Prom 18 - 28.07.17: Sirens and Scheherazade

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  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20569

    Prom 18 - 28.07.17: Sirens and Scheherazade

    19:30 Friday 28 July 2017
    Royal Albert Hall

    Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Sea Hawk – overture
    Anders Hillborg: Sirens
    UK première
    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

    Hannah Holgersson soprano
    Ida Falk Winland soprano
    BBC Symphony Chorus
    BBC Symphony Orchestra
    James Gaffigan conductor


    James Gaffigan and the BBC Symphony Orchestra take you on a maritime journey from the exotic oceans of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade to the siren-filled waters of Homer's Odyssey as imagined by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg - with two Swedish sopranos and the BBC Symphony Chorus - and the stormy seas of Korngold's stirring film score for The Sea Hawk.
    Last edited by Eine Alpensinfonie; 25-07-17, 11:23.
  • Eine Alpensinfonie
    Host
    • Nov 2010
    • 20569

    #2
    I wished they'd programmed Korngold's King's Row overture, rather than The Sea Hawk to complement the Star Wars opening played last Thursday.

    Comment

    • EnemyoftheStoat
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 1131

      #3
      It would be appropriate if the audience were offered a choice of having their ears blocked with beeswax or being tied to their chairs.

      Comment

      • jayne lee wilson
        Banned
        • Jul 2011
        • 10711

        #4
        Hillborg's Sirens is a wonderfully evocative, sensuous piece, which I hope inhabits the spacious hall with its own haunting atmospheres... Part of this stunning Hillborg album....
        Detailed note...

        Comment

        • ferneyhoughgeliebte
          Gone fishin'
          • Sep 2011
          • 30163

          #5
          Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
          Hillborg's Sirens is a wonderfully evocative, sensuous piece, which I hope inhabits the spacious hall with its own haunting atmospheres... Part of this stunning Hillborg album....
          Detailed note...
          http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115...14_booklet.pdf
          The Hillborg will probably be the most interesting piece on the programme - there was a mini-chat on his work back in May when it featured on H&N - I'll copy that to this Thread starting with what I said back then:

          Anders Hillborg (b1954) has featured at the Proms a couple of times (Sakari Oramo presented Beast Sampler with the BBCSO in 2015, and Cold Heat was performed by Zinman and the Zurich Tonnhalle in 2011). I first heard his Liquid Marble at the Huddersfield CMF about twenty years ago - a sort of melding of Sibelius harmonic overlapping and Lutoslawskian textures (for some reason it kept reminding me of Riisager). The sort of thing that would appeal to large orchestras wanting to present quickly-assimilated and large-audience-friendly "contemporary Music" that doesn't take up too much time at the beginning of a concert.
          [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

          Comment

          • ferneyhoughgeliebte
            Gone fishin'
            • Sep 2011
            • 30163

            #6
            jlw then posted:

            Anders Hillborg's Eleven Gates is a great piece! Wide-ranging in its humour, imagined worlds and haunting atmospheres. You can read the detailed booklet notes here....(hit "album booklet")...


            I think this album (I especially love ​King Tide - a kind of 13-minute minimalist crescendo with an overwhelming climax) and the beautiful Sirens, also on BIS (a 32-minute choral/orchestral poem with texts from Homer), are the best things he's done..

            HIllborg likes to describe the orchestra as a "sound animal" and the ear is often drawn to the sounds of the natural world evoked within his music, the sea most of all. In fact the title Beast Sampler ​refers to the orchestra itself...
            [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

            Comment

            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
              Gone fishin'
              • Sep 2011
              • 30163

              #7
              To which I replied:

              Many thanks for that - and the work itself can be heard by anyone who doesn't know it via youTube:

              Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.


              For myself, I don't dislike Hillborg's Music,; indeed, I quite enjoy it in a passive sort-of way; ie without ever feeling any need to invest in recordings or any great excitement to investigate it much further. Having said that, I don't know either King Tide or Sirens, so I need to set aside a youTube session for the former:

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mod3GjYcRZ4
              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

              Comment

              • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                Gone fishin'
                • Sep 2011
                • 30163

                #8
                Prompting this response from Serial Apologist:

                Thanks, too!

