Prom 23: 1.08.16 Jörg Widmann, Schumann, Sibelius and Nielsen

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 1 Aug 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Jörg Widmann: Armonica (UK premiere)
Robert Schumann: Violin Concerto in D minor
Jean Sibelius: The Tempest – Prelude
Carl Nielsen: Symphony No. 5

Christa Schönfeldinger (glass harmonica)
Teodoro Anzellotti (accordion)
Thomas Zehetmair (violin)
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgards (conductor)

John Storgards was the first Finnish violinist to record Schumann's unusual Violin Concerto, but he now steps to the podium, making way for Austrian violinist Thomas Zehetmair. Surrounding Schumann's gem of a concerto are the first UK performance of Jörg Widmann's ethereal Armonia, the storm-tossed prelude from Sibelius's eerie depiction of Shakespeare's island realm and Carl Nielsen's landmark symphonic vision of good's triumph over evil.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07m58xk

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It isn't often we hear the glass harmonica at the Proms I still listen to a CD, sold to me a few years ago by a harmonica busker near the London Eye.

[Serial_Apologist]

It isn't often we hear the glass harmonica at the Proms I still listen to a CD, sold to me a few years ago by a harmonica busker near the London Eye.

"That must've been our Monica, then".

(Very old joke - Arthur Askey I believe).

[bluestateprommer]

Well, if nothing else, the Jorg Widmann work proves that modernism in concert hall music lives . I suppose it's sort of more in the French 'spectralist' school, in its slow hovering pace. Full marks to the two soloists, and the orchestra and JS, for their work. The Schumann violin concerto (by far the weakest of his 3, IMHO) is about to start.

[pastoralguy]

I really have tried with the Schumann violin concerto but it always leaves me cold. And that final movement! Oh dear.

IMHO, Baibe Skride is the player on record who brings it off best.

[edashtav]

Well, if nothing else, the Jorg Widmann work proves that modernism in concert hall music lives . I suppose it's sort of more in the French 'spectralist' school, in its slow hovering pace. Full marks to the two soloists, and the orchestra and JS, for their work. The Schumann violin concerto (by far the weakest of his 3, IMHO) is about to start.

Widmann is a pupil of Wolfgang Rihm. Both are endorsed by Tom Service of the Guardian and R3. No doubt, Tom organises opportunities for them at the Proms. Jorg Widmann is an engaging fellow, a clarinettist and pianist with a deep knowledge of, and love for, the classical repertoire. His Armonica has a roots in Mozart and is scored for the glass harmonica whose evanescent presence as concerto soloist with a symphony orchestra is mediated by the more forward accordion. I thought that the work’s spectral opening benefited from the special acoustics of the Albert Hall that can cope not only with the most extravagant orchestral scores but also add a bloom to the most attenuated sounds giving them a remote beauty. The scoring was magnificent and cogent; phrases grew and transformed in appealing manner. All that’s lustrous is not logical but I did feel, and one can expect little more on first hearing a novel work,that there was structure, development and coherence. I was drawn into the piece’s world and it didn’t surprise me that the late Pierre Boulez elected to conduct its premiere. The performance by the BBC PO and soloists under the accommodating baton of John Storgards was polished and convincing. I’m inclined to rebel against the choices of the verbose and ubiquitous Tom Service but this performance made me bite my lip and add alkali neutralising acid in my pen. A time there was when I thought Tom was the successor to Hans Keller. I was wrong but the lad is not a complete wastrel.

I have a soft spot for Schumann’s Violin Concerto With all its flaws, I find its music more memorable and moving than, say, Dvorak’s effort. I like Yehudi’s idea that it was once literally the missing link between the concerti of Beethoven and Brahms. The violin solo part is curious, it so often lies low on the instrument making it sound akin to a Viola Concerto. Such sonorities suit the recording studio better than the average concert hall, but the haunting, ethereal quality that the RAH can add to solo instruments worked its magic for me this evening. I find that the work’s opening two movements combine a nobility of spirit with a sense of acute loneliness and self-doubt that evokes the music of Elgar. Flashy it is not but it’s deeply personal and moving. Sometimes, Schumann gets stuck in a repetitious rut and it takes a sensitive soloist to add dynamic variety and to provide necessary forward thrust and momentum as well as an ability to relax and relish the moment. Thomas Zehetmair gave a convincing, finely nuanced, performance and he was well supported by the conductor, a former soloist in the work. I liked the careful link to the finale that can sound thin and vapid.

