Prom 17: 28.07.16 - Roger Norrington conducts Berlioz, Beethoven and Brahms

[vinteuil]

.

don't look like a fortypianner -

https://bachtrack.com/files/43277-prom-17-cr-bbc-chris-christodoulou-4-cropped.jpg

[Ravensbourne]

If anyone has a programme from the concert, the instrument's details might be in there... I'd love to know.

I have a programme from the concert, but the instrument's details are not in there.

I'm intrigued why anyone would suggest Robert Levin was playing anything other than a concert grand. Where did this notion come from?

[vinteuil]

... their final concert under their Der Feurer, as they so fondly called Sir Roger

... not, I think, 'der Feurer' (stoker? another conductor, praps... ) nor 'der Führer', but simply 'der Sir', if I heard aright....

[underthecountertenor]

I have a programme from the concert, but the instrument's details are not in there.

I'm intrigued why anyone would suggest Robert Levin was playing anything other than a concert grand. Where did this notion come from?

My guess is that it comes from the fact that Levin is known for playing the fortepiano in 18th and early 19th century repertoire, and indeed recorded the Beethoven Concertos with JEG on fortepianos in the 1990s. Amazing how that sort of reputation can stick, and apparently cause the ears of one of this forum's most respected reviewers to be deceived.

[edashtav]

Forte Grand

My guess is that it comes from the fact that Levin is known for playing the fortepiano in 18th and early 19th century repertoire, and indeed recorded the Beethoven Concertos with JEG on fortepianos in the 1990s. Amazing how that sort of reputation can stick, and apparently cause the ears of one of this forum's most respected reviewers to be deceived.

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, underthecounter. Could it be that Levin played on a mongrel called a Forte Grand designed for the tinklers of ivories in the Piano Bars of Charles Forte's classier hotels?

Here a quotation from a Wikipedia piece about Baron Forte:

Forte expanded the Forte Group into a multibillion-pound business. His empire included the Little Chef and Happy Eater roadside restaurants, Crest, Forte Grand, Travelodge and Posthouse hotels, as well as ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I am glad they chose to make the proms their final concert under their Der Feurer, as they so fondly called Sir Roger

He stopped being Der Fuehrer in 2011, since when the string players have been granted the freedom to resume producing the beautiful tone they had taken so many years to achieve in their younger days. Stéphane Denève has been the principal conductor from 2011 to 2016.

[jayne lee wilson]

Here's Ronald Brautigam, in the notes to his Beethoven Concerto set on BIS:
"Whenever I play Beethoven on a modern piano, I try as much as possible to incorporate all technical aspects of fortepiano playing, i.e a sharper and shorter attack, stronger articulation and dynamic awareness. For instance, a fortissimo on a fortepiano is softer, but at the same time sharper and more active than on a modern piano.
But in the end, the interpretation sits between your ears, rather than in the instrument you play".

So it seems to go with Robert Levin* too. Change out "play" for "hear", and the last sentence applies to some listeners as well!

* "Knowing how the [fortepianos] sound, feel and work, one can transfer a good deal to the concert grand."

https://www.facebook.com/notes/92nd-street-y/a-conversation-with-robert-levin/10150838983638022/

[Richard Barrett]

since when the string players have been granted the freedom to resume producing the beautiful tone they had taken so many years to achieve in their younger days

Of course the string players continued to play with vibrato in most of their concerts, given that Norrington as principal conductor would have been working with them on only maybe a third of their performances. So please don't exaggerate.

[Bryn]

Of course the string players continued to play with vibrato in most of their concerts, given that Norrington as principal conductor would have been working with them on only maybe a third of their performances. So please don't exaggerate.

Also, as anyone listening attentively to the SRSO strings with RN conducting will have noted, they do not play entirely without vibrato. If one somehow fails to hear its use, one can always open one's eyes and see the fingers wobbling when a degree of vibrato is considered apposite.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Also, as anyone listening attentively to the SRSO strings with RN conducting will have noted, they do not play entirely without vibrato. If one somehow fails to hear its use, one can always open one's eyes and see the fingers wobbling when a degree of vibrato is considered apposite.

I really do try to listen, honestly; but for me, it's like eating olives or beetroot. All I feel is distress and misery.

[Tetrachord]

Norrington's (Stuttgart) Brahms #1

I listened to this overnight on our national FM network here in Australia (and I've got it on now through the BBC as I write). I tuned in after the start and kept wondering what orchestra and conductor I was listening to, so strange did this Brahms #1 seem to me. Initially I dismissed it as some lesser known orchestra but as the work progressed I became more and more interested/intrigued - yes, it was definitely a different kind of Brahms than any I had previously experienced!!! Then when the cheering occurred at the end I knew it was the Proms and when I learned Norrington was on the podium the clipped phrasing, thinner violin textures, prominent brass and faster tempi suddenly were explained. Oh, God, it's groaning at the end of the first movement as I write this!!! The violins "whine" rather than sing.

