Prom 34: 10.08.16 - Dutilleux, HK Gruber and Beethoven

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Wednesday 10 Aug 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Henri Dutilleux: Timbres, espace, mouvement
HK Gruber: Busking (London premiere)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No 5 in C minor


Håkan Hardenberger, trumpet
Mats Bergström, banjo
Claudia Buder, accordion
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor

Two centuries on, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has lost none of its shattering power. A tirade against destiny, it remains one of the most compelling yet perfect musical arguments ever created. Sakari Oramo conducts it here, after the pulsating drive of HK Gruber's Busking, performed by Håkan Hardenberger, the soloist for whom it was created, and an unusual ensemble of accordion, banjo and strings. But, to start, music of pictorial delicacy: Henri Dutilleux's sonic reproduction of the cosmic, whirling effect of Van Gogh's painting The Starry Night.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07mwnym

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[jayne lee wilson]

..as used on the booklet for the Chandos 4-disc Dutilleux/BBCPO/Tortelier set - but just a sky detail abstracted/mirrored, perfect choice...

[Serial_Apologist]

..as used on the booklet for the Chandos 4-disc Dutiilleux/BBCPO/Tortelier set - but just a sky detail abstracted/mirrored, perfect choice...

Indeed, a most apposite choice of picture. I wish record sleeve producers would do this more often - too frequently the choice of cover seems aesthetically quite arbitrary, like the Picasso cubist painting on the front of an old mono LP I once had coupling Schoenberg's Piano and Violin Concertos. Much more appropriate I believe is Kokotschka's portrait of Schoenberg on the front of my old copy of "Pelleas und Melisande" with the CBCSO under Craft, and Kandinsky's "Tableau avec tache rouge" fronting another Schoenberg LP coupling the Hanging Garden songs Op 15 and the Op 16 5 Orchestral Pieces.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed, a most apposite choice of picture. I wish record sleeve producers would do this more often - too frequently the choice of cover seems aesthetically quite arbitrary, like the Picasso cubist painting on the front of an old mono LP I once had coupling Schoenberg's Piano and Violin Concertos. Much more appropriate I believe is Kokotschka's portrait of Schoenberg on the front of my old copy of "Pelleas und Melisande" with the CBCSO under Craft, and Kandinsky's "Tableau avec tache rouge" fronting another Schoenberg LP coupling the Hanging Garden songs Op 15 and the Op 16 5 Orchestral Pieces.

- Picasso's Three Musicians was also on the cover of the Horenstein Verkarte Nacht/First Chamber Symphony LP - on the Turnabout label, as was the two Concertos (with Brendel, Gielen etc) which had the Kokoschka portrait (in which Arnie looks as if he's throwing a two-fingered salute at his critics) on the cover. (Excellent sleeve notes on the rear, I remember.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Arnie looks as if he's throwing a two-fingered salute at his critics

- that hadn't occurred to me!!! I'd always thought he was saying, "Hey, you just swiped my double bass!"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- that hadn't occurred to me!!! I'd always thought he was saying, "Hey, you just swiped my double bass!"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I still think the coda of Beethoven's 5th finale is too long.

I'll go and away and hide.

[jayne lee wilson]

Dutilleux T-E-M came across very well on HDs with its dodecacello-pianissimos, precision, fluidity and power with no smudging or approximation. Perhaps the biggest climaxes could have been allowed more amplitude.

HK Gruber's Busking is a divertimento, and I was....mildly diverted. To put it printably at least.
(Home Concert Hall to auditorium: are you having fun yet?)

[edashtav]

Dutilleux T-E-M came across very well on HDs with its dodecacello-pianissimos, precision, fluidity and power with no smudging or approximation. Perhaps the biggest climaxes could have been allowed more amplitude.

HK Gruber's Busking is a divertimento, and I was....mildly diverted. To put it printably at least.
(Home Concert Hall to auditorium: are you having fun yet?)

I'm in full agreement with both of your paragraphs.

[jayne lee wilson]

Poised, elegant, almost neoclassical through the first two movements yet with no lack of tonal or expressive warmth , Oramo's trimly-proportioned Beethoven 5th breathed quite enough fire thereafter!
But how my heart sank when he omitted the scherzo/trio repeat, especially when played as well as it was here, with wonderfully clean double-basses chugging and chewing away at terrific speed. Odder still as he then observed the finale repeat, sometimes adduced (by Adrian Boult, e.g.) as a reason not to do the scherzo one because if you feel you need the finale repeat to balance the scherzo one, it can be hard to bring off the great C Major outburst three times...well, choices choices, but at least Oramo's speed and sweep was sufficient to his self- and musical- justification.

