symphony No 1 and also at that point in the finale that ushers in the horn theme. FW-M was in his element in the encore, wonderfully played.
                        "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

                        Comment

                        • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                          Gone fishin'
                          • Sep 2011
                          • 30163

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Alison View Post
                          Plenty of subtlety though I have to say at the symphony's conclusion I wasn't exactly bowled over. Will be interested in other opinions.
                          Yes - I wasn't as impressed as Pastoralguy and CornetIV. A good performance, splendid playing, but a little underpowered in places - at least as it came over on the telly. Like Pet, I prefer a little less subtlety from the Timps.
                          [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                          Comment

                          • aeolium
                            Full Member
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 3992

                            #14
                            I thought it was a very good performance, with good tempos and clarity and lovely playing especially from the woodwind, the sort of performance that a conductor like Sawallisch might have given, not highly expressive or with extremes of contrast, but none the worse for that.

                            Comment

                            • Maclintick
                              Full Member
                              • Jan 2012
                              • 1083

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Cornet IV View Post
                              Well, I mean, was that something else, or what?

                              Wonderful performance indeed!

                              Brahms 1. I have never heard a better or more satisfying performance.

                              Many years ago when in Ohio, I attended a Cleveland concert when George Szell was The Man; I thought it a brilliant and extraordinarily cohesive orchestra then and nearly fifty years later, still think it perhaps the best. We had a rare treat tonight.

                              Thanks to Aunty who seems to get so little right these days but scored a real win in inviting this orchestra.
                              Wonderfully articulate & expressive playing, well-shaped by a conductor who has really blossomed in Ohio. Comparisons at this level of music-making are odious, but on the evidence of last night Cleveland have maintained their historically stratospheric standards.

                              We've been lucky to hear such wonderful Brahms-playing from Cleveland & Budapest in this Proms season. I'll be in my usual spot in the RAH for some more tonight.

                              Comment

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