Originally posted by marvin
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Not on Saturday "they" didn't.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT] -
Terrible presenters is de rigueur for The Proms it seems. Bring back Richard Baker.Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostComment
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Sincere apologies for my ignorance of the facts.Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostComment
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Tim Rutherford-Johnson on Deep Time:
On Birtwistle, Deep Time and over-production
One thing I like about Harrison Birtwistle is that, rarely among composers of a more radical bent, he never feels he has to apologise for writing for orchestra. His orchestras feel and sound like orchestras – although often cleverly reimagined – and his ideas are scaled to the orchestra’s size. There’s something thrilling about seeing a Birtwistle orchestra come to life in all its many facets – the high-tensile strings, the jabbering winds, the pit-and-pendulum percussion, the deep-diving brass – and being shown the clear and essential role for every instrument in a massive poem of time and space.
And the orchestra for Deep Time is Mahlerian in size, including double tubas, double contrabass clarinets, upright piano, soprano sax, quadruple brass and more. There’s something to be said for just listening to a brilliant compositional mind hold all of that in play and never once let it stop making sense. (The clarity of the Staatskappelle Berlin’s playing, and Barenboim’s conducting have to take some credit here too.)
Others have deconstructed and dismantled the orchestra more thoroughly than this, but Birtwistle is not interested in modding this elite musical machine. No extended techniques, no musique concrète instrumentale, no discourses of failure or compromise; just orchestral music making the old-fashioned way. I offer this as a point very much in Birtwistle’s favour: there is much to be said for saying new things with old words, and few do it as well as he.
Yet it does also present a problem, since those new things Birtwistle is saying are no longer as new as they once were, even if they may speak as well as they always did. Deep Time is undoubtedly a highly crafted piece of work, yet for all its accomplishment it never felt as rawly inspired as The Triumph of Time or Earth Dances, its two precursors in a now-completed orchestral trilogy. ‘All the familiar fingerprints, polished nicely’ was Philip Clark’s immediate response on Twitter, and even after listening a second time it’s hard to disagree with that assessment. Why does this piece need to be in the world, I wondered. No reason, necessarily; it filled its time well enough, and far better than most. Yet I couldn’t help but think back nostalgically to those days when Birtwistle’s music blowtorched through the British musical establishment; less perfectly formed, undoubtedly, but more urgent. We live in an age of colossal cultural excess, in which the production of new works parallels our mania for consumption. As Birtwistle’s giant orchestra told its giant tale I still had to wonder: for what?[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Yesterday's innovators become today's spectators?Comment
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I think it's more a matter that Birtwistle has been exploring and refining what his Music has to "say" and how it says it throughout his career - it's just that, now that audiences are beginning to catch up with it, the similarities between works is becoming more evident, particularly in an orchestral work which is deliberately intended to have connections with two specified earlier works. I don't think that Birtwistle is a "spectator" - I think it's the larger audiences who have started looking in the same direction as he has all these years.Originally posted by DracoM View Post[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Something similar to Cezanne's repeated images of Mont Saint Victoire, perhaps? Superficial and obvious similarities obscuring underlying, profound "differences"? I don't know - I'm thinking aprint after hearing the new work for only the second time. I remembered certain features very clearly, many, many others felt "new" - but still I had the sense of being in the middle of a significant (and powerful) work of Art.[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Just to go back ( sorry, but I do think it is important ) for a moment to the question of political points being made from the podium, I think we should be careful what we wish for. I can think of at least two conductors currently active ion the UK, who have previously expressed opinions which I think would be very unwelcome if pronounced from the stage, in front of a broadly liberal audience. I certainly wouldn't want to hear them in that context, or in fact in any context that I can think of.
There is a important place for musicians to engage in politics. There is a place for" political " programming. But I don't think there is a place for high profile virtue signalling ( because it really isn't engaging), in a way that risks discourtesy to a considerable part of a paying audience.I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I am not a number, I am a free man.Comment
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I was amused by Tom Service's interview with HB. Tom was trying to get some intellectual spin from HB about the construction of Deep Time. HB returned service (erm...) with a nifty, "Let me ask you". And after a few m moments of Tom-waffle, HB said, "You describe it better than I can". Game set and match to HB.I thought Birtwistle's new work was awe-inspiring and it certainly made a positive impact on me.Comment
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I agree with your sentiments about the Birtwistle/Service interview. I'm just thankful that KD didn't get the interview engagement.Originally posted by ardcarp View PostLast edited by Stanfordian; 17-07-17, 18:00.Comment
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Is it just my fancy, or is there a little competition amongst the presenters and critics: "A prize for whoever can use the word 'strata' the most frequently in their discussion of the Birtwistle"?[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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I've just got back from an exciting weekend at the Proms to catch up on all the comment here.
Agree with the general assessment on Deep Time, particularly Tim Rutherford-Johnson's piece quoted above. I've now heard the 'trilogy', Triumph of Time, Earth Dances and now Deep Time live at the Proms. I greatly liked it and so did the lady from Berlin in the seat next to me, on a complimentary ticket from an orchestra member.
Re the BBC4 TV failure. All of the TV lights suddenly went out as did all the lights in the 2nd tier boxes. The cameras stood idle so I doubt if this will be complete on I-player. Can anyone confirm? I'm now going to have to record the radio repeat on Wednesday. This is all very disappointing and unacceptable. Whoever has got the contract for broadcasting this year (and the vans outside were unfamiliar) need to get a grip.
The Elgar 2 was magnificent but not as good as their performance of it in the RFH in April 2015."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard HaitinkComment
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Completely agree with you. According to the end credits, it was an outfit called NEP UK - presumably this lot: http://www.nepinc.com/welcome/nep_ukOriginally posted by Petrushka View PostComment
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