Prom 58 - 27.08.17: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Louis Langrée

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:45 Sunday 27 August 2017
Royal Albert Hall

Leonard Bernstein: On the Waterfront – symphonic suite
Aaron Copland: Lincoln Portrait
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5 in E minor

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra
Louis Langrée conductor

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra makes its Proms debut with Music Director Louis Langrée, bringing works by two celebrated American composers. Bernstein's symphonic suite drawn from his soundtrack to On the Waterfront is a cinematic journey through the docks and slums of post-war New Jersey, telling the story of one man's heroic fight against corruption and intimidation. In a year in which America has inaugurated a new president, Copland's Lincoln Portrait offers a musical homage to another. Lincoln's greatest speeches are set against a stirring orchestral tone-poem: America in music. The climax of the concert is another passionate statement of musical nationalism: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The climax of the concert is another passionate statement of musical nationalism: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5.

Pardon !?

[pastoralguy]

They are playing in Edinburgh on Friday with Brahms 1 in the second half. Is Charles Dance narrating the Copland?

[Serial_Apologist]

Pardon !?

When they write this stuff, I wonder what they're ON???

[bluestateprommer]

They are playing in Edinburgh on Friday with Brahms 1 in the second half. Is Charles Dance narrating the Copland?

Yes, he is:

https://www.eif.co.uk/news/2017/actor-charles-dance-join-cincinnati-symphony-orchestra-concert

[BBMmk2]

Pardon !?

Such drivel the BBC writes these days! Nationalism, my foot!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Such drivel the BBC writes these days! Nationalism, my foot!

The real drivel is written by the headliner on Radio 3's Facebook page. That's the worst publicity that Radio 3 could ever get. The "starters" aren't fit for CBeebies.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Such drivel the BBC writes these days! Nationalism, my foot!

Ooh, I dunno .... there're probably some listeners who hear the Introduction to the last Movement and imagine hoards of Cossacks inexorably advancing on a peasant village!

[edashtav]

Ooh, I dunno .... there're probably some listeners who hear the Introduction to the last Movement and imagine hoards of Cossacks