Prom 65: 2.09.16 - Pierre Boulez, Béla Bartók & Elliott Carter

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

22:15 Friday 2 Sep 2016
Royal Albert Hall

Béla Bartók , Baldur Brönnimann: Three Village Scenes
Pierre Boulez: Anthèmes 2
Elliott Carter: Penthode
Pierre Boulez: Cummings ist der Dichter


Ensemble intercontemporain
BBC Singers
Baldur Brönnimann conductor

The Ensemble Intercontemporain commemorates the late Pierre Boulez - composer, conductor, polemicist and founder of the ensemble - with a programme of pieces he conducted during more than 40 years of appearances at the Proms. His Anthèmes 2, for violin and electronics, contrasts with the exuberant vocal setting of avian poetry by E. E. Cummings, performed by the BBC Singers.
Around these come Bartók's earthy Village Scenes and Elliott Carter's Penthode - written for tonight's ensemble - a slow movement of geological power that has been compared to the steady glide of tectonic plates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07qc3nz

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

For some reason, the website, prospectus, et al list the BBC Singers above the instrumental ensemble, which is very unusual. They really do push themselves.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Any takers?

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, I made it (just) through Anthèmes 2 and Penthode, but that was more than enough music to confront on a single night after the Mahler 7 and Éclat...

The Boulez piece projected beautifully into the room here on HDs, a solo violin becoming a virtual string ensemble of the electronic air. So much of Boulez sounds like this to me now, ethereal, otherworldly, taking place in another infinitely imaginative dimension. Éclat of the swan in the ice, of lightning in the dark, voices of a solo violin orbiting or swimming through inner space. Music of our time? Or someone, or something, else's?
Quelle contraste with the dark earthy sonorities of Penthode's slow-shifting background (black-body radiation, always there, even when you don't listen in..) and the density of quintuple musical events going on around it, a busily human conversation.

Years since I last encountered it, off the Erato Boulez set... I think I may even have heard the Boulez-led R3 premiere so long ago (Proms 1985)....
But I'd need at least three hearings to attempt to follow, rather than merely experience this many-voiced endless melody.
cummings ist der dichter is a favourite of mine, I'll try to catch it up but - after a very patchy Proms season, there's now too much going on at once! Ossa and pell-mell.

Density of event, indeed....

[Carlos V]

I was in the arena for this one. No more than 300 people in the hall. It was wonderfully intimate. Anthemes 2 is one of those pieces that must be experienced live, as it surrounds you with mesmerizing echos, reflections and unexepected counterpoints. We were maybe too tired to enjoy the latter half of the concert in full.

[bluestateprommer]

From the Gallery, my own estimate was more like 500 people, with a very good portion of them in the Arena. So maybe Carlos V and I can split the difference . That aside, this was a well-presented Late Night Prom, if in the end too much to take even w/o the Berlin Phil Prom earlier in the evening. The Bartok featured very nice solo contributions from 2 of the BBC Singers (don't know their names, unfortunately). PB's Anthemes 2 also went very well, especially with the remixed in real time violin sounds ricocheting around the hall at Gallery level impressively, especially the pizzicato. But it honestly got to be too much of the same after 20 minutes. The same "too much of the same" situation was how I felt about the Elliott Carter work (and the spectacle of several people leaving during the Carter may have reflected this, or those people had last trains to catch). PB's Cummings ist der dichter made for a good close, even if my brain was pretty much toast by then.

[Carlos V]

You had the vantage point, so let's go with 450 Still fewer people than I would had expected. Not many chances to hear the Ensemble Intercontemporain these days. It was maybe too late?

[Bumfluff]

I was there too! Reseated from circle into stalls next to the percussion. There were a couple in front of us who found the percussion absolutely hilarious; every time the player hit something they would collapse in giggles... pretty distracting (to me, he had his back to them).

This was a feast. Each piece seemed to slightly top the last, but they left the most difficult piece to the end, and like posters above I was too tired to appreciate it by then! Absolutely incredible prom and intimate atmosphere though, and will possibly be what i remember most.