Prom 47: 21.08.16 - Ulster Orchestra and Rafael Payare

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

15:45 Sunday 21 Aug 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Piers Hellawell: Wild Flow (BBC commission: world premiere)
Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto No 1 in C major
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5 in E minor


Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello
Ulster Orchestra
Rafael Payare, conductor

In the late 1880s Tchaikovsky felt momentarily freed from the catastrophes that were haunting his private life and carving a tragic path through his career. His Fifth Symphony, which was taking shape on his desk, appears to ease the composer's own suffering. Light floods its textures; hopeful melodies invade its dark corners.
Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare makes his Proms debut with his Ulster Orchestra to perform this most radiant of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, bringing with him Haydn's delightfully perky C major Cello Concerto and a brand-new work by Piers Hellawell.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pdyrh

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Piers Hellawell: Wild Flow:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/records/n3jb9x

[Serial_Apologist]

The problem for me with Tciaikovsky 5 is already having the best version of it in my head from start to finish. The Haydn cello concerto otoh I don't know, and Piers Hellawell's music is always welcome here.

[Hornspieler]

The problem for me with Tciaikovsky 5 is already having the best version of it in my head from start to finish. The Haydn cello concerto otoh I don't know, and Piers Hellawell's music is always welcome here.

Needless to say, I will be listening with interest.

The cello concerto is the less well-known one - discovered only recently (comparatively) and apparently now more popular than the more familiar D major (No 2)

HS

[Hornspieler]

Needless to say, I will be listening with interest.

The cello concerto is the less well-known one - discovered only recently (comparatively) and apparently now more popular than the more familiar D major (No 2)

HS

OMG!
Regretably, I was listening not with interest but with horror.


I pay no interest in BBC Commission 1st performances (probably also the last performance as well)

Since the cello concerto did nothing to rouse my interest, I go straight to the business of the evening with the symphony.

Not a good start. I wasn't sure whether the Principal Clarinet was playing in E minor or E major!

But it got worse. The entire back row of the woodwind section were horendously out of tune throghout the performance and the horn solo?
Tchaikowsky must have been turning in his grave!

Things did not get better from thereon - it became a meaningless shambles - held together only by some authoratative playing by the trombone section.

A few days ago, I launched a post drawing attention to the forthcoming 60th anniversary of the Ulster Orchestra.

If this is the standard that has taken them 60 years to reach, I can see no future for their survival.

A great shame!

My only suggestion would be to start again with a fresh personel from top to bottom.

I take no pleasure in saying this - I am bitterly disappointed.

Hornspieler

[EnemyoftheStoat]

I must give this a listen. It sounded pretty good in rehearsal on Saturday afternoon (nothing like being an audience of one at the RAH!) so if it was half as bad as HS thinks then something must have gone horribly awry. Maybe Saturday nightlife in London taking its toll?

[oddoneout]

There were sections of this Tchai5 rendition which I simply didn't recognise - and not because of a new interpretation. I know it's 40 years(ouch!) since I played it but as a viola player one tends to be well placed to get the gist of a symphony and normally I can remember pretty well what's supposed to be going on or will happen next, but not this time. It may be my less than ideal set-up but I also found the balance between blowers and scrapers odd - with the blowers sounding far too prominent and somehow not part of the performance as a whole.

[edashtav]

Well, no punches pulled either by hornspieler, or oddoneout. With tweets from various luminaries,such as Andrew McGregor, suggesting that the Ulster Orchestra had played out of their skins, I decided it was time to do my duty and listen to the Tchaikovsky. I soon agreed with hornspieler that woodwind tuning was awry. Yes, the horn solo was not up to the standard attained by hs and Rafael Payere, the latter being the conductor of this unusual performance.

