Prom 13: 24.07.16 - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

[Carlos V]

I'm back from the RAH. It was a moving performance. I feel sorry for Mr. Lindberg. His two Episodes have all but disappeared from my memory, the Symphony was just too good. I'm so glad I changed my mind and prommed for this one.

[pastoralguy]

I'm back from the RAH. It was a moving performance. I feel sorry for Mr. Lindberg. His two Episodes have all but disappeared from my memory, the Symphony was just too good. I'm so glad I changed my mind and prommed for this one.

I enjoyed the Lindberg pieces but agree that they had unfair competition from Herr Beethoven. The choir were really going for it, weren't they?!

I'm reminded of a story about Maria Callas listening to her 'rival' Tebaldi. "What a beautiful voice", Callas commented. Then added "But who cares?!"

[Carlos V]

I enjoyed the Lindberg pieces but agree that they had unfair competition from Herr Beethoven. The choir were really going for it, weren't they?!

I'm reminded of a story about Maria Callas listening to her 'rival' Tebaldi. "What a beautiful voice", Callas commented. Then added "But who cares?!"

All I can say is that my eyes were wet after the first choir entry. I left the hall holding my wife to keep myself from hugging random people as we walked out.

[edashtav]

I agree that it was unfair to expect Magnus Lindberg to match Beethoven's magnificent work. Poor Magnus was completely undone in this game of Strip Jack Naked. He could come out, like Dave and say," I was the future once". And so he was thirty years ago when his great Nordic blocks of orchestral sound - do I recall one: "Aura"- were tossed from orchestra to excited orchestra. Now the Northern Grit has gone, turned to dust by periods of "composer in residence". Lindberg admitted as much in the pre-Prom chat saying that he didn't feel he was writing for an orchestra but a person. No doubt, the admirable leader of the penny whistle section is delighted: "I feel great in this, it fits me to a T." We've been musing on this Board, whether there's a dearth of great composers. Well, a decade ago, I'd have submitted Lindberg's name. No longer! His music sounds good, it's wonderfully scored but it's not economical with the truth. It's not great because it's grown luxuriant and lax. Thanks to patronage, perhaps, it's been given too much fertiliser and it's spread- all leaf and no flower. Lindberg claimed that in studying Beethoven's Choral, he realised that it was "wild". Truth to tell, as someone recently wrote on this Board re Rubbra's 5th symphony, " there isn't a note too many". Beethoven's greatness lies in taking pregnant ideas and extending them into huge paragraphs and structures. Lindberg does the opposite, so many notes, so many ideas, none refined by revision to reveal their finest form. Much of Lindberg's piece sound like episodes from Hollywood's greatest films. It's flashy but deceitful. These days, I rate Lindberg alongside such epigones as Rodion Shchedrin. Tell it not in Gath, but I heard echoes of Arnold Bax's Tintagel, a work probably written a 100 years ago, in Lindberg's oh so new score. My heart aches for Magnus as he faces a future as Minimus. And, I've shed a tear or two for the Beeb and LPO who coughed up cash. What was their brief? "We want a 20 minute work that will complement Mount Everest, and it would be nice if the new work paid due obeisance by quoting some of its ideas and themes."
Unfair, unfair, unfair!

[antongould]

All I can say is that my eyes were wet after the first choir entry. I left the hall holding my wife to keep myself from hugging random people as we walked out.

I can see why - just listened on iplayer, best 9th I can remember IMVVHO ..... I know it gets a bad press on these boards but to me it is a wonderful symphony ....

[Nick Armstrong]

I can see why - just listened on iplayer, best 9th I can remember IMVVHO ..... I know it gets a bad press on these boards but to me it is a wonderful symphony ....

