Prom 36: Boulez/Ravel/Stravinsky (12.08.15)

[Quarky]

This was the work that suddenly made Boulez' music seem not so difficult for me, as I could hear where his music fitted into the French tradition. I do hope others will open their ears and give it a chance too.

A terrific piece of music that sounded great through headphones - I guess the spatial aspect would have been more apparent in ROH .

I gather the music was written in response to Stockhausen's Gruppen, so the connection to the French Tradition was not immediately apparent - may be Turangalila symphony at times?

[Nick Armstrong]

I am sure he is a simply lovely human being but his female only version of the Vivaldi Gloria at the Wigmore was not something I'd pay to hear again (even if the reviews gave five stars).

I remember having similar thoughts, namely that I would pay NOT to hear his Proms performance of Händel ever again... Even though it seems Tony agrees, I recall falling out with Bryn about it so probably the less said the better

And French puns on 'Niquet' should certainly be avoided

Only caught part of the Stravinsky tonight, but the brass sounded to be 'on fire' (to use the metaphorical vernacular) and doing incredible things at the end of the Infernal Dance. F-X Roth has a special place in my heart for his 'Siècles' Firebird, so I need to go back and hear this BBCSO performance again. Pity the Ravel sounded less successful... but I'll give it a go too, as (like bsp) I'm always agog to hear the piece.

However, it seems to be a tricky one to pull off in the RAH, one arm doesn't appear to be enough for Prince Albert's Bathroom - last year's performance, with another 'current' French piano star Monsieur Tharaud, was underwhelming pianistically - and I was sitting really close...

[Roehre]

Well, that was very short and the orchestration wasn't very Ravelian. Boulez somehow "took over".

frontispice is not a very ravelian Ravel either, is it ?

[Serial_Apologist]

frontispice is not a very ravelian Ravel either, is it ?

Very prophetic of earlyish Minimalism in many ways - as is the accompaniment to the first of the Mallarme settings written around the same time, I believe.

[Beef Oven!]

I don't think you'll regret it - F-X Roth is usually pretty damn good.

I didn't regret it! :big grin:

[Beef Oven!]

I don't think you'll regret it - F-X Roth is usually pretty damn good.

[Sir Velo]

And French puns on 'Niquet' should certainly be avoided

You mean no twisting of Niquets into something dubious?

[Nick Armstrong]

You mean no twisting of Niquets into something dubious?

No... It's rather ruder if you do it in French

[mercia]

is Marc-Andre turning into Captain Mainwaring ? , your friendly local bank manager

[Beef Oven!]

is Marc-Andre turning into Captain Mainwaring ? , your friendly local bank manager

Lol!

That's exactly what I thought when he walked on stage!!!

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 36. BOULEZ: FIGURES-DOUBLES-PRISMES. BBCSO/FRANCOIS-XAVIER-ROTH.

How do you listen to Boulez' Figures-Doubles-Prismes?
What are you doing, what do you think you're doing, as you listen to it?

I've always found this music difficult. Hearing this Prom performance twice, then the softer-grained, less confident-sounding Lyon/Robertson recording, didn't get me much further. At first I listen moment-to-textural-moment, like experiencing a busy surrealist dream, a stream of disconnected images which suddenly open onto a brief stillness, a weird beauty, like a transfixing alien landscape... around 15' in, a more sustained passage for strings gives me a sense of arrival or focus, (this may be specious - I've still no clear sense of knowing where I am in the piece or how to musically relate one section to another). Then, with rushing figures for brass, winds and percussion, an explosively climactic sequence really does feel like some kind of conclusion or gestures toward such... yet still finishing in mid-air, perhaps just a hesitation before setting off again in a new direction...

The HDs webcast was marvellously vivid and tangible (the playing itself, stunningly sharp and responsive), as the various instruments and groups seemed to throw their music around and across the platform, occasionally settling into stasis, a rhythmic sequence or melisma; in that sense, my experience of the work was almost purely physical: an adventure in spatially intricate, coloristic, and dynamic effects where pace or tempi or musical "flow" only emerged near the end, sharpening a sense of something "beyond the moment"....

***

"In Gruppen there are three orchestras, whereas in my work there is only one orchestra, with symmetrically-arranged groups..."
(Boulez in "Boulez on Conducting", faber 2002)

"In Gruppen, the 3 orchestras are on different podiums, with different tempi... I wasn't working in that direction at all, but more at achieving a greater blend of timbres".....
"We're not talking about stereophony or spatial separation, but about a blending of timbres."
(Boulez in the notes to the Naive/Robertson CD).

It's a shame that the presenter of Prom 36 (and several online reviews) emphasised the supposed link with the three separate orchestras of Gruppen, describing the "three mini-orchestras" on the platform for Figures-Doubles-Prismes; for Boulez the sonic point - the audible, musical experience - was of course just the opposite: to get away from "great serried ranks" of strings/wind/brass into a much more fluid and mobile effect, "playing much more effectively on the relation between sound and space."

[edashtav]

PROM 36. BOULEZ: FIGURES-DOUBLES-PRISMES. BBCSO/FRANCOIS-XAVIER-ROTH.


It's a shame that the presenter of Prom 36 (and several online reviews) emphasised the supposed link with the three separate orchestras of Gruppen, describing the "three mini-orchestras" on the platform for Figures-Doubles-Prismes; for Boulez the sonic point - the audible, musical experience - was of course just the opposite: to get away from "great serried ranks" of strings/wind/brass into a much more fluid and mobile effect, "playing much more effectively on the relation between sound and space."

What a thought provoking reaction, Jayne.

May I take issue with your final thought? I feel it was right to invoke Stockhausen's Gruppen . Both composers were in close contact whilst these two works were being composed and both were tackling the same issue of the monolithic symphony orchestra. Whilst I agree with you that there was no identity in their responses, there is much to be gained through contrasting and studying their diametrically opposed solution sets to a common problem.

[cloughie]

Yes - the work requires an orchestra consisting of six different chamber ensembles, each placed in a seating arrangement very different from the single, more usual one required for the other works on the programme.

...and it gives the movers more time to fit in the Left-handed piano!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I feel it was right to invoke Stockhausen's Gruppen . Both composers were in close contact whilst these two works were being composed and both were tackling the same issue of the monolithic symphony orchestra. Whilst I agree with you that there was no identity in their responses, there is much to be gained through contrasting and studying their diametrically opposed solution sets to a common problem.

Yes - but the "whilst" might be a little misleading: Boulez started work on F-D-P six years after the premiere of Gruppen (in which, of course, he was involved as one of the conductors). F-D-P is reacting to (or "tackling") Gruppen itself as much as the "issue ... of the monolithic Symphony orchestra". A reaction he has continued in much of his work since then (Domaines, Rituel, Repons).

[edashtav]

Yes - but the "whilst" might be a little misleading: Boulez started work on F-D-P six years after the premiere of Gruppen (in which, of course, he was involved as one of the conductors). F-D-P is reacting to (or "tackling") Gruppen itself as much as the "issue ... of the monolithic Symphony orchestra". A reaction he has continued in much of his work since then (Domaines, Rituel, Repons).

I didn't check the dates and your comments, fhg, do change both the sequence and start to explain, perhaps, Boulez's more radical response to an issue that for him included Stockhausen's "trilithic" reaction to the orchestral situation. Most enlightening, thank you.