Prom 5 - 17.07.17: Sibelius, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 17 July 2017
Royal Albert Hall

Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 7 in C major
Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 10 in E minor

Behzod Abduraimov piano
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Thomas Søndergård conductor

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Three phenomenal works, though I still have a few problems with S10, I'm ashamed to say.

[richardfinegold]

Quite a program. Sibelius 7 as the curtain raiser sets a pretty serious tone

[Hornspieler]

Three phenomenal works, though I still have a few problems with S10, I'm ashamed to say.

What I have always called it "The Youth Orchestra" experience".

My preference is for Nº 6 (for difficulty - ask any woodwind player) or Nº 1 for sheer simple musical enjoyment.

HS

[Alison]

It's just one of the continuing irritations of the
Proms that the Tenth is programmed every year, or so it seems.

[edashtav]

It's just one of the continuing irritations of the
Proms that the Tenth is programmed every year, or so it seems.

Yes, indeed, it's good but...

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, indeed, it's good but...

Lovely to see you here again Ed! We'll no doubt listen, consider and confer as the season progresses (it's The Lossless Proms for me of course )...
OK - Sainsburys Run now... (choosing food - most relaxing part of the week, truly...)

[Pianorak]

OK - Sainsburys Run now... (choosing food - most relaxing part of the week, truly...)

No doubt you'll Taste the Difference! :-)

[BBMmk2]

What a great programme of marvellous masterpieces! I'm going to enjoy this!

[bluestateprommer]

What a great programme of marvellous masterpieces! I'm going to enjoy this!

The crowd, from hearing the applause after the Rachmaninov, would appear to agree with you . The Rachmaninov was good, though nothing extraordinary or a world-beater interpretation, IMHO. Caught one momentary orchestra blip in the first movement, and in general Behzod Abduraimov took the spacious tempo route through the concerto. Nice understated encore of the Tchaikovsky, though (archived now in the Calendar). Sibelius 7 made for a very fine, and indeed substantial opener, as RF noted above.

[Barbirollians]

Proms archive shows Shostakovich 10 played 34 times and No 6 only 7 times .

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 5 SIBELIUS 7TH SYMPHONY. BBCNOW/SØNDERGÅRD
RADIO 3 16/48 CONCERT SOUND. Beautifully balanced (AS USUAL).

A Sibelius 7th full of truth and integrity, cool, clean, transparent and articulate; an open, idiomatic Sibelius sound (unlike the German translation we heard in the Violin Concerto from Barenboim’s Staatskapelle), the tempo-changes smooth, almost imperceptible, as we moved from adagio to vivacissimo and back to adagio, moderato to presto and to the culminating largamente. The recycling trombone was powerful but not dramatic, very far from Romantic; the carefully graded dynamics reached their one true peak after the trombone’s final appearance, and the concluding crescendo was not allowed to become any kind of triumph: it had endured, it abided, serenely.
No clowns, tightrope walkers, acrobats or fire-breathers here.

Thus the musical argument was clarified in the very precise, faithful conducting and the unexaggerated anti-rhetorical playing itself. “Organic” might seem (alright, probably is) an overused term to describe Sibelian thematic and structural evolutions, but if it does mean something, then Søndergård’s BBC NOW Sibelius 7th was the sound of what it means…

[edashtav]

The crowd, from hearing the applause after the Rachmaninov, would appear to agree with you . The Rachmaninov was good, though nothing extraordinary or a world-beater interpretation, IMHO. Caught one momentary orchestra blip in the first movement, and in general Behzod Abduraimov took the spacious tempo route through the concerto. Nice understated encore of the Tchaikovsky, though (archived now in the Calendar). Sibelius 7 made for a very fine, and indeed substantial opener, as RF noted above.

I'm going to disagree with you, bluestateprommer, but not painfully so. Let me state my position, or prejudice, at the outset: I tuned in not feeling, in bbm's terminology, "What a great programme of marvellous masterpieces: I am going to enjoy this!" but, "Tonight's programme couples three of the better pieces by three of the 20th century's arch conservative composers. A tough ask: will orchestra, conductor and soloist overcome my reservations?"

Well, they didn't convince me in Sibelius's final completed symphonic essay. Back home in Buckingham, I have an invoice for a Christmas dinner given to the Guardians and inmates of Buckingham's workhouse. One entry records the cost of beer "for the men", the next (much lower) records "beer for the ladies".Yes, there's was "small" beer, watered down and anaemic.

I felt that the conductor's vision of the Sibelius 7th was "small beer", as if the work's title was the "Pastoral", perhaps describing the coming together or confluence of several gurgling rivulets into the great river "in C".There was a lack of convincing conflict, the music of the scherzo elements was by Mendelssohn out of Smetana. Surely, one of the streams of invention needs to threaten to divide and rule the rest? There's a symphonic argument in progress fortified by strong beer, not a supine grope towards a wet consensus? Some lovely woodwind playing, indeed, but not the "true grit" of that man's man: Sibelius.

I felt the opposite in the Rachmaninov: it was played and shaped for all, or more than, its worth, which IMHO, has to be
way with second-rate music by composers not in the Premier League. There was a real unity of vision and drive between the talented soloist and Thomas Sondergard and his orchestra. It was passionate and hot-headed. In the sweaty hothouse of the RAH in high summer, nothing less will so. No messing, but musical real ale brewed for the passionate masses of all sexes, and a reminder that Rachmaninov, who may disappoint cerebral musicians, always displays a high emotional intelligence. I also loved the cooling Tchaikovsky non-development nocturne played as an encore.

[DracoM]

Strangely, I agree about the Sibelius.
Lacked gravel and gravitas, and seemed a sort of anti-climax as if they#d spent far more time rehearsing the Shostak symp.
Hmm.

[edashtav]

PROM 5 SIBELIUS 7TH SYMPHONY. BBCNOW/SØNDERGÅRD
RADIO 3 16/48 CONCERT SOUND. Beautifully balanced [...]

Thus the musical argument was clarified in the very precise, faithful conducting and the unexaggerated anti-rhetorical playing itself. “Organic” might seem (alright, probably is) an overused term to describe Sibelian thematic and structural evolutions, but if it does mean something, then Sondergard’s BBC NOW Sibelius 7th was the sound of what it means…

Sorry, Jayne,: I composed my piece [see above]before reading your post. I suspect that what we we heard was similar but what we were looking for was diametrically opposed.

I see that DracoM thinks as I do but suggests a possible cause of our dissatisfaction.
I would add that it takes time for a visiting orchestra to adjust to the strange acoustics of the Albert Hall which, from personal experience, is different when full with an audience than when one rehearses in its empty barn.