Listened last night and glad to concur with all the positive comment here; engrossing and almost totally convincing, and clearly quite something in the hall. On the radio, I appreciated especially the work of the choir, and of the woodwinds (though the audibility of the latter might have had something to do with the broadcast engineering - the principal bassoon seemed particularly prominent, slightly strange but no bad thing as it was exquisitely played. Like others, to me the tempi seemed very well judged, wonderful energy and pulse without sacrificing weight and impact (none of the 'trivialised' feeling I get from some recent, fleet performances). One very slight exception, probably totally subjective: the tempo of the main Andante moderato sections in the slow movement seemed to me just a shade too quick for the melody to tell and for some of the 12/8 passages to deliver their full lilting effect - some passages were garbled when they can be sublime. (I seem to remember Lenny got that 'just right' in the "Freiheit" performance after the Berlin Wall came down - perfectly judged tempi in that section, with LB of course actually doing the triple-time footwork on the podium....)

[BBMmk2]

I remember that6 night very7 well, Cali! I be listening later, so can't wait! :)

[Bryn]

Listened last night and glad to concur with all the positive comment here; engrossing and almost totally convincing, and clearly quite something in the hall. On the radio, I appreciated especially the work of the choir, and of the woodwinds (though the audibility of the latter might have had something to do with the broadcast engineering - the principal bassoon seemed particularly prominent, slightly strange but no bad thing as it was exquisitely played. Like others, to me the tempi seemed very well judged, wonderful energy and pulse without sacrificing weight and impact (none of the 'trivialised' feeling I get from some recent, fleet performances). One very slight exception, probably totally subjective: the tempo of the main Andante moderato sections in the slow movement seemed to me just a shade too quick for the melody to tell and for some of the 12/8 passages to deliver their full lilting effect - some passages were garbled when they can be sublime. (I seem to remember Lenny got that 'just right' in the "Freiheit" performance after the Berlin Wall came down - perfectly judged tempi in that section, with LB of course actually doing the triple-time footwork on the podium....)

Poor old Ludwig. Try as he did, so many still ignore his clearly expressed instructions regarding tempi. What a travesty of the composer's intentions that Bernstein arrangement for the fall of the Berlin Wall was! That oh so slow movement was at close to half the tempo Beethoven called for. Cantabile it was not. Nicht diese töne indeed.

[Nick Armstrong]

Poor old Ludwig. Try as he did, so many still ignore his clearly expressed instructions regarding tempi. What a travesty of the composer's intentions that Bernstein arrangement for the fall of the Berlin Wall was! That oh so slow movement was at close to half the tempo Beethoven called for. Cantabile it was not. Nicht diese töne indeed.

Yes - I shouldn't have raised the Bernstein red herring perhaps...!

Did you hear the Jurowski performance Bryn? I wonder what you thought of the tempi, and the 12/8 sections?

[BBMmk2]

Yes - I shouldn't have raised the Bernstein red herring perhaps...!

Did you hear the Jurowski performance Bryn? I wonder what you thought of the tempi, and the 12/8 sections?

But what a performance Cali! :)

[edashtav]

Do read and take heed of post # 21;, Caliban's assessment of Jurowski's Choral is spot on.

Somewhat earlier, he said:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not....

[Bryn]

Yes - I shouldn't have raised the Bernstein red herring perhaps...!

Did you hear the Jurowski performance Bryn? I wonder what you thought of the tempi, and the 12/8 sections?

It's sitting on a hard drive awaiting the right listening conditions.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That oh so slow movement was at close to half the tempo Beethoven called for. Cantabile it was not. Nicht diese töne indeed.

Although fellow forumists will know I don't feel the need to take metronome markings too literally, I do concede that Lenny overdid it by a considerable margin on this occasion - he was 4 minutes shorter in the slow movement of his 1980 Vienna performance. But a slow performance can work - Furtwangler's 1951 Bayreuth performance is almost as long in duration as the Berlin Bernstein, but is entirely convincing.

[Bryn]

Although fellow forumists will know I don't feel the need to take metronome markings too literally, I do concede that Lenny overdid it by a considerable margin on this occasion - something he also did on some other occasions.

In an acoustic as vast and unfriendly as the RAH I would entirely expect some leeway in the direction of broader tempi in such a work. I will not be carping at Jurowski's circa 12'38" on that count when I come to listen to the recording shortly.

[Bryn]

O.K., I cheated and went straight to the 3rd movement, and yes the transition to, and execution of, the Lo stesso tempo 12:8 section at bar 99 is indeed beautifully done. Now to go back to bar one if the first movement.