Prom 24: MacMillan/Mahler (3.08.15)

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't know the Carver (which I regret) but I suspect (or "reckon" ) that the bits that I thought were derivative of Panufnik and others of Part may have been involved.


Well, if he's still got the receipt, he can always take it back to the shop and exchange it for something better.

http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/classical-sir-james-macmillan-s-symphony-no-4-1-3837526

"...asking the players at the backs of the viola, cello and bass sections to play the Carver fragments, as if muffled within the orchestral fabric...."

So now you've just got to go & listen to the thing again, and play Carver-spotting instead of echo-location....

[Serial_Apologist]

Carver name with pride

[Lat-Literal]

Just a couple of basic comments.

It would be fair to say that I don't instinctively orientate towards Austro-German romanticism. I realize that is virtual sacrilege. There is enough on paper to Mahler that I remain open minded but with this symphony I have probably stepped backwards. It wasn't the performance but that it just didn't do a lot for me and rather like one Guardian writer I have read I am starting to feel I am more inclined to Bruckner. These comments mainly apply to the symphonies which broadly I am intending to give more time to in the future.

[jean]

Just switched on to R3 and heard something I didn't recognise (though I should have domne, as I heard it first time round).

Was quite enjoying it, and then came the early Renaissance bits (have to confess I didn't identify Carver) which I thought were ratyher wonderful, and was really put into the right disposition for the rest.

So there, I've confessed.

[ahinton]

Carver name with pride

A glass or two of Cava might not come amiss...

[P. G. Tipps]

'Sir James' ... 'Jimmy' to anyone with even just an ounce of respect in Glasgow ... hasn't half put on a bit of weight in his older age. No longer the clean-shaven, handsome young University Lecturer who once addressed a handful of curious concert-goers at the FTH in Manchester extolling the merits of the First Violin Concerto of an obscure Polish composer called Karol Szymanowski. After hearing it I became a huge fan, but I don't remember a word Jimmy actually said apart from asking those in the hall to raise their hands if they had actually heard of the composer. Suddenly I was right back in Primary Four with Mr Burke.

I haven't heard much of Jimmy's music so I cannot comment, but whenever I read his interviews he seems to me to say a lot without actually saying anything.

Hopefully when I get around to exploring his music that'll prove rather more rewarding.

[Flosshilde]

whenever I read his interviews he seems to me to say a lot without actually saying anything.

Hopefully when I get around to exploring his music that'll prove rather more rewarding.

I think you'll find the same applies. Although I did, unexpectedly, enjoy Ines de Castro when I saw it recently (it hadn't made much impression first time around). That might have been down to the production. A good production can save a not very good opera.

[ahinton]

'Sir James' ... 'Jimmy' to anyone with even just an ounce of respect in Glasgow ... hasn't half put on a bit of weight in his older age. No longer the clean-shaven, handsome young University Lecturer who once addressed a handful of curious concert-goers at the FTH in Manchester extolling the merits of the First Violin Concerto of an obscure Polish composer called Karol Szymanowski. After hearing it I became a huge fan, but I don't remember a word Jimmy actually said apart from asking those in the hall to raise their hands if they had actually heard of the composer. Suddenly I was right back in Primary Four with Mr Burke.

I haven't heard much of Jimmy's music so I cannot comment, but whenever I read his interviews he seems to me to say a lot without actually saying anything.

Ah, now there's an interesting perception!

[ahinton]

A good production can save a not very good opera.

...and vice versa...