[Petrushka]

This was a one work Prom if ever there was one. The Nielsen 5, both musically and interpretatively, stood head and shoulders above anything in the rest of this rather dull programme.

What a fantastic work the Nielsen 5 is!

[edashtav]

Nielsen’s 5th Symphony.
I was surprised by the fast pace that Storgards set for the rocking string figure at the start of the first movement. However, it did energise the struggle that ensued with brass and percussion. The hymn-like plea that followed was nicely handled with excellent balance between strings and wind and the interjections of human positivity and belief were well achieved, thus setting the stage for the titanic combat between right and wrong, humanity and militarism. I liked the way Storgards drew the parallel with some of the pastoral elements of Nielsen’s Inextinguishable Symphony at the close of this opening movement. [ Oh dear, a few rotters are clapping.]

The second part started at a ferocious speed and the conductor caught the music’s ambivalence wonderfully well. As the catastrophe developed, the BBC PO’s woodwind interruptions were magnificent as the tension ratcheted in a cumulative manner. I loved the reference to the opening of the work that accompanied the passage defined by a monotonous rhythm on the trumpet before the initial fugal section. Subsequent entries, some with close imitation, were played with great weight and conviction. I loved the succeeding string section that offered some hope but was shot through with a distant nagging doubt. The chorus of exultation and triumph was full throated and overwhelming.

Many elements of this performance were the finest that I’ve heard in a live performance. My sole criticism would be that the snare drum never threatened to win the battle.

[Vile Consort]

It did from where I was sitting!

[edashtav]

It did from where I was sitting!

Well, there's no arguing with that as you must be this Board's expert at Vile: I'd better pick a bone withe the Beeb's engineers.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, a magnificent Nielsen 5th tonight (and this morning, I've just heard it for a second time).
As I said of his Bridgewater Hall performance last year "It may seem perverse to begin with the last movement we heard tonight, but Part Two of John Storgard’s Nielsen 5th was the easiest to describe: it leapt from the blocks (and the speakers) with power, body, great drive and attack, orchestrally at the edge-of-control but never quite losing it, the demon-fugue galumphing along like a giant troll, the tranquillo a wonder of icy beauty like the sun shining off a glacier, then the full orchestra surging back to a superbly focussed conclusion".
Storgards was just a shade quicker and tauter than in his excellent Chandos recording, apt to the live occasion.

If I still have reservations about the reading in Part One, it's for the same reasons: I want something more than music here, a more vivid sense of primal threat and natural phenomena alien to human concerns. Wilder winds, and bleaker desertification before the great adagio asserts civilisation's presence. I felt again, that there wasn't sufficient dynamic or coloristic contrast between those meaningless tappings and signallings of side-drum, strings and wind, and the great full song which follows. But in the adagio itself the side-drummer was destructive enough to be almost the orchestra's equal; the climax just got the better of him, though I could have done with a bit more of a brazen blaze. (But I tend to feel that way about most Nielsen 5ths; I wonder if I'll ever find my ideal recording really....)

I guess the point of such a reading is to place greater emphasis on Part Two and the finale, rather than the huge climax against the side-drum, giving a surer view of the work's grander architectural span. Alan Gilbert does something similar in his NYPO recording, and it certainly gives you pause for thought about the structure of the work: the 2nd Part, a sort of allegro, two fugues and finale, could be seen as a 4-movement symphony in itself (allegro-scherzo-adagio-finale), or the whole thing a "symphony in 7 movements and 2 parts". There's an extraordinarily fluid, formal layering going on.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've listened to Armonica three times already, and it gains in stature through repetition.

Is there anyone who was in the hall who could describe the appearance of the instrument? (Nothing to do with magic - just what it looked like. )

[Simon B]

I've listened to Armonica three times already, and it gains in stature through repetition.

Is there anyone who was in the hall who could describe the appearance of the instrument? (Nothing to do with magic - just what it looked like. )

A picture speaks 1000 words and all that...

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/aug/02/zehetmair-bbc-philharmonic-storgards-proms-2016-review-glass-harmonica#img-1

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A picture speaks 1000 words and all that...
https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...armonica#img-1

Thanks for that. An interesting review too.

[richardfinegold]

I really have tried with the Schumann violin concerto but it always leaves me cold. And that final movement! Oh dear.

IMHO, Baibe Skride is the player on record who brings it off best.

I think that Clara and Brahms had the right idea bout the piece