Prom 53: 25.08.16 - RLPO: Shostakovich and Rachmaninov

[edashtav]

Yes, of course you're right, Mr. Maclintick. I had presumed that Alexey was German. I hope that he won't take umbrage and "Brexit".

[Maclintick]

Since a Concerto for Orchestra is a contradiction in terms, pretty much anything goes.

I suppose a meaningful definition of what is meant by a Concerto for Orchestra would have to include individual players enjoying the soloistic limelight, or different concertante groups within an orchestra doing likewise. This is quite far from the kitchen-sink implications of "anything goes", n'est-ce pas, Ed ?

[Maclintick]

Yes, of course you're right, Mr. Maclintick. I had presumed that Alexey was German. I hope that he won't take umbrage and "Brexit".

I think he's quite set for an international career both inside & outside the EU !

[edashtav]

I suppose a meaningful definition of what is meant by a Concerto for Orchestra would have to include individual players enjoying the soloistic limelight, or different concertante groups within an orchestra doing likewise. This is quite far from the kitchen-sink implications of "anything goes", n'est-ce pas, Ed ?

However, the Italian word Concerto has two roots that are in opposition, contest is one, the other implies concord, and is still in use in English as "in concert". That's my justification for feeling that Concerto for Orchestra is a broad church containing all denominations.

[Maclintick]

However, the Italian word Concerto has two roots that are in opposition, contest is one, the other implies concord, and is still in use in English as "in concert". That's my justification for feeling that Concerto for Orchestra is a broad church containing all denominations.

Fair enough, Ed, but I wonder if the original Italianate opposition/concord meaning has slightly solidified since the 16th (?) century, to imply a positive incorporation of those soloistic elements, whether of individual players, discrete sections or contrasting groups (a la Tippett's -- a personal favourite) within the context of 20th Century orchestral compositions designated "Concerto for Orchestra" ? According to the God Wiki, there aren't any examples prior to Hindemith. (Incidentally, I'm humbled by my general ignorance of the genre. I'd no idea there were so many... So much music, so little time....)

[alywin]

It must have been daunting for Alexey Stadler to make his Proms debut at only an hour's notice.

Gulp :o Was an announcement made? There was nothing up in the Gallery at all, and it was only when I walked over to the rail to applaud that I realised there had been a substitution. Still, it was a very impressive debut, and possibly the lack of notice meant he didn't have time to get nervous.

Was intriged by the Howard piece, which I thought rather better than some of the other premieres I'd heard - I won't say idiosyncratic, but it certainly had a distinctive voice.

[bluestateprommer]

Gulp :o Was an announcement made? There was nothing up in the Gallery at all, and it was only when I walked over to the rail to applaud that I realised there had been a substitution. Still, it was a very impressive debut, and possibly the lack of notice meant he didn't have time to get nervous.

There were paper postings at the entrances to the Arena that Alexey Stadler was stepping in. No indication of the extreme time crunch involved. This is a good point, namely that AS probably was stressed, but perhaps sheer adrenalin helped get him through any nerves. The orchestra, especially, and the audience were extremely welcoming and obviously all on his side.

[Cockney Sparrow]

There was an announcement over the speakers, when the orchestra was settling in on stage. From the stalls, it was mostly inaudible and I just caught (I think) "grateful" "Russian cellist" "short notice" or some such. At the interval someone nearby said he had arrived at the RAH about 4pm.

[Flay]

It's amazing that a substitute was found at such short notice. Or could he have been on standby? In the theatre it is usual to have a deputy. Do the major orchestras have contingency plans for such eventualities?
It must be a nightmare for the manager. What happens when the only tuba player slips and snaps his wrist on the way from the pub to the hall just prior to the performance?

[pastoralguy]

I do remember a story that the RSNO's percussion section got stranded on the M8 during a winter snow storm. As it turned out, three of the orchestra's fiddles had studied percussion as second studies so they were pressed into service. Iirc, it was Mahler 5 they were playing.

I know that orchestra's co-leaders have to practice all the big solos 'just in case'. That must be quite soul destroying!

[peterthekeys]

I intended listening to this concert, but missed it - must catch it on the iplayer. But I caught the discussion of Emily Howard on the Record Review programme last Saturday, and it stirred up a mental cauldron which has been simmering for decades. I guess that in the current case, it boils down (to coin a phrase) to this: if someone heard Emily Howard's "Torus" without knowing the title, would they know that it was about a torus? And is that necessary anyway?

