Prom 14 - 25.07.17: Vaughan Williams & Holst

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  • bluestateprommer
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 3008

    #31
    JW's traversal of The Planets just finished. In another thread, someone applied the phrase "often dullish" to Sir Andrew Davis. I would actually apply that phrase more to John Wilson here (and elsewhere I've heard him with symphonic works, away from his more historical popular music fare with his own orchestra). Here, we got the notes and the suite fairly straight up, but honestly with very little in the way of personality - except at the very, very end, with the longest repeating fade-out of "Neptune, the Mystic' that I've ever heard with the work, live or Memorex. Kate Molleson said that the young ladies in the choir were hidden behind the organ loft, and I wonder if they were instructed to walk away from the hall and keep singing for as long as they could. Granted, The Planets is a sure-fire crowd-pleaser, and it would take a really bad conductor to screw it up. JW didn't screw it up, but neither did he illuminate anything new, at least for me (except, again, at the very close). Susanna Malkki at the her 2015 Proms Planets performance had much more personality and fire (perhaps a bit too much of the latter, speed-wise, in 'Mars'), and Edward Gardner guided the NYOGB with more gusto last year. For whatever reason, the orchestral sound of the BBC SSO here struck me as rather dry, certainly compared to the BBC SO and Sir Andrew last night, but in comparison with just about everything else so far on iPlayer this season (not least the Staatskapelle Berlin).

    (Granted, part of my animus may have to do with a past cheap jibe by JW about William Glock, as JW seems to have fallen for the false image of Glock as "force feeding awful, dissonant, ultra-modern music on unwilling audiences" as Proms Controller, without actually looking at the Proms Archive during the Glock years to read what Glock actually programmed during his controllership. For example, during each year of Glock's term, The Planets was featured. Actually, as the years went by, the first halves of the "Planets Proms" got more imaginative. fhg might appreciate that in the 1965 "Planets Prom" featured the Proms premiere of Michael Tippett's Piano Concerto. There are also works by Hugh Wood, Elisabeth Lutyens, and Iain Hamilton, among others.)

    BTW, the interval feature with Kate Kennedy and Tony Palmer, and Martin Handley as emcee, is excellent, IMHO, well worth a listen / re-listen.

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    • edashtav
      Full Member
      • Jul 2012
      • 3668

      #32
      I hope to write more of an apology to pastoralguy, later
      Meanwhile , just to note that tonight's announcer, Kate Molleson, was ideal, understated, company.

      Actually, I'll refrain from writing more, straightaway, as bluestateprommer has said it all, much more clearly than I could have done. I endorse post # 31... all that glitters may be gloss: JW has twin strengths: he finds and celebrates the tune and energises rhythms.

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      • pastoralguy
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 7738

        #33
        Originally posted by edashtav View Post
        I hope to write more of an apology to pastoralguy, later
        Meanwhile , just to note that tonight's announcer, Kate Mollinson, was ideal, understated, company.
        No need to apologise, edt. Just a natural defence for my ex colleagues...

        Comment

        • edashtav
          Full Member
          • Jul 2012
          • 3668

          #34
          Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
          No need to apologise, edt. Just a natural defence for my ex colleagues...
          I hadn't realised that you were the hornspieler of the north, pastoralguy!

          Comment

          • edashtav
            Full Member
            • Jul 2012
            • 3668

            #35
            don't miss bsp's final recommendation:

            "BTW, the interval feature with Kate Kennedy and Tony Palmer, and Martin Handley as emcee, is excellent, IMHO, well worth a listen / re-listen."

            not a fake discussion but a real battle of wits, memories and information.

            Comment

            • jayne lee wilson
              Banned
              • Jul 2011
              • 10711

              #36
              Fine, very moving, idiomatically true-to-the-darkening-spirit VW 9th... shame about the very end though, sounded like a misfire on the 2nd of the three last climaxes....? Very underpowered.
              Anyway - more from me later....

              Comment

              • BBMmk2
                Late Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 20908

                #37
                I enjoyed this Prom very much.
                Don’t cry for me
                I go where music was born

                J S Bach 1685-1750

                Comment

                • richardfinegold
                  Full Member
                  • Sep 2012
                  • 7654

                  #38
                  Reading this thread has made me envious. The probability of encountering RVW 9, or for that matter any RVW work outside of Talis, Greensleeves or Lark, in a Concert here is vey remote.

                  Comment

                  • jayne lee wilson
                    Banned
                    • Jul 2011
                    • 10711

                    #39
                    PROM 14. VAUGHN WILLIAMS SYMPHONY NO.9. BBCSSO/JOHN WILSON
                    RADIO 3 CONCERT SOUND LOSSLESS FEED.

                    This lossless Concert Sound webcast struck as me a little too self-contained, both spatially and dynamically, the BBCSSO perceived here as a very cohesive ensemble but, in the present acoustic & production, rather warm and dry. The dark sonorities were of course partly down to the dark orchestral palette of the symphony itself, and textural transparency was fine.
                    I felt this reading could have been projected with greater impact and vividness - those saxes in the scherzo could have been more sinister, the percussion spikier, and, in the remarkable final pages, the 2nd of the three last, Job-like visionary climaxes seemed to misfire - at least it sounded very underpowered. But it is a difficult hall to attune to, and the idiom, the accent, was true, the shaping of each melodic line faithful to this shadowy, troubled English spirit.

