Prom 18 - 28.07.17: Sirens and Scheherazade

[edashtav]

Hillborg's Sirens was wonderfully well done, almost as lustrously beautiful, spacious and atmospheric as the hi-res BIS recording itself. [...]
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.
[...] best half-Prom of the season so far

Yes, I, too, was beguiled and bewitched by Hillborg's crafty admixture of several schools of composition. His blend had sufficient personality to be given a name: Spectral Sirenity? The performance was masterly, as was that of Scheherazade in the second half. The section leaders of the BBCSO (plus a few hirelings) queued up to complement each other's beauty of line, articulation and rubato. I heard the piece with fresh ears, and stayed on to love it to the end. Full marks to the young conductor: James Gaffigan.
Tonight's concert was the most luscious feast of music-making thus far during Proms 2017.

[gedsmk]

Tonight's concert was the most luscious feast of music-making thus far during Proms 2017.

Lucky me. In the hall for this one, my first of the season.

[jayne lee wilson]

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.

Wow, yes, I'd forgotten about that connection... only connect!
(Some contrast to the Sirens, THAT would be...)

One of the truly great unknowns, our Nikos... still it's good to have some secret pleasures left uncommodified...
(and there's a lot more orchestral music where the BIS series came from, even a "Classical Symphony", no kidding...)

[mrbouffant]

Some good playing here, but I felt Sirens to be overlong and certainly felt my attention wandering in the middle sections. For me, it would have worked better as a 15 minute piece - I didn't feel there was enough contrasting material to spin it out to half an hour.

Saying that, I took my 11 year old and he thoroughly enjoyed it and the rest of the programme.

Perhaps I was not the target audience - I'm the kinda guy who would have preferred to see Arnold's The Return of Odysseus programmed in a Prom like this!

[BBMmk2]

Some good playing here, but I felt Sirens to be overlong and certainly felt my attention wandering in the middle sections. For me, it would have worked better as a 15 minute piece - I didn't feel there was enough contrasting material to spin it out to half an hour.

Saying that, I took my 11 year old and he thoroughly enjoyed it and the rest of the programme.

Perhaps I was not the target audience - I'm the kinda guy who would have preferred to see Arnold's The Return of Odysseus programmed in a Prom like this!

Brilliant to hear how children react to contemporary classical music. And general reactions too.

[edashtav]

A concert programme of Korngold; Hillborg and Skalkottas? Cue BBC instruction to the Box Office " Please supply a free bottle of Retsina with each ticket." I'm an enthusiast for Skalkottas's later music but I realise that, like Retsina, it remains an acquired taste. It's twenty five years since Lebrecht "dissed" the Greek as 'a pupil of Schoenberg, who returned to Athens with a gospel no-one wanted to hear, played violin for a pittance and died at 45’. Since then the BBC has made him COTW, but Skalkottas has failed to become a "repertoire" composer.

I'm afraid that for the next 25 years Jayne Lee Wilson, Enemy... , and Ed must yell from every corner,
"Friends, Greeks, Countrymen, Lend us your ears ... please listen to this YouTube track of Skalkottas. You will love it!"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Korngold was great fun. The Hillborg ... well, I quite enjoyed it whilst it lasted: a bit of Gorecki's Third Symphony here (and Canteloube), a bit of Harmonium there, peppered with recollections of Lutoslawski and watered-down Carré. Nice sounds, well performed, glad I heard it - but not really the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night eager to listen again.

The Rimsky? Didn't listen - I prefer Ravel's arrangement for piano solo.

[edashtav]

. [...]

The Rimsky? Didn't listen - I prefer Ravel's arrangement for piano solo.

[edashtav]

I imagine that you consider the Belgian composer, Paul Gilson's, arrangement of Scheherazade to be more pianistic than Maurice Ravel's, ferney.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

A concert programme of Korngold; Hillborg and Skalkottas? Cue BBC instruction to the Box Office " Please supply a free bottle of Retsina with each ticket." I'm an enthusiast for Skalkottas's later music but I realise that, like Retsina, it remains an acquired taste. It's twenty five years since Lebrecht "dissed" the Greek as 'a pupil of Schoenberg, who returned to Athens with a gospel no-one wanted to hear, played violin for a pittance and died at 45’. Since then the BBC has made him COTW, but Skalkottas has failed to become a "repertoire" composer.

I'm afraid that for the next 25 years Jayne Lee Wilson, Enemy... , and Ed must yell from every corner,
"Friends, Greeks, Countrymen, Lend us your ears ... please listen to this YouTube track of Skalkottas. You will love it!"

Sorry, my tongue was further in cheek than was evident from that comment. The Skalkottas that would work in the concert hall nowadays is his Greek Dances; really good encore material, but no, we get the bleedin' obvious lollipops time after time...

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The Korngold was great fun. The Hillborg ... well, I quite enjoyed it whilst it lasted: a bit of Gorecki's Third Symphony here (and Canteloube), a bit of Harmonium there, peppered with recollections of Lutoslawski and watered-down Carré. Nice sounds, well performed, glad I heard it - but not really the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night eager to listen again.

The Rimsky? Didn't listen - I prefer Ravel's arrangement for piano solo.

Górecki - of course! Not that I've ever heard G3 more than a couple of times but it explains why those slow chords were somehow familiar.

[edashtav]

Sorry, my tongue was further in cheek than was evident from that comment. The Skalkottas that would work in the concert hall nowadays is his Greek Dances; really good encore material, but no, we get the bleedin' obvious lollipops time after time...

Sorry, I was up a creek without a Greek paddle whilst your tongue was being cheeky, Enemy.... The Greek Dances are to Skalkottas what 3 Hungarian Songs are to Matyas Seiber. I once lived with a landlady who had been bowled over by Panufnik's performance of a group of the Greek Dances in Brum Town Hall. Perhaps, we shan't see you knocking back the Retsina as you man the late Skalkottas barricades. Reckon it may now take forty years to get the real Skalkottas recognised. What a shame!

[edashtav]

Górecki - of course! Not that I've ever heard G3 more than a couple of times but it explains why those slow chords were somehow familiar.

Ferney is right: Gorecki is at the heart of so many Sorrowful Songs.

[jayne lee wilson]

Sorry, my tongue was further in cheek than was evident from that comment. The Skalkottas that would work in the concert hall nowadays is his Greek Dances; really good encore material, but no, we get the bleedin' obvious lollipops time after time...

Do you know the late Double-Violin Concerto, (the one left by NK for Violins/Piano) orch. by his devotee Kostis Demertzis? That could be a real barnstormer at a Prom (especially the riotous finale ), and The Sea is in Skalk's more tuneful popular, folksong sourced style so there's far more than the darker, earlier serialist compositions to bring the crowds in...(not that it should put anyone off, but well, you know..)

I wish I had more time to come back on the Hillborg, but if anyone heard the orchestral anthologies on the two Eleven Gates & Sirens albums, they'd understand better how he's created his own style and isn't just a compendium of influences, strong though the Adams and other echoes may often be. I feel it's an easy way out, listening to unfamiliar new music, to tick off the obvious influences and pass on, whereas if you listen repeatedly their originality - how they've used and transformed any influences in the way great music always has - comes out much more strongly....

I listened back last night to Beast Sampler, King Tide and O dessa ögon, there's a truly distinctive voice (or voices) in there, way beyond spectralist/minimalist input from earlier creators... And King Tide - a sort of 13-minute crescendo with an overwhelming climax - is stunningly beautiful music, one of the great nature poems to follow those of Sibelius, Nielsen, Sumera on so on...
Remember he calls the orchestra a "sound animal" so Beast Sampler is just what it says - a writhing index of possibilities....

Far more to say but - there's a substantial Prom ahead tonight (Haydn at last, hooray) and various domestic duties to attend to....
(I might get half a mug of consommé if I'm lucky...)

[bluestateprommer]

Some good playing here, but I felt Sirens to be overlong and certainly felt my attention wandering in the middle sections. For me, it would have worked better as a 15 minute piece - I didn't feel there was enough contrasting material to spin it out to half an hour.

Saying that, I took my 11 year old and he thoroughly enjoyed it and the rest of the programme.

From just one hearing of it, I can kind of understand your reaction. In terms of sound, the Hillborg is generally enjoyable and written in an "audience-friendly idiom", as expressed by the warm applause afterwards. I'll mentally note to give it another listen later.

JG's interpretation of Scheherazade was rather relaxed in pace in more than one place, not that there's anything wrong with that when the piece is such an enjoyable orchestral wallow-feast (albeit with a very misogynist dramatic premise, even if in the end, Scheherazade wins). The finale came off best, IMHO. Also need to give credit where credit is due to the guest concertmaster / leader and Scheherazade for the evening, Sarah Christian, who is one of the three concertmasters of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen:

https://kammerphilharmonie.com/en/109-english/orchestra/the-musicians/492-sarah-christian-2

In an ideal world, it shouldn't mean anything sociologically, but it occurred to me that I can't recall ever hearing a recording or a live performance of Scheherazade where a female violinist took the lead role, until this Prom.

Nice Hollywood start to the Prom, as JLW noted, with the EWK, although perhaps JG might have cut loose a bit more with a bit more swagger; pacing seemed slightly stiff in moments. But it's good clean fun to start the evening.