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

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Totally agree with this. The problem lies, in my view, with people comparing their favourite recordings (Baker, Lewis, Heddle Nash, Barbirolli etc, etc) with the live experience on Friday. The problem is then compounded with various issues concerning the BBC engineering as heard on the radio. As I make clear in my own comments on the concert, I had no problems whatever from my seat in the hall regarding the audibility of choir or soloists apart from Kozena in her lowest register. The orchestra was just wonderful.

Agreed - completely.

[mopsus]

I noticed that my vocal score had alternative notes for the chorus if Sanctus, Fortis was sung transposed into A flat. I've never sung in or heard a performance where this happened. Did tenors do this in the past?

[EdgeleyRob]

Reading the comments here I sometimes wonder if I was, in fact, at a completely different location, so utterly overwhelmed, as I was, by this emotional performance. The first half had tears running down this old softies face and I wasn't the only one in the audience. I have no musical training and so can't comment on the subtleties that others have found and commented on but if I was never to hear a live concert again then this was the concert to go out on.

Breathtakingly beautiful.

Me too.

Totally agree with this. The problem lies, in my view, with people comparing their favourite recordings (Baker, Lewis, Heddle Nash, Barbirolli etc, etc) with the live experience on Friday. The problem is then compounded with various issues concerning the BBC engineering as heard on the radio. As I make clear in my own comments on the concert, I had no problems whatever from my seat in the hall regarding the audibility of choir or soloists apart from Kozena in her lowest register. The orchestra was just wonderful.

I'd not heard Gerontius for several years until Friday and not since the death of my parents so, yes, it packed an emotional punch that it hadn't done before and 'breathtakingly beautiful' is spot on.

That's a good point.

You really need to hear the Andrew Davis recording Pet,packs an equally emotional punch IMV.

[EdgeleyRob]

If it's the top A four bars before 118 that we're talking about, then I'm sure I'm right. It's an uncomfortable note for many mezzos - remember, EE writes low B (below middle C) a few pages later. But it's glorious when a singer can get the top A.

Here's the original passage (before EE had the row with Jaeger about "shirking" setting the vision of God) - it's typeset from the original proofs, not from the autograph score. You'll see the passage is notated the same as now. Elgar clearly knew of this, since he later rewrote the entire passage:




These extracts are from my preface to the edition published by MPH of Munich (a reproduction of the Novello full score). Here's the passage that deals with these extracts:

Elgar completed the vocal score on 6 June and sent the last pages to Jaeger (‘Nimrod’ of the Variations) with the ecstatic: “God bless you Minrod. Here’s the end”.

But it was not the end of composition. On 15 June, Jaeger confessed: “there is one page I can make nothing of…” He meant the point when the Soul “for one moment” goes before God (at page 159 of the original vocal score proofs). Next day he wrote: “Page 159: I have tried & tried, but it seems to me the weakest page in the work”. This drew the response: “Your impertinent note merits silence only, from its persecuted recipient” and later, “I can’t do this better if I wait for fifty years”. Jaeger countered with: “But, surely, the first sensations the soul would experience would be an awful, OVERWEALMING AGITATION!...Your treatment shirks all that” and reminded Elgar that Wagner revelled in ‘impossible’ situations and would have made it the climax of the work. The composer responded that he had “shirked” nothing, called Jaeger’s letter a “sermon which is very Nimrodisch” and sent these verses:

Old Jaeger preached
(as is his wont)
In Nimrodishest way;
And Elgar heard,
And blushed & squirmed,
And – took another day.

So Jaeger hoped
And thought it o’er,
And almost prayed the while;
Alas! The proofs came back untouched,
(Malvèrn is barren sile).

On 30 June, Jaeger wrote: “Good! So that Poem … has beaten you after all at its supremest climax! And you are no Wagner!”, to which Elgar responded: “Very well: here’s what I thought of at first”, and enclosed the passage from the present figures 118 to 121, with the instruction that “At 120 ‘for one moment’ must every instrument exert its fullest force”, [‘Bei 120 muss jedes instrument für einen einz’gen Augenblick seine äusserste Kraft entfallen’] including three extra trumpet parts and “any extra Timpani players” ad lib. It had been a re-run of the way Jaeger had cajoled Elgar into lengthening the Finale of the Enigma Variations a year earlier.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to post this pabs.

What does the instruction in the score 'colla parte' mean ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What does the instruction in the score 'colla parte' mean ?

It means the orchestra must follow the singer.

[EdgeleyRob]

It means the orchestra must follow the singer.

Thanks EA.

[Alison]

Was that observed on Friday I wonder?

[Pabmusic]

...What does the instruction in the score 'colla parte' mean ?

EA is right: here, the orchestra (conductor really) must be aware that the Angel will pull the phrase about, so colla parte - 'with the part' -that is, follow what the soloist is doing rather than blithely press ahead. As you can imagine, it's a common marking whenever there's a soloist: in a concerto, an opera, choral music. It's also found in piano accompaniments sometimes, but not as often as you might think, because accompanists do this sort of thing so naturally anyway, and composers know this.

Elgar might have written colla voce ('with the voice') instead. It would have meant the same.

Another term that can be found is a piacere, which indicates a point where the soloist may (should?) decide tempo, dynamics, etc. I notice that George Butterworth uses it at the end of On the Idle Hill of Summer: the soloist sings "I will rise" and is marked a piacere, crescendo whereas the piano has just colla voce. This seems logical, if a little fussy.

[Roehre]

EA is right: here, the orchestra (conductor really) must be aware that the Angel will pull the phrase about, so colla parte - 'with the part' -that is, follow what the soloist is doing rather than blithely press ahead. As you can imagine, it's a common marking whenever there's a soloist: in a concerto, an opera, choral music. It's also found in piano accompaniments sometimes, but not as often as you might think, because accompanists do this sort of thing so naturally anyway, and composers know this.

Elgar might have written colla voce ('with the voice') instead. It would have meant the same.

Another term that can be found is a piacere, which indicates a point where the soloist may (should?) decide tempo, dynamics, etc. I notice that George Butterworth uses it at the end of On the Idle Hill of Summer: the soloist sings "I will rise" and is marked a piacere, crescendo whereas the piano has just colla voce. This seems logical, if a little fussy.

It's also found in scores without a soloist to follow. Then it's another part which the player has got to pay attention to. In especially the 18 and early 19C orchestal scores colla parte is written where a bass line is written out for 'cello or bassoon only and has got to be doubled by bassoon or 'cello (and by the double bass, if appliccable).

[gradus]

Wonder how the performance went last night in Lucerne.

[EdgeleyRob]

Posts 128/129,thanks pabs and roehre

[Anastasius]

Was that observed on Friday I wonder?

Yes it was. Sir Simon frequently looked towards Gerontius and took his timing cues from him.

Fascinating thread, BTW, and so my thanks to one and all.

[pureimagination]

"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.

[Nick Armstrong]

"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.

There is much in what you say!

[Zucchini]

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...