Prom 55: SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg (26.08.15)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Flautist Sophie Cherrier, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg conducted by François-Xavier Roth, live from the BBC Proms

Pierre Boulez: '... explosante-fixe ...'
Ligeti: Lontano
Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

Sophie Cherrier (flute)
SWR Experimental Studio
SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg
François-Xavier Roth (conductor)

Bartók wasn't the first composer to write a Concerto for Orchestra, but freewheeling virtuosity and rhythmic energy set this one apart. Treating individual instruments as soloists or partners in exhilarating duets-to-the-death, Bartók reinvents the orchestra itself. The whole classical canon seems dissolved in Ligeti's Lontano, in which familiar harmonies and styles are suspended in space and time, and resolution continually hangs just out of reach. Turning classical rules of development on their head, Boulez's '... explosante-fixe ...'works backwards, moving from its most complex material to its primary, original source. It's audacious and completely compelling.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bartók wasn't the first composer to write a Concerto for Orchestra. . .

No indeed!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra

[Serial_Apologist]

exhilarating duets-to-the-death

Who writes such rubbish?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Who writes such rubbish?

You ain't seen nothin' yet. Try the Radio 3 Facebook page.

[bluestateprommer]

Well, the important aspect, of course, regarding this appearance by the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg is that the orchestra is to be merged out of existence next year, through the forced merger with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra that SWR Intendant Peter Boudgoust forced on all parties. One wonders if this is part of the reason why Roger Wright booked them, several years back, for 2015, to give them a first (and sadly last) hurrah at the Proms. I've never heard them live, and have only scattered exposure to their recordings, but I don't doubt that they're of solid enough quality to deserve a place at the Proms.

[jayne lee wilson]

On paper looks one of the better Proms.... no-one else excited about it? Heavens.... all on holiday or something...?

Explosante-Fixe is a marvellous, often otherworldly, creation... you could describe it as a flute concerto, but - a solo MIDI flute (simultaneous electronic transformations, relayed around the hall via 6 loudspeakers), sits with an ensemble of 24 players, with two other flutes at either side. Plays continuously for around 35 minutes (36'43 on the DG recording); 5 sections - three for the ensemble & flutes, two brief, purely electronic interludes....

OK - just time for a few deep breaths...

(Home Concert Hall to Forum Prommers: please report on those loudspeakers, number, position, make & model number. Photo-documentation if possible. Thankyou.)

(**Update: Sophie Cherrier explained that she doesn't play a MIDI flute now, as each flute has its own mike wired directly to the computer.)

[BBMmk2]

Pierre Boules, not my cuppa

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

all on holiday or something...?

Appropriate for the Ligeti?

[Keraulophone]

Pierre Boules

C'mon now, don't play games - this is serious stuff.

[bluestateprommer]

Solid work from Sophie Cherrier, 'echoed' by two flutists, including SWR flutist Dagmar Becker (unfortunately didn't note the other flutist's name), with F-XR and the SWR orchestra, in the Boulez Explosante-fixe. There's a similarity of manner here that reminded me of Derive 2, in the continual shimmer of sound that seems to stay rather long in the same style, and thus becomes a bit wearing to me after a while. It must have made a stronger impact in the RAH, with the ability of the SWR electronics folks to ping the sound around the hall.

[jayne lee wilson]

Hmm... I wonder how it was in the hall, but I felt this realisation (perhaps inevitably) had less dynamic or coloristic subtlety than on the 20/21 CD, much of it seemed all on one level, and the visionary moments less evocative of other worlds... and when we reached the Originel (this 5th and last section is a rescoring of Memoriale) I didn't feel that sense of cathartic arrival which makes that performance so fulfilling....

I'll have another listen later...

[bluestateprommer]

The last chord of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra just got slammed home, c/o the SWRSOBBuF and F-XR. Again, a good, solid performance, where one particular quirk of Roth's was that he featured the first 2 movements attacca, with barely a pause for fresh air before the side-drum that starts the 'Presentation of the Couples', and also put the 3rd and 4th movements attacca. Maybe a few momentarily slack bits in the 1st movement, but nothing to stress about. Likewise, solid performance of the Ligeti.