                It's funny, and probably just me, but when the romantic gestures are brought into the previously alien landscape, however blendingly, they seem somehow like an interloper, and I'm missing the singable melodies that would substitute for whatever interesting directions one feels Ligeti or Takemitsu might have taken the music.
                [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                Comment

                • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                  Gone fishin'
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 30163

                  #9
                  I've done that awkward copy/quoting thing as a simple "Copy to Thread" editing would make the posts appear before Alpie's OT. Anyway, here's Esa-Pekka Salonen on the new work:

                  http://laphil.com/sirens - LA Phil Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen discusses the upcoming world premiere of the LA Phil-commissioned "Sirens" by Anders ...
                  [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                  Comment

                  • greenilex
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 1626

                    #10
                    There is a Family Workshop this evening before the Prom. Maybe aimed at a slightly older age-group than the one before Prom 3?

                    Anyway, should be worthwhile if the first was anything to go by. The teacher, whose name I still don't know, was excellent.

                    Comment

                    • oddoneout
                      Full Member
                      • Nov 2015
                      • 9139

                      #11
                      maritime journey from the exotic oceans of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade to the siren-filled waters of Homer's Odyssey as imagined by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg - with two Swedish sopranos and the BBC Symphony Chorus - and the stormy seas of Korngold's stirring film score for The Sea Hawk.
                      If played in the order listed then the journey doesn't start with the exotic oceans....Does anyone at the Beeb read what has been written before putting the blurbs on the web?

                      Comment

                      • jayne lee wilson
                        Banned
                        • Jul 2011
                        • 10711

                        #12
                        Wow...! The SeaHawk was an unexpected treat wasn't it?
                        Gorgeous playing from Gaffigan's BBC SO Glossy Hollywood Band...!
                        (10/10 for CS sound on that one...)

                        Comment

                        • BBMmk2
                          Late Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 20908

                          #13
                          Another Prom catch up for me. I am watching last Monday's Prom on BBC4 this evening.
                          Don’t cry for me
                          I go where music was born

                          J S Bach 1685-1750

                          Comment

                          • jayne lee wilson
                            Banned
                            • Jul 2011
                            • 10711

                            #14
                            Hillborg's Sirens was wonderfully well done, almost as lustrously beautiful, spacious and atmospheric as the hi-res BIS recording itself. Perhaps the sopranos were a little close (more aptly, ethereally balanced on the recording) but this wasn't a great problem in a finely-balanced, very spacious and dynamic CS webcast. I love the way the high chorus and upper strings dissolve into each other just before the end, like sky and sea blending indistinguishably at the horizon....

                            Marvellous boldly-projected performance of a seductively beautiful piece, whose spectralist-minimalist driftings, pulsations and atmospherics are very much to my taste. One that often seems to do so little, yet says so much. (To unstopped ears, at least...)

                            (More from me later, perhaps...but best half-Prom of the season so far)

                            (If I could choose.... Part Two tonight? The Sea by Skalkottas ...scarcely less catchy than the Rimsky and a lot saltier!)
                            Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 28-07-17, 20:18.

                            Comment

                            • EnemyoftheStoat
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 1131

                              #15
                              Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
                              Hillborg's Sirens was wonderfully well done, almost as lustrously beautiful, spacious and atmospheric as the hi-res BIS recording itself. Perhaps the sopranos were a little close (more aptly, ethereally balanced on the recording) but this wasn't a great problem in a finely-balanced, very spacious and dynamic CS webcast. I love the way the high chorus and upper strings dissolve into each other just before the end, like sky and sea blending indistinguishably at the horizon....

                              Marvellous boldly-projected performance of a seductively beautiful piece, whose spectralist-minimalist driftings, pulsations and atmospherics are very much to my taste. One that often seems to do so little, yet says so much. (To unstopped ears, at least...)

                              (More from me later, perhaps...but best half-Prom of the season so far)

                              (If I could choose.... Part Two tonight? The Sea by Skalkottas ...scarcely less catchy than the Rimsky and a lot saltier!)
                              Now that would have persuaded me to stay for part 2. Or what about The Return of Ulysses? That must be due a performance. Though a bit chewy.

                              Comment

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