Sorabji, in "Music and Muddleheadedness" (one of the most powerful essays in his wonderful "Mi Contra Fa"), points out that music is completely incapable of "conveying" anything at all, and pours scorn on the idea that music is a "universal language". What was in the composer's mind as he/she wrote the music is in no way guaranteed to be transmitted to the listener (Sorabji uses the example of a group of highly-cultured Japanese people who were reduced to roars of laughter by Bach's B minor mass; he also mentions a performance of Strauss' "Alpine Symphony" where it had been felt necessary to have someone parade across the stage with placards detailing the items supposedly described by the music. He admits that sometimes a sequence of sounds in nature could set up a pattern in a composer's mind - the "raindrop" prelude, or the "sound of a stream" at the start of the sunrise sequence in Daphnis and Chloe - and that there is obviously a better chance that this could be "conveyed" to a listener. But equally obviously, this would rely on the listener actually having heard the sounds produced by a real stream or dripping gutter.)

For me, the thing which complicates the whole issue is where a composer devises some kind of abstract or extra-musical process by which to structure and manage the music. And I suppose at that point, I need to ask myself what I mean by "extra-musical". OK, I know I'm on thin ice, but here goes. Western music seems to have evolved so that it is "vertically" (harmonically and melodically) based on the harmonic series, and "horizontally" on the principle of recapitulation - doing something, doing something else, and then doing the first thing again (usually more assertively). Obviously a composer can deliberately deviate from those "principles" for specific purposes (and here I realise that I'm floundering in a tar-pit, as I was going to start talking about emotional effects - effects and emotions of course being extra-musical! If music can't convey anything beyond itself, can it even (reliably) convey emotions?) What I was getting at was that if a composer decides to throw out all the "principles", the risk is that the music becomes unappreciable at an intuitive and gut level.

To understand a piece of music such as Emily Howard's, does one need to follow a score? I was a student at Huddersfield School of Music, at the time that the Contemporary Music Festival was in its infancy. "Modern music" was the be-all and end-all: the library was full of vast scores of the latest works by the most current composers, and one would frequently see students poring over them and trying to work out the mathematical processes which had gone into the writing of the works. My problem was that whenever I listened to such pieces, I usually felt as though broken glass was being shoved into my ears. Which brings me to my biggest dilemma about Emily Howard's work - I (personally) find it attractive in terms of sound, so effectively I have less incentive to get a score of the piece to try to work out how it "works", than just to sit back and hope that it will convey its meaning to me intuitively. But in the case of a work with such a specific "inspiration" and subject, is that a valid approach? (Eliot apparently once said that one could understand the "Waste Land" without understanding it on an intellectual level.)

(I'd definitely recommend the Sorabji essay - he discusses these things so much more clearly and incisively than I could ever hope to do.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Coincidentally, I was chatting about "Programme Music" with a friend a couple of hours ago, and many of the points you mention came up there, too. I cannot speak for Ms Howard, but I think that the Arts and how they are received by a sympathetic viewer/reader/listener are intensely personal matters. A composer's "extra-Musical" motivations might be interesting (or might not), but essentially (for me at least) they play a very low part in my involvement with a piece of Music: I'm more interested in what they do with sound. This is not only my relationship with New Musics, but also such works as the Berlioz Symphony #1 in C major" (which is the Symphonie Fantastique without the sub-Hammer House of Horror "programme").

You mention "understanding", ptk, which is a word I have great difficulty with with a lot of Music. Do I "understand" the Mozart g minor String Quintet? I adore it - and I can analyse it and keep discovering new features and points of connection (and distinction) - it excites and moves me, and means as much to my spiritual and intellectual life as anything else. But I'm beggared if I can say that I "understand" it in anything other than a series of astonishing sound events that create cohesion both as I listen to it, and when I think about it at such times as this. It evokes my reactions to it - whether these are the "emotions" or whatever that Mozart intended to "express", I have no means of knowing. It sort-of doesn't matter - and I suspect that how the work will affect me in twenty years time will be as different as they are now from how I felt and thought about it twenty years ago; that is what makes it "timeless" (the only sensible meaning of that word in such a context) for me.

So, I would suggest, it doesn't matter to you what Ms Howard wanted to "express" or communicate in her work - it's whether you want to listen to it again, and whether in those repeated listenings it continues to make new appeals to your imagination. Then - and only then - should anyone so inclined feel urged to get a copy of a score to help them discover how the composer has created the sounds, and what it is that is compelling their attention.