Prom 72 - 10.09.14: BBC SO, Berthaud / Litton

[cloughie]

Is VW4 the greatest British Symphony?

No, Elgar 1.
...and it's not even the greatest RVW Sym.
I would put it in the top 10 and grant it probably the most original or even frightening British symphony - a lot of anger there!

[Blotto]

The arena was half full last night, but even that did not eliminate applause between the movements of the Walton and V-W.

A fellow in front of me threw up his hands a couple of times. I think the problem is that a good proportion of a small audience are still either foreigners or people who've come "to the Proms" as they might visit a museum or trooping the colour, they're 'doing something' rather than coming to hear particular music. There were some people a little way from me in the circle whose clapping after a middle movement I could hear nonetheless because they clapped too rapidly after the finish to be clapping the music. They were right on the music's heels and slightly disturbed it.

[silvestrione]

I enjoyed the Birtwistle. As the Arts Desk review suggests, there were lots of winding melodies, sometimes overlapping, and lots of inventive orchestral texture and colour. A real sense of a journey. I especially liked the characteristic use of low sounds and pedals, in tubas and trombones (was it?), the sense of the music gathering round a particular pitch for a while.

I'm always just a little unsure with Birtwistle, about overall form and shape (though this comment does not apply to Endless Parade, performed earlier in the season): in the sense that, couldn't the pieces be shorter or longer, without much difference? Is everything essential and necessary? Verses for Ensembles and Secret Theatre fall into this category too, and even Earth Dances, an obvious precursor of Exody.

We are a long way from Mozart and Beethoven (or even the Tippett of the 2nd Symphony) where every note has its place. But perhaps to an early listener, Beethoven 5 might have seemed to have too many notes and episodes!

He once jokingly said in an R3 interview that he and Ligeti agreed that the thing to do was to check the commission fee, and draw a double bar. Didn't mean it of course but he was on dangerous ground.

Or perhaps someone can demonstrate the tight form of these pieces?

[Serial_Apologist]

It should never be size that matters, but whether or not it grabs and maintains the attention!

[HighlandDougie]

He once jokingly said in an R3 interview that he and Ligeti agreed that the thing to do was to check the commission fee, and draw a double bar. Didn't mean it of course but he was on dangerous ground.

Pace my earlier comment about commissions, I wouldn't be so sure that he was joking! I have the Birtwistle recorded so maybe it will reveal its, err.... delights on re-hearing out of the less than ideal surroundings of the RAH.

[Tony Halstead]

Pace my earlier comment about commissions, I wouldn't be so sure that he was joking! I have the Birtwhistle recorded so maybe it will reveal its, err.... delights on re-hearing out of the less than ideal surroundings of the RAH.

Please could you try to spell Sir Harrison's surname correctly? Everybody else does...
Clue: it doesn't end in 'whistle'!

[Serial_Apologist]

Please could you try to spell Sir Harrison's surname correctly? Everybody else does...
Clue: it doesn't end in 'whistle'!

Why do people do this? Nobody spells Hindemith's opera, Mathis der Mahler! One wonders if some sort of insult is intended...

[HighlandDougie]

Sorry about that. Duly corrected. I can't even blame predictive texting but it's been a long day. And I get irked when people mis-spell my name so I should know better. On my part, certainly not intended to be any form of insult. I will repeat 50 times as penance that the spelling is like that of Tintwistle.

[Blotto]

Sorry about that. Duly corrected. I can't even blame predictive texting but it's been a long day. And I get irked when people mis-spell my name so I should know better.

I don't think Sir Birtwistle would mind. In fact, as he's dyslexic, I'm not sure that he'd know.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A fellow in front of me threw up his hands a couple of times. I think the problem is that a good proportion of a small audience are still either foreigners or people who've come "to the Proms" as they might visit a museum or trooping the colour, they're 'doing something' rather than coming to hear particular music. There were some people a little way from me in the circle whose clapping after a middle movement I could hear nonetheless because they clapped too rapidly after the finish to be clapping the music. They were right on the music's heels and slightly disturbed it.

They should move the Proms to Manchester (no, not Salford). The audiences are so much more civilised than those in a city where the people vote for Boris.

[EdgeleyRob]

Isn't that ANY symphony by George Lloyd?

Another GL fan,that makes three of us.

[Lento]

I don't think Sir Birtwistle would mind. In fact, as he's dyslexic, I'm not sure that he'd know.

How vrey inrtesting.

[Lento]

it's not even the greatest RVW Sym.

Oh do give us a clue (no 6?).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Another GL fan,that makes three of us ...

... in total

[jayne lee wilson]

Haven't been able to catch up with this one yet, but I'm a little disheartened by some of the arrogance and subjective dismissal in some comments here of the works involved... many of which confuse misconceived associative responses with judgements. (Likes or dislikes need no justification - Judgements do).

Walton's Viola Concerto and Vaughn Williams' 4th Symphony are two of the greatest achievements in English music, about which there should be no doubt, after decades of great performances, recordings and almost universal critical acclaim. Someone said that VW4 was "rhythmically uninteresting"... ! The piece is studded with remarkably original use of rhythm, with its sudden switches of time signature, jarring syncopations, constant rhythmical and motivic transformation of the main ideas (2nd idea in the 1st movement reappears in the scherzo as a devilish 6/8 dance - just one example)...
...That oompah rhythm with its flowing theme in the finale? A vivid evocation of an industrial society hurrying nowhere, hurrying into war - listen, really listen to what becomes of it later, as it syncopates and stops dead in sudden jarring sforzandi... the unnerving calm of the central episode, then the fugal coda which yearns to escape but is engulfed in the final destruction.

Oh, it's a masterpiece alright - and still depressingly relevant in our own "time of war"...

"My music isn't modern - merely badly played", said Schoenberg, and who can doubt that Birtwistle will sometimes suffer the same fate? There's no recording of Exody, and it's rarely played. Who knows, so soon in our shallow apprehension of history and value, whether it's a masterpiece or not? It is indeed huge, impressive and relentless - perhaps only achieving its musical focus, its emotional meaning, in those ashen final pages, as the ghosts of its main ideas recede, exhausted, back towards the dark horizon. (Or is it an Event Horizon...?)

I hope I'll find time to hear what Litton made of it...