PS: F-XR just gave his encore speech, where he brought up what Andrew McGregor did not bring up (probably could not, understandably) at the start, namely the forced orchestra merger next year. FX-R also noted that this is not only the orchestra's first time at the Proms, but that it is also their last. Several audience members shouted out "for shame" in support of the musicians; one wonders how many of the audience knew in advance. Lovely rendition of the Schubert Rosamunde excerpt as the encore. Of course, once F-XR spoke out and let the genie out of the bottle, AM could speak more freely about the forced merger.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hmm... I wonder how it was in the hall, but I felt this realisation (perhaps inevitably) had less dynamic or coloristic subtlety than on the 20/21 CD, much of it seemed all on one level, and the visionary moments less evocative of other worlds... and when we reached the Originel (this last section is a rescoring of Memoriale) I didn't feel that sense of cathartic arrival which makes that performance so fulfilling....

I'll have another listen later...

I don't recall Explosante-Fixe as containing any electronics. This must be another revision.

[edashtav]

I don't recall Explosante-Fixe as containing any electronics. This must be another revision.

Oh yes, Pierre Boulez is the Tinkerman of Paris-Ircam just as Claudio Ranieri is of Leicester City. The manner in which Pierre Re-Mixes a score reminds me of setting an exercise to my advanced computer scientists to create a fractal pattern that grows from a root like a tall tree. Once the students had done that they were asked to review their algorithms and produce possibly a low growing bush, or a tight, round- tree, etc. Much of the elemental material was common to all outcomes but changing growth parameters in 3 dimensions could achieve the transforms. Boulez is constantly alive to the different outcomes that can, or perhaps need to be, created from his initial material and developmental "engines".

This "work in progress" was superficially beguiling and it did take concentration to avoid remaining on its refracting surfaces that at the macro level did exhibit a "sameness". But, one the sights were set to explore the labyrinths below, time passed annoyingly quickly because one was aware how much remained to be explored and understood

I thought soloists, orchestra, conductor and sound technicians all contributed to a most confident and assured performance. That's the beauty of preparing a piece thoroughly and then touring it across the Festivals of Europe. With a piece lasting over 33 minutes, I felt that the "back to front" structure the work simplifies and crystallises into its prime elements helped sustain my attention span.

To think that this group of players faces redundancy or destruction by absorption. We live in a mad, mad world.

Full marks to Radio 3 for assembling such a panoply of Boulez's finest works for this Prom season. Scheduling a piece of Boulez every week can inhibit "dumbing down".

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 55. SWR BADEN-BADEN & FREIBURG/FRANCOIS XAVIER-ROTH. PART TWO.

The encore to this concert, an excerpt from the Rosamunde Entracte No.3, seemed a tearful farewell - not to the Proms, no, but to one of the great German Radio Orchestras, now shortly to merge with its neighbour... Xavier-Roth pleaded eloquently in its cause, in the L'Art pour L'Art d'Orchestre.
So, why have two orchestras when you can make do with one?
"O reason not the need"...

Their performance of Ligeti's Lontano was extraordinarily sonorous via HDs - rich and deeply textured, with a very wide dynamic range. But orchestras don't play Lontano do they? It emanates from their actions upon bow, string and mouthpiece, breathes out like a dark and toxic vapour over mundane, practical actions... The SWR of Baden-Baden were the perfect medium tonight.

If the flute solo after the intro to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra was a shade off-the-pitch, this seemed only to enhance its keening, folksy feel. The Baden-Baden SWR possess a remarkable string complement - dark and full, tight and dynamic as a drum, lithe and swift, and they tore into the allegro at the apt expense of a certain edginess. But those double-basses! An elemental groundswell, topped off by some controlled brassy brilliance in the coda.

Xavier-Roth played attacca into the copy-games, perhaps as applause-prevention; he didn't need to do it again. Those wind solos - well, duo-solos - were more than usually colourful, loud, individualistic (bassoons relishably gruff), the tempo very brisk. The elegia - darkly atmospheric, vividly coloured; the interrotto to the Hungarian Song of the 4th movement drawn with cartoonish exaggerations.
Then the finale - wild, loud and coarse-edged, more Gypsy than folksy, all melodic slant and lilt, a Tzigane, with a final crash to shatter the stained glass windows of a classical listener's taste and refinement. (And got a raucous cheer to acclaim it).

Despite my reservations about Explosante-Fixe - it really does have more to give than we heard tonight, a richer variety of pace, colour and dynamics to clarify its trajectory and open up its visions - this was my kind of concert; if only there really were "more like this"...