I've heard some exaggerated and mannered performances of this symphony, including some by Constantin Silvestri that I would declare to be wilful, yet to have worked well. This interpretation by Payere, however, was in a class of its own: crazily idiosyncratic, valuing every moment over the whole, with every stress over-stressed, and every fermata held until time seemed to stand still. I charge Rafaele Payere with wilful distortion of the score so that his orchestra lost the pulse, itsvensemble fell to pieces and only the emotional high charge remained sacrosanct. Rafaele's 34 y.o. and has the world at his feet. I guess that he has a fantastic knowledge of the detail of this score.

I charge him further with neglect of structure. I felt so sorry for wind players forced not only to hold notes too long, to emphasise them overmuch, but also to add an unnecessary and over the top dynamic envelope, individual to each one. Such management of minutiae can lead to good tuning being treated as an optional extra. It is not!

I have grown increasingly dissatisfied in the 21st century with so many up and coming conductors who relish all the moments and never spare an audible thought for overall structure. In my book, Rafael Payere, now stands as the leader of this band of brigands.

Spare the Ulster players, hs, but do send its conductor to the Well Structured Boot Camp run by Bernie Haitink.

[Historian]

Shouldn't really be posting as I haven't heard this concert and probably won't bother following the opinions voiced above. However, I was interested to hear that the experience of some of the 'twitterati' had was apparently a polar opposite. I appreciate that hearing a concert in the hall (especially the RAH) can be very different from listening to the broadcast. Furthermore, this forum constantly reminds me how varied responses can be to a performance or interpretation. That said, I do feel that BBC presenters too often feel obliged to go into raptures about performances which are by no means exceptional. Not every concert can be a great experience. Most are good, some less so, a few are exceptional.

Did anyone listen to this and enjoy it? I would be interested to know.

[oddoneout]

Shouldn't really be posting as I haven't heard this concert and probably won't bother following the opinions voiced above. However, I was interested to hear that the experience of some of the 'twitterati' had was apparently a polar opposite. I appreciate that hearing a concert in the hall (especially the RAH) can be very different from listening to the broadcast. Furthermore, this forum constantly reminds me how varied responses can be to a performance or interpretation. That said, I do feel that BBC presenters too often feel obliged to go into raptures about performances which are by no means exceptional. Not every concert can be a great experience. Most are good, some less so, a few are exceptional.

Did anyone listen to this and enjoy it? I would be interested to know.

I did notice that the audience applause was appreciative, which after the initial reaction on my part of 'Why', then became 'obviously had to be there'. Fair dos, if those who've paid to turn up and listen had a good time, but an example perhaps of the difference between listening 'for real', and away from the concert hall.

[doversoul1]

I kept the radio on after the lunchtime Prom. The first work was a bit of a blur but I very much enjoyed the Cello Concerto (I find hard not enjoy anything by Haydn so this may not mean anything very much). The encore was quit extraordinary and I thought well chosen for the occasion.

[bluestateprommer]

I kept the radio on after the lunchtime Prom. The first work was a bit of a blur but I very much enjoyed the Cello Concerto (I find hard not enjoy anything by Haydn so this may not mean anything very much). The encore was quit extraordinary and I thought well chosen for the occasion.

I gave this Prom a full listen, again just before the deadline. Having read prior comments and going in with a bit of foreboding, I have to dissent from the prior vitriol. The Tchaikovsky was not the epic disaster that's been characterized here, not at all. Maybe some tempi stretches in the last movement, but on balance, it was a solid reading, without any trainwreck moments or disasters. No, they didn't quite have the ensemble blend and flair perhaps of MG-T and the CBSO in their reading later in the week of Tchaik 4, perhaps. But at least to my (perhaps naïve-ish) ears, there was nothing disgraceful about the Ulster Orchestra or Payare in their reading. As doversoul1 noted, in the 1st half, they dispatched the Haydn well, with Narek Hakhnazaryan doing a very fine job indeed both in the concerto and in his encore. I wasn't a huge fan of the Piers Hellawell work on one hearing, but the UO and RP did fine. I hope that people weren't turned off into giving this Prom a listen later, although granted at this point, it's all moot now.