But I don't really like my Brahms like this!!! He has brought his 'period performance' sensibility to a work which has a recorded lineage of not being played like that. I think Arthur Nikisch recordings may still be around and, of course, he was an acquaintance of Brahms. This is the only recording I could find of Nikisch and he's playing Beethoven; I couldn't find one of Brahms: the intonation in the orchestra is often problematic and I'm not sure that can be attributed to recording limitations!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn7Wk5w25oM

It's absolutely turned me off Norrington big time!

POST SCRIPT: I'm sorry, I've only just learned that comments have already been made about this performance!! We in Australia often get things later, especially when pre-occupied with other musical activities - which I currently am (have a lecture 2 weeks today). All comments so far interesting on this performance, but I'm not wearing the 'vibrato' argument one bit!! Because, surely, that is but one feature of this strange performance.

[Daniel]

I really warmed to Norrington's Brahms 1, which took away the heavy shouldered gait to the symphony I remember from most performances I've heard - this one doing the Egyptian by comparison - and really rejuvenating a piece which has been more or less a no go area for me for many years. All the portentousness of delivery gets a bit suffocating after a while (this was certainly not so at first - I was awe-struck when I first heard it in my teens with Bruno Walter).
A more translucent piece emerges with Norrington, quite bucolic at times, and what a difference, so rejuvenating, like the sun coming out on the music. This seems to me a visionary performance, by far the most inspiring thing I've heard from the Proms so far. Such a pity that these should also be the final moments of this exciting ensemble.

The Beethoven PC4 is another at whose breast I once joyfully supped (I made sure no-one was looking), but which nowadays I can never get through. My own capacity for renewal with it is for whatever reason, exhausted. I did listen till the end of the 2nd movt, and liked both Norrington's youthful direction of the Andante con moto, and Robert Levin's somehow lost in the mist tonal relationship with the orchestra in the same movement, as well as his 1st movt cadenza.

[Tetrachord]

I really warmed to Norrington's Brahms 1, which took away the heavy shouldered gait to the symphony I remember from most performances I've heard - this one doing the Egyptian by comparison - and really rejuvenating a piece which has been more or less a no go area for me for many years. All the portentousness of delivery gets a bit suffocating after a while (this was certainly not so at first - I was awe-struck when I first heard it in my teens with Bruno Walter).
A more translucent piece emerges with Norrington, quite bucolic at times, and what a difference, so rejuvenating, like the sun coming out on the music. This seems to me a visionary performance, by far the most inspiring thing I've heard from the Proms so far. Such a pity that these should also be the final moments of this exciting ensemble.

The Beethoven PC4 is another at whose breast I once joyfully supped (I made sure no-one was looking), but which nowadays I can never get through. My own capacity for renewal with it is for whatever reason, exhausted. I did listen till the end of the 2nd movt, and liked both Norrington's youthful direction of the Andante con moto, and Robert Levin's somehow lost in the mist tonal relationship with the orchestra in the same movement, as well as his 1st movt cadenza.

These comments are appreciated!! I absolutely get it that we can become tired of the same music and we do move on!! Absolutely, but very curiously those Brahms symphonies have never shifted from my 'desert-island' works for 50 years! At the same time I cannot listen to anything at all by Mozart these days except the last symphonies, no symphonies of Mendelssohn or any of those light-weight-ish classical orchestral works - and, curiously, nothing at all by Berlioz. Saint-Saens and Rossini are permanent 'no go zones'. We do move on in the same way as our tastes in wine change inexorably with the passage of time.

But I cannot agree with your assessment of Norrington's Brahms. I think he has taken HIP just too far - those whiny and hesitant violins completely disrupted the flow for me. I love that 'thickness' - the musical girth of Brahms because it belies the inner complexity and beauty of the work. As long as I don't have to hear them except when I really NEED to, I don't imagine ever budging from my position on these phenomenal symphonies. And there's a certain joy in hearing them in the Musikverein where Brahms conducted, know he's 'staring' at you opposite from atop his plinth at Ressel Park!!!

[Daniel]

... Norrington's Brahms. I think he has taken HIP just too far - those whiny and hesitant violins completely disrupted the flow for me. I love that 'thickness' - the musical girth of Brahms because it belies the inner complexity and beauty of the work.

For me it's like a bad neighbour moving out, the oppressive pall has lifted and suddenly the place feels like somewhere you want to be again. But of course there's room for all sorts of Brahms in the world. Just not in mine!

Funnily enough, Mozart is coming back to me, after having been on an extremely long sabbatical for all but a few works, and that's a very great pleasure.

[richardfinegold]

I think it's implausible too, but I'm looking for a way of explaining a much vaunted claim.

Stowkowski favored a heavy vibrato produced by free bowing and there are reports that he had his Cincinatti Orchestra playing this way long before he assumed his Philadelphia position. Surely Stokie must have brought this trait to The New World from the Old.
There used to be more variability in Orchestral Sound than over the past few generations. There may have been some Orchestras in the world playing with minimal vibrato in the 1920s coexisting with Other Orchestras that used a lot of it
As far as the influence of recordings, I think that you have the cart before the horse. My guess is that some Orchestras making early records sounded fabulous to their peers, such as Stokie's Philadelphians, and then further accelerated the trend to more vibrato as audiences became used to the sound and expected to hear it locally