                    ****

                    And what a strangely turbulent, oddly mystical work it is. Having not heard it for several years I was struck by its recall of the darker moods and landscapes of Holst - Egdon Heath especially, but also of its evocation of that “haunted pastoral” characteristic, not just of Thomas Hardy, but of certain visionary painters, most obviously Samuel Palmer or of course William Blake.

                    A difficult, ambiguous piece to bring off, I found it very moving tonight. It truly spoke to me.
                    For all the slight limitations of this performance, the sombre, often uneasy, otherworldly colours and narrative of the work were very coherently presented, the tension building well into the last climactic sequence. To me it always feels like some Great Unknown Symphony, tragic yet mysterious, as it reaches into the very unknown itself, where all we have is a gloomy, or a hopeful, imagining.
                    The first movement is full of anger and tense, unanswered questions; the andante offers no respite, the scherzo no relief….the music seems full of hinted-recall and half-echo of earlier VW ideas and moods. But then the earlier part of the finale feels like a clearer backwards look, with reminiscences of the 6th (1st movement’s 3rd theme, the B minor tune later famous as the 1970s “A Family at War” series theme - never was a TV Theme more aptly chosen) and the natural trumpet elegy from the 3rd.
                    After an anguished struggle, the music exultantly frees itself through those three huge waves, a final release from the burden of memory, the pain and suffering of war and earthly existence. (You’ll forgive my elaborations about the work itself, a personal attempt to understand its troubling, so-characteristic distillations).
                    The only other symphony I can think of which does something similar is Bruckner’s 9th, in its restored finale. It always makes me think of the end of Baudelaire’s Le Voyage:

                    Ô Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps ! levons l'ancre !
                    Ce pays nous ennuie, ô Mort ! Appareillons !
                    Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre,
                    Nos coeurs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons !

                    Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous réconforte !

                    Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous brûle le cerveau,
                    Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe ?
                    Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau !

                    (O Death, old captain, it is time! Raise anchor!
                    This country bores us, Death! Make Ready!
                    If the sky and the sea are as black as ink,
                    Our hearts, which you know, are filled with sunbeams!

                    Pour us your poison to comfort us!
                    We long, so much this fire burns our brains,
                    To plunge into the depths of the gulf, Hell or heaven, who cares?
                    To find something new in the depths of the Unknown!)

                    from Penguin Book of French Verse 1977 (with minor modifications...)




                    Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 26-07-17, 20:46.

                    Comment

                    • pastoralguy
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2010
                      • 7738

                      #40
                      Odd you mentioning the 'Family at War' theme from the 6th symphony, Jayne. My parents had a 45rpm record of that 'bleeding chunk' played by the LSO under André Previn. Iirc, the coupling was the last movement of the 9th symphony.

                      Comment

                      • Goon525
                        Full Member
                        • Feb 2014
                        • 597

                        #41
                        Jayne
                        You refer to the sound as 'warm and dry'. These terms tend to be used as opposites. Could you expand, please?

                        Comment

                        • jayne lee wilson
                          Banned
                          • Jul 2011
                          • 10711

                          #42
                          Originally posted by Goon525 View Post
                          Jayne
                          You refer to the sound as 'warm and dry'. These terms tend to be used as opposites. Could you expand, please?
                          The sound lacked some space and resonance around the orchestra, whilst being fairly full, in the string section and midrange generally. The opposite of dry is wet of course . In acoustic terms, a lot of reverberation or resonance (i.e low sound absorption). Think of some of those close-up Cleveland/Szell recordings, where dynamic range and hall echo is restricted, but the orchestral sound is attractively warm and vibrant.

                          Opposed to warm, a cold sound is one that lacks fullness and richness, and often one with excessive resonance too. (Some Melodiyas in the Moscow Radio Large Hall, Bruckner recordings in cathedrals...etc.)
                          Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 27-07-17, 03:11.

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                          • EdgeleyRob
                            Guest
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 12180

                            #43
                            Lovely words Jayne (except the French bit at the end which is lost on me).
                            Yes I agree,I listened to those final E Major bursts over and over,the middle one just not quite on the money.
                            I think lots of questions about various things are answered in this work but I am unable to put those thoughts into words that would make sense to anyone else.
                            I was more impressed with the Planets than bsp seemed to be.
                            Can't help thinking this programme would have worked better with the Holst played first,18:30 is a very uncivilised time for RVW 9.

                            Comment

                            • jayne lee wilson
                              Banned
                              • Jul 2011
                              • 10711

                              #44
                              Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View Post
                              Lovely words Jayne (except the French bit at the end which is lost on me).
                              Yes I agree,I listened to those final E Major bursts over and over,the middle one just not quite on the money.
                              I think lots of questions about various things are answered in this work but I am unable to put those thoughts into words that would make sense to anyone else.
                              I was more impressed with the Planets than bsp seemed to be.
                              Can't help thinking this programme would have worked better with the Holst played first,18:30 is a very uncivilised time for RVW 9.
                              Sorry Edge, meant to do it, honest...! Translation now added.

                              Comment

                              • EdgeleyRob
                                Guest
                                • Nov 2010
                                • 12180

                                #45
                                Thanks Jayne

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