For me though it always sound wrong not to play scherzo/trio twice, simply too short (and too good not to be heard twice!), and the finale then seems to come much too soon. Then when the scherzo returns mid-finale, in still-going-on-always-going-on mode (like the ghost in Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad, saying "I'm still here..."), it has nothing like the same impact...

(HDs R3 player live, dynamics better in the Beethoven, finale especially).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But how my heart sank when he omitted the scherzo/trio repeat. . .

I was following the score, and he observed every single repeat.


The thing that was wrong was the audience - or a smattering of them. There were a few chords at the end of the second movement, followed by silence - a long silence, Then a group of complete morons, presumably used to listening to Classic FM and Radio 3 Breakfast, noticed this silence, so the brainless idiots thought it must be the end. "Oo-er, we're suppose to clap here. Doh, that's better. Oo-er, not many people are clapping, and nobody's cheering. Better stop. Dooooh!"

Idiots, imbeciles, twats, morons, fools, ignoramuses. . .

[jayne lee wilson]

I was following the score, and he observed every single repeat.


The thing that was wrong was the audience - or a smattering of them. There were a few chords at the end of the second movement, followed by silence - a long silence, Then a group of complete morons, presumably used to listening to Classic FM and Radio 3 Breakfast, noticed this silence, so the brainless idiots thought it must be the end. "Oo-er, we're suppose to clap here. Doh, that's better. Oo-er, not many people are clapping, and nobody's cheering. Better stop. Dooooh!"

Idiots, imbeciles, twats, morons, fools, ignoramuses. . .

God Alps, don't do things like that! I thought the brain damage was worse than I thought and I'd nodded through a whole scherzo and trio repeat...
A nervous visit to the iPlayer later... well no thank god, OF COURSE I didn't. Oramo DID NOT repeat scherzo(allegro) and trio.
OK - so your present score may not mark it, but that scherzo & trio repeat controversy is ages old, still very alive, and once upon a time these boards would have had a good old ding-dong about it after a concert such as this.

(see under "3rd movement repeat" here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympho..._5_(Beethoven)
Gardiner (both recordings), Hogwood, Harnoncourt (both recordings), Norrington (both recordings) and Zinman all do it. Just checking now, surprised to find Bruggen (1991) and Krivine don't...)
Robert Simpson, in his BBC Guide, was very much in favour of playing it, finale repeat and all...

Does no-one here care about these things anymore? What a shame as, pace repeats controversy or debate, it was a very good Beethoven 5, in the Home Concert Hall at least...

[Bryn]

God Alps, don't do things like that! I thought the brain damage was worse than I thought and I'd nodded through a whole scherzo and trio repeat...
A nervous visit to the iPlayer later... well no thank god, OF COURSE I didn't. Oramo DID NOT repeat scherzo(allegro) and trio.
OK - so your present score may not mark it, but that scherzo & trio repeat controversy is ages old, still very alive, and once upon a time these boards would have had a good old ding-dong about it after a concert such as this.

(see under "3rd movement repeat" here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympho..._5_(Beethoven)
Gardiner (both recordings), Hogwood, Harnoncourt (both recordings), Norrington (both recordings) and Zinman all do it. Just checking snow, surprised to find Bruggen (1991) and Krivine don't...) ...

Please don't forget Boulez, who was, I think, the first to record the 'scherzo' with the replete with repeat.

As to Krivine, on the CD, no repeat. Worth checking out the performance on YouTube thouigh. I recall that he and the band adopted varying decisions re. repeats in those performances. No time for me to check the 5th at the moment.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

God Alps, don't do things like that! I thought the brain damage was worse than I thought and I'd nodded through a whole scherzo and trio repeat...
A nervous visit to the iPlayer later... well no thank god, OF COURSE I didn't. Oramo DID NOT repeat scherzo(allegro) and trio.
OK - so your present score may not mark it, but that scherzo & trio repeat controversy is ages old, still very alive, and once upon a time these boards would have had a good old ding-dong about it after a concert such as this.

(see under "3rd movement repeat" here...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympho..._5_(Beethoven)
Gardiner (both recordings), Hogwood, Harnoncourt (both recordings), Norrington (both recordings) and Zinman all do it. Just checking now, surprised to find Bruggen (1991) and Krivine don't...)
Robert Simpson, in his BBC Guide, was very much in favour of playing it, finale repeat and all...

Does no-one here care about these things anymore? What a shame as, pace repeats controversy or debate, it was a very good Beethoven 5, in the Home Concert Hall at least...

We did discuss it not so long ago.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?14463-BaL-2-01-16-Beethoven-Symphony-no-5-in-C-minor/page4&p=529849#post529849