Prom 21 - 30.07.17: Beethoven – Symphony No. 9, ‘Choral’

[Bryn]

Wasn't there a fairly hefty increase in speed for the very final orchestral bars? Or is it written that way?

The final 21 bars are marked Prestisimo, with a fermata on the minim rest at the very end. (That's in my not too trusty 1955 Penguin score.)

[Bert Coules]

Thanks, Bryn. I must have heard too many performances where that instruction was either ignored or played down. It really took me by surprise tonight.

[Petrushka]

Wasn't there a fairly hefty increase in speed for the very final orchestral bars? Or is it written that way?

You should hear Furtwangler at this point: it's usually a mad, manic scramble for the finishing line! There's a 1951 VPO performance on CD that outdoes even that description.

[Bert Coules]

I'm familiar with Furtwängler's Wagner but I don't think I've ever heard any of his Beethoven. Thanks for the recommendation.

[jayne lee wilson]

Broadly in agreement with earlier comments...clearly, cleanly and lightly articulated through the first three movements, but with little variation of either pace or dynamics. The main climaxes (like the thunderous development/recap passage, "the flaming supernova explosion of the reprise" as Simpson called it) came over well (at least at the advanced volume setting I'd arrived at by then), but there wasn't any really quiet playing, so all three movements sounded oddly similar, a smooth uniformity without much dramatic tension or expressive differentiation. It sounded like a polished rehearsal run-through, largely on directorial auto-pilot....

But then the finale broke out, and with choral singing from the CBSO and BBCNOW Choruses both very clear and very loud , the performance finally came to life; even the orchestra played as if there were, at last, something at stake, some principle of joy and freedom beyond the music worth fighting for. Xian Zhang's pacing, and clarity of line and texture made it structurally very clear too.
So I have to give them that at least - the Ode to Joy came across via Concert Sound with tremendous dynamic impact and clarity in my room, very cleanly captured by the engineers tonight.

Just a shame that the other movements seemed so tamely preludial...

[vinteuil]

... That's in my not too trusty 1955 Penguin score....

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... my dad did the book-jacket for that...




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[cloughie]

Not specific to this Prom, but why do they keep trying to get us to listen to the Concert Sound option via headphones? I could understand it re. the binaural offerings but I would much prefer to listen to the Concert Sound via descent speakers.

An interesting angle Bryn - seems like a sonic downward slope!

[Bryn]

An interesting angle Bryn - seems like a sonic downward slope!

My phone predicted that might happen. Now de-"s"ed.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Re Colin Davis's 9ths, my memories seem to go back a little further than those so far mentioned, to 17/9/71, me in a school party, my very first prom, my first live 9th, just possibly the first time I'd heard it at all. Not a bad programme: Bach 2-violin concerto, Stravinsky Requiem Canticles, and the 9th (Kiri Te Kanawa, Anna Reynolds, Robert Dowd, Forbes Robinson). They don't make them like that any more

It all left a lasting impression, though oddly enough it was the RCs that left the deepest one. It had to be a deep one because I didn't hear the work again, even on R3, for about 30 years, but when I did the memories of its amazing sound-colours turned out to be pretty exact.

I've vented spleen on these boards a relatively recent recording which no doubt plays all the notes in the right order but fails to make the right noises And it's not just my no doubt fallible recollection of 1971, because oddly enough IS's own recording (OK, Robert Craft's) gets it exactly right!

[Petrushka]

Re Colin Davis's 9ths, my memories seem to go back a little further than those so far mentioned, to 17/9/71, me in a school party, my very first prom, my first live 9th, just possibly the first time I'd heard it at all. Not a bad programme: Bach 2-violin concerto, Stravinsky Requiem Canticles, and the 9th (Kiri Te Kanawa, Anna Reynolds, Robert Dowd, Forbes Robinson). They don't make them like that any more

It all left a lasting impression, though oddly enough it was the RCs that left the deepest one. It had to be a deep one because I didn't hear the work again, even on R3, for about 30 years, but when I did the memories of its amazing sound-colours turned out to be pretty exact.

I've vented spleen on these boards a relatively recent recording which no doubt plays all the notes in the right order but fails to make the right noises And it's not just my no doubt fallible recollection of 1971, because oddly enough IS's own recording (OK, Robert Craft's) gets it exactly right!

I listened to that Prom on the radio and Davis conducted the 9th on quite a few occasions in those years. Really don't know what happened in 1999 but it just never took wing that night.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The final 21 bars are marked Prestisimo, with a fermata on the minim rest at the very end. (That's in my not too trusty 1955 Penguin score.)

- the same in my Editio Musica Budapest copy, edited in 1982 by Gabor Darvas from the first publication of 1826 - albeit with a significantly inferior book jacket to the Penguin edition.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

- the same in my Editio Musica Budapest copy, edited in 1982 by Gabor Darvas from the first publication of 1826 - albeit with a significantly inferior book jacket to the Penguin edition.

But I suspect there is actually a piccolo part in your score.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

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... my dad did the book-jacket for that...

Wow!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But I suspect there is actually a piccolo part in your score.

(Did Arthur Jacob miss it out of the Penguin edition?)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You should hear Furtwangler at this point: it's usually a mad, manic scramble for the finishing line! There's a 1951 VPO performance on CD that outdoes even that description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSfZQEWDBCQ

The Prestissimo marking - and at alla breve, too - is the fastest tempo in the entire work, so Furtwangler's decisions are partly responsive to Beethoven's score; the accelerandi aren't, however. A pity that the recordings don't cope with the Live sound: about the only time I ever wish there'd been a touch of the Studio 8h involved!