Prom 2 - 17.07.17: Daniel Barenboim conducts Sibelius and Elgar

[edashtav]

Was this encore the BBC 's way of balancing last night's anti - Brexit encore ? How fitting that the Berliners should deliver it. Seriously though haven't 2 months slipped by quickly.....?

Barenboim is fighting Brexit, seeing Elgar as just as European as Mahler. Yet, was the key nobilmente theme at the work's outset originally composed to represent a cortege in honour of a very British hero: General Gordon? The joy of Elgar is his lack of simplicity: his emotions are complex. Is that theme redolent of determination, stiff - lipped sentiments, sadness, loneliness, nobility, tragedy…? I like to think it's multi-layered and polychromatic, encompassing a full spectrum of emotions and feelings. My word, DB may be on to something for Mahler's music explores similar regions of experience. How well did Barenboim and his excellent forces project this kaleidoscope of high sentiment? Well, it was coherent: structured and controlled and not a collection of discrete molecules. The basic tempo was sound but sometimes the pace slackened overmuch leading to stasis. I admired the unanswered question at the conclusion of the first movement. The scherzo had a youthful feel, it was full of vim and vigour. Its chamber moments were wonderfully outward bound, frolics in English meadows, certainly, but seen in the context of Mahler's Alpine Meadows. Elgar had just reviewed his younger days in his Wand of Youth suite, and Barenboim waved a magic baton belonging to the ever young over the movement. The slow movement, by Mahler out of Bruckner, is the emotional core of the work. The first of Elgar's requiems for the passing of the Edwardian Era? Once again, the silken quality of the Berlin strings set the scene and tugged at the heart strings. Deeply moving and profound, not simple sorrow but a distillation or concentrate of so many mixed and conflicting emotions, including hope and tenderness in the midst of despair. An uplifting and enlightening performance.Its hushed ending moved me to tears. I think it was Ernest Newman, early in 1908, who criticised the recycling of material from the work's first movement in its finale. To him it betokened creative exhaustion whereas, in reality, it is a unifying, structural device that responds to the question left unanswered in that earlier movement. Barenboim introduced the old elements as if they were ghosts or haunted, dream episodes, images from the past, threatening to disrupt the onward march of glory and busy progress. Little by little, Barenboim humanised the ghosts, making warm blood and emotions flow through their veins. This was a satisfying and magisterial performance that showed one of Elgar's greatest scores in a new, pan-European light. The finest performance in the first two days of this year's Proms.

[Stunsworth]

Listening to the FLAC stream I think that was the best sound I have ever heard from a R3 concert.

[Petrushka]

On the phone after being in the hall so can't say much other than fantastic Prom!

[Goon525]

Listening to the FLAC stream I think that was the best sound I have ever heard from a R3 concert.

I've just made the same point in the techie thread.

[mrbouffant]

Curiously this Prom was flagged in the guide and on the tickets as having "TV cameras present". In the event, however, they were not there. I wonder what changed.

[gurnemanz]

We had already enjoyed an excellently entertaining and incisive matinée performance of Ink at the Almeida in Islington in the afternoon and decided on spec to steer the car through South Ken on the way back to the M4 and Wilts, despite the concert being sold out and the arena allocation likely to be all gone by the time we got there for such an attractive Prom. As it happened, no trouble getting free street parking and after a short queue we just paid our £6 and walked in at about 6.45. Glad we made the effort for a strikingly good concert. I've never been a major Elgarian but I really relished the impact of what was my first live performance of the symphony. Two encores! (Some people had already left). I had not expected ever to hear Land of of Hope and Glory live at the Proms, since I shall not ever be attending the Last Night, but the Berliners gave us a very bracing rendition.

After a swift one in the Queen's Arms where we had some pleasant chat with fellow concert-goers, we headed for the hills tired but happy and arrived home just after midnight.

[Ein Heldenleben]

At 6.45 did you get into the arena or gallery? I have a friend who was wondering how late you can leave it for a popular concert like a Barenboim one and still get into the arena.

[edashtav]

[...] Glad we made the effort for a strikingly good concert. I've never been a major Elgarian but I really relished the impact of what was my first live performance of the symphony. Two encores! (Some people had already left). I had not expected ever to hear Land of of Hope and Glory live at the Proms, since I shall not ever be attending the Last Night, but the Berliners gave us a very bracing rendition.

After a swift one in the Queen's Arms where we had some pleasant chat with fellow concert-goers, we headed for the hills tired but happy and arrived home just after midnight.

What a lovely, heart-warming report. I'm glad your luck ran good, Gurnemanz.

[BBMmk2]

Great prom this. Thoroughly enjoyed it! And the two encores!what a bonus!

[DracoM]

Sibelius outstanding for me.

[Nimrod]

Just had a serial cougher in the left channel.

I'm not qualified to comment on the performance, but the FLAC stream is outstanding.

I too heard the "serial cougher" who tried very hard to ruin the closing pages of the slow movement. I cannot understand why that person could not have tried to quieten their coughing, I'm old enough to remember the comment in the RFH programmes in the Seventies...saying that a single note played mezzoforte on a French horn measured 65 dB and an uncovered cough gave the same reading, but if a handkerchief was placed over the mouth the cough was a pianissimo. Common sense, surely?

However, a superb concert, how nice it is to see a world famous musician giving our Elgar top billing! And in such a wonderful interpretation! There was a comment at the end by the announcer that Barenboim has long known Elgar's music being married to that 'famous Elgarian' J du Pre!
I suspect a more likely advocate who influenced him would be Barbirolli. He attended the wedding of the young couple and I'm sure I've read somewhere that they went to dinner at the home of Sir John.

I'd like to hear Barenboim conduct The Music Makers.
Nimrod

[Zucchini]

Barenboim is fighting Brexit, seeing Elgar as just as European as Mahler.

What do you mean? Gobbledegook to me. So waffly I gave up ...

[edashtav]

What do you mean? Gobbledegook to me. So waffly I gave up ...

I'm confident that you don't want me to expand my prolix contribution, Zucchini!

[Barbirollians]

Knew Barbirolli well didn't he ? They recorded Brahms Piano Concertos together .

I think he said he learned a lot from Barbirolli when he went To Manchester to play a Brahms concerto for the Barbirolli centenary .

That Adagio had Barbirolli's influence all over it !

[gurnemanz]

What do you mean? Gobbledegook to me. So waffly I gave up ...

I would like to thank not only edashtav for his thoughtful contributions but also Mr Barenboim, if he is indeed showing solidarity with those us in this country who regard the current anti-European mood here as generally pernicious and, specifically, detrimental to our cultural relations with our nearest international neighbours.