Prom 25: 3.08.16 - Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Wednesday 3 Aug 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor
Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle

Alban Gerhardt, cello
Ildikó Komlósi, mezzo-soprano (Judith)
John Relyea, bass (Duke Bluebeard)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor

The gothic horror story of Duke Bluebeard prompted some of the most imaginative, descriptive and shocking music Bartók would write. With its huge orchestra, underpinned in this concert performance by the mighty Royal Albert Hall organ, Bartók's score speaks of the darkness of Bluebeard's vast castle and the cold-blooded murder of his six wives.

Under Principal Conductor Charles Dutoit, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conjures up Bartók's unsettling realm after Dvorák's Cello Concerto, which the composer believed 'outstrips the other two concertos of mine'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07m5gph

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bluebeard's Castle is a work I first heard in my student days, rammed down my throat by a Bartok fanatic - but the exercise did me good!

[pastoralguy]

The Dvorak 'cello concerto would be a Desert Island work for me. I'm really looking forward to this concert. The moment in the third movement where the solo violin enters is one of my favourite moments in all music.

(FWIW, Alicia Weilerstein's recording with George Whitehead and the Czech Phil. is the disc I would take with me.)

[Richard Tarleton]

The Dvorak 'cello concerto would be a Desert Island work for me. I'm really looking forward to this concert. The moment in the third movement where the solo violin enters is one of my favourite moments in all music.

(FWIW, Alicia Weilerstein's recording with George Whitehead and the Czech Phil. is the disc I would take with me.)

Couldn't think what you were on about there for a moment, pg

Me too, if the call comes from Kirsty. AW's version is now my top choice - it used to be the MR/HvK, my moment being James Galway's flute entry in the second movement

AW/JB did it at the Proms a couple of years ago didn't they - a hard act for the excellent Alban Gerhardt to follow

[pastoralguy]

Couldn't think what you were on about there for a moment, pg

Me too, if the call comes from Kirsty. AW's version is now my top choice - it used to be the MR/HvK, my moment being James Galway's flute entry in the second movement

AW/JB did it at the Proms a couple of years ago didn't they - a hard act for the excellent Alban Gerhardt to follow

Yes, I mini-disc'd that Prom and have listened to it many times. She's a wonderful player - IMHO, one of the finest string players before the public today. Mr. Ger hardy is a superb player too so it'll be very special.

[Petrushka]

Duke Bluebeard's Castle is a favourite work of mine but at the same time I find it a deeply disturbing piece, leaving me very unsettled at its end. Far more than a mere Gothic horror story it has a psychological depth on many different levels.

Does anyone remember the ENO double bill staging with Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex in 1991?

[bluestateprommer]

Mr. Gerhardt is a superb player too so it'll be very special.

Indeed, AG is, and he just dispatched the Dvorak concerto very nicely now. Very much in the latter-day 'tradition', pretty straight up, no odd idiosyncracies or too much mussing about, yet also at the same time very affectionate and deeply felt. Maybe one slightly duff entrance at the start of the finale from some in the orchestra, but as it was fairly pianissimo, as HvK might have said, "you'd have to be a fish to hear that" . It was charming to hear AG gush on about the qualities of the Dvorak Concerto at the start of the relay. Fine, fine encore from AG of the Prelude from JSB's Suite No. 6.

Part 2: Strong performance of A kékszakállú herceg vára in the 2nd half, with the RPO on cracking form for 'Charlie'. The one quibble, IMHO, is the superimposed "heavy breathing" sound effects, but obviously no one asked me in advance. IK and JR likewise sounded great, with JR's really dark, deep spoken voice in the Prologue setting the mood, even when spoken in English (and then he had to switch mentally to Hungarian). I rather suspect that I would rather have heard Relyea as Wotan in the Act III Die Walkure from a few weeks back.

[Vile Consort]

It was nice to have a cellist who didn't pull faces whilst playing. Enjoyed the Dvorak very much (the minor slip by a horn notwithstanding) and the Bach encore was riveting.

The woodwind were on the same level the strings. The BBCPO had them raised up on the staging where they projected a great deal better. Or maybe the balance was more down to the conductor's taste.

I enjoyed the Bartok but it wasn't as good as when the BBCPO played it some years ago in Manchester (with Tortelier? and in the Free Trade Hall?) when they had eight extra trumpets to play with (I seem to remember they did the Janacek Sinfonietta in the first half to justify getting the extra brass out of the pub). Relyea's rich, deep bass was wonderful. But the Komlósi's top C as the fifth door opens didn't quite hit the audience between the eyes as it should: maybe it's asking too much in a hall that size. The "heavy breathing sound effects" are in the score - or at least, a sigh is.

[bluestateprommer]

The woodwind were on the same level the strings. The BBCPO had them raised up on the staging where they projected a great deal better. Or maybe the balance was more down to the conductor's taste.

Interestingly, Haitink prefers the same kind of "level seating" in Orchestra Hall when he's conducted there, i.e. no risers for the winds. He did the same in Carnegie Hall when I saw him conduct the Boston SO there once. I once talked about this with an acquaintance who played for Haitink in Boston, and the acquaintance confirmed BH's preference that way.

The "heavy breathing sound effects" are in the score - or at least, a sigh is.

That is a fair point. I should perhaps have clarified my objection, namely that over iPlayer, the "heavy breathing" sounded like sampled recorded sounds, rather than a "heavy breathing" or "sigh" performed by the orchestra itself, without outside sampled sound effects. I've never seen the score of the opera, so I don't have the authority of the score in front of me. But this was the only blot in an otherwise very strong Prom for this season.

[gradus]

I hadn't listened to the Bartok piece in years but I'm glad I did, sound effects and all. Not something to send you out into the night whistling but mighty powerful and disturbing. Both singers were on form and I especially liked the mezzo whose voice seemed exactly right for the part.

[Ferretfancy]

The sigh sounded just right in the Arena, seeming to be in the air above the players. I enjoyed both performances with just a few reservations. Dutoit doesn't quite succeed in capturing Bartok's strangeness and beauty. There's no heartbreak there, it's a little generalised and I missed some of the emotional interplay between the excellent singers and the orchestral contribution. Still, the big moments came off well. I've probably got too attached to Kertesz and Boulez

[Vile Consort]

It sounded right in the stalls too. It would be more accurate to say that the sigh is specified in the stage directions. I wonder how it was performed in 1918.

I've had the Kertesz since my teens and invested in the Boulez (complete works of BB) a couple of days before he died. First came across the work in double bill with Oedipus Rex in Manchester circa 1970.

[Richard Tarleton]

Fine, fine encore from AG of the Prelude from JSB's Suite No. 6.

Haven't listened to the concert yet, but caught the encore on Essential Classics this morning. Erm - a pretty leisurely, relaxed rendition of the Prelude I thought! I prefer a bit more attack in this movement - such as you hear from Starker (whom RC mentioned afterwards)...... His timing according to iPlayer was a gentle 5.60, where Starker knocks it off in 4.42. Obviously playing it as an encore after a concerto very different to playing the suite under ideal conditions.....

PS my favourite HIP version, by Jaap ter Linden, is an even brisker 4.35.

[Sir Velo]

His timing ...was a gentle 5.60

So, six minutes in old money, RT?

[Richard Tarleton]

So, six minutes in old money, RT?

Not sure what happened there. Does 5'33 sound any better? It was....slow!