Prom 75: VPO/Rattle - Elgar Dream of Gerontius (11.09.15)

[Nick Armstrong]

If she had ever been interested in the role, the magnificent Waltraud Meier in her prime would have, er, to be polite, given Lady Rattle a run for her money...

Crikey, yes, not half...

[Prommer]

If she had ever been interested in the role, the magnificent Waltraud Meier in her prime would have, er, given Lady Rattle a run for her money...

Interesting... is Meier Mags's Mum?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Maybe we should give MK a break. She may have been the weakest of the three, but someone had to be, and she was a better Angel than many British singers I've heard in the part.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

probably the same as other people's scores, my Novello vocal score dated 2000 gives the provenance, by bar number, of each of 20 Ossie (the plural of ossia apparently) - whether each appears in the manuscript vocal score, vocal score proofs, first printed vocal score, manuscript full score, or printed full score, or a combination of these. I won't attempt to reproduce the list here.

I have the printed full score, and it's consistent with the vocal score (1900 & 2000 versions).

[VodkaDilc]

"Clarifying that Lady Rattle didn't have angel wings attached to the back of her dress...." Shame, perhaps if she'd flown around the auditorium she would have sounded better no matter where one was sitting/listening.

I've just listened to the broadcast repeat of Gerontius and have found that most of my impressions from the live concert are unchanged. I've taken pureimagination's text as a basis for this, since he sums up the over-riding fault in the performance.

What struck me most however was the very strange sound engineering. Would anyone else who was at the concert agree that it gave a completely false impression of the balance between solo sections and full choir and orchestra sections. Normally, when listening to a work like this, perhaps on CD, I would expect to have to turn down the volume at the big climaxes. Here the opposite was true (I was listening on my FM tuner, through a good quality system.)

The balance did no favours to the soloists; there were few mezzopiano sections, let alone pianissimos. It was all too close; the Albert Hall is not like that. Pureimagination can only guess at what Mrs R sounds like when heard that close. After the excellent engineering on Christmas Eve at Cambridge, my expectations were high, but this was simply dishonest. Soloists sound remote in that hall; orchestral climazes are overpowering. Shouldn't radio relays reflect the reality? Or is this all done so that it sounds acceptable on car radios and portable gadgets? Should I give up on live radio broadcasts if I want to listen on decent equipment?

[Nick Armstrong]

Lady Rattle... the over-riding fault in the performance.

Would anyone else who was at the concert agree that it gave a completely false impression of the balance between solo sections and full choir and orchestra sections.

Fully agreed on both counts.

[VodkaDilc]

The tinkering of the sound engineers brought the 3 soloists forward, but much of the impact of the chorus was lost. I wish recording engineers would be less interventionalist. Unfortunately, when they do give us a natural concert hall balance, the critics moan about it. A good example was the RLPO/Handley VW Sea Symphony - a beautifully natural balance was achieved, but in the end it was remixed to sound just like any other recording.

Thanks, Caliban. I see that Eine Alpensinfonie also had the same views in September.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was hoping the strange balance might have been remedied on the recording.

[Anastasius]

Interesting reading this. I happened perchance to switch over to R3 while cooking and came in part way through and instantly...instantly..recognised the performance as the very self-same that I heard in the RAH and was immediately carried back to that transcendental magical performance. And it even brought a moist eye again and the closest I have ever come in 30 years of cooking for the missus telling her that she would be eating alone ( I didn't but it was that close).

But I have to agree that Mrs R was not that good although in the live performance any misgivings were swamped by the occasion plus the fact the she was nowhere near as loud in the RAH as in the broadcast.

Still a magical occasion.

[oddoneout]

It's been interesting reading all this. I listened to the first broadcast, and now the repeat, and enjoyed both. There were things which snagged my ear(some good, some not so) or which I wondered about, and the various posts have explained and/or confirmed. For me this is one of those works where the music can over-ride shortcomings in performance to large degree, and so although there were some things(the Angel) I didn't enjoy so much, it just didn't matter. I grew up listening toGerontius as it was a work close to my mother's heart(spiritually and musically), and then during the 70s I was lucky enough to play it several times(always in churches), and later on sing in it, and it never fails to move me.
According to Sir Simon the chorus made quite an impression on the VPO, which stopped playing to listen to them at the first joint rehearsal. He also admitted to a certain amount of uncertainty about the VPO reaction to Gerontius, but they took to it straight away. I did enjoy the orchestral sound of this concert - to my ears some Elgar performances edge towards the overblown and self indulgent. Presumably the VPO instruments are closer to what Elgar would have been familiar with, and so less powerful than modern ones?