Prom 24 - 2.08.17: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts John Adams

[Simon B]

http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical...formance-adams

I'm still waiting for someone to mention...that violin concerto....

Try as I might I still can't place it. However, that initial woodwind theme sounds to me like a near direct quote from Ein Heldenleben for several bars and has ever since I first heard it! Given that sizeable chunks of Strauss seem to me to have been woven into act III of Nixon in China it doesn't seem implausible. Though perhaps I'm just hearing things... Again...

The Adams was the most impressive orchestral playing this season so far that I've heard - standing ovations from the otherwise seated are fairly rare beasts at the Proms and this one was earned. The hall didn't look that empty to me - I've seen worse by some distance. As noted above, the Philharmonia somehow projects sound into the RAH barn as only a few big orchestras seem able - the LPO and the LSO often being the others, confirmed every year.

[jayne lee wilson]

Try as I might I still can't place it. However, that initial woodwind theme sounds to me like a near direct quote from Ein Heldenleben for several bars and has ever since I first heard it! Given that sizeable chunks of Strauss seem to me to have been woven into act III of Nixon in China it doesn't seem implausible. Though perhaps I'm just hearing things... Again...

The Adams was the most impressive orchestral playing this season s o far that I've heard - standing ovations from the otherwise seated are fairly rare beasts at the Proms and this one was earned. The hall didn't look that empty to me - I've seen worse by some distance. As noted above, the Philharmonia somehow projects sound into the RAH barn as only a few big orchestras seem able - the LPO and the LSO often being the others, confirmed every year.

OK - got the start of Naive & Sentimental in your head, right now...? (Well if not go and play it again) You'll kick yourself....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr0Vg24lKQQ

The experience of music over time, one's evolving relationship to it, always fascinates me. When I first heard N&S last weekend off of the LAPO CD, I didn't like it much, the 1st movement seemed overlong and simplistic and so on, and I recalled how, when I bought it on its release I never took to it, soon put it on the shelf and didn't revisit it much...
After a few playings, and then the Prom, I'd become so fond of it I found myself ordering more of the John Adams I hadn't kept up with, like the Scheherazade.2, Dharma at Big Sur, Absolute Jest...
I'm in the middle of a personal John Adams season now! (If you don't know Guide to Strange Places, do check it out. Quite something!)

Incidentally I did revisit the Prom performance of the Adams via HDs/iPlayer and - live impressions overwhelmingly confirmed! Wonderful music, wonderfully performed!

[jayne lee wilson]

This truly excellent concert repeats today (Live stream, so Concert Sound available...) at 1600 hrs...!

[Simon B]

OK - got the start of Naive & Sentimental in your head, right now...? (Well if not go and play it again) You'll kick yourself....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr0Vg24lKQQ [/I]

:kickselfemoji:

Well, it's obvious. In hindsight. Though I still maintain it also sounds like a bit of Heldenleben

FWIW, I was at the London Premier of N+SM (in 2001 I'm horrified to learn from the Proms archive - - how did 16 years happen?!) cond. Adams himself, and recall it not really making any lasting impression. Much harder to get hold of initially than, say, Harmonielehre or Nixon.

More recently I downloaded that LAPO recording and again it didn't really register much apart from a few of those characteristic motoric accumulation sections. These were just enough to cause me to revisit it a few times. Six or seven listens later, parts of it had become earworms to the point that I was waking up at 4am and realising it was going around in my head in my sleep. After that I had to make a deliberate effort not to listen again until the concert so as to cling on to remaining tattered shards of sanity... Definitely a work which repays a little persistence IMO. Though obviously it would drive Adams' many detractors to distraction in a different way. Horses for courses and all that...

[bluestateprommer]

Very fine rendition from MC of the Ravel. Interesting to hear that E-PS asked for MC, for this Prom, after a Chicago Symphony concert a few seasons back. This is the CSO program for that concert:

https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/ProgramNotes_Salonen_Conducts_Ravel.pdf

Don't know if rf attended this concert in Chicago. As luck would have it, I did.

I had tickets to the Friday, May 15 Concert, but I wound up having Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery that day. I'd forgotten about the Concert, as you might imagine...how was it?

Sorry about the medical emergency that day, but obviously it went well. That CSO concert was very good. I went mainly for the Ravel in the 2nd half, figuring that it would be my one chance to hear it live, but the bonus of hearing the rarely heard Debussy cantata in the 1st half certainly added nice icing to the cake. Back to the Ravel opera: within the extreme limits of using just the front of the platform as the 'stage', the singers managed to incorporate just enough stage business to liven up the proceedings. At the start, Chloé Briot stood from her chair, and started to swagger about in "spoiled brat" mode, getting some chuckles from the audience, and giving dirty looks all around. The one slight misfire was that EP-S started with the 2 high oboes while people were still laughing, as the sheer magic of the two high oboes is ruined with background noise. But things settled down pretty promptly, and started up later, for example, in the Teapot number, where Manuel Nuñez Camelino did some "put up your dukes" boxing moves with Briot, shuffling back and forth along the stage. One other funny moment later was when Stéphane Degout, about to start his Tomcat number, rubbed his head against Briot's arm, which got a priceless eye-popping "whaaaa??????" facial expression from CB in response. I managed to find a seat after intermission in the center orchestra level, something like 10 or rows back, so it was fun to see the facial expressions up close.

I gave the Ravel song cycle from this Philharmonia Prom another listen (partly because a phone call interrupted me at work - some colleagues have no couth, it seems). It confirmed my first excellent impression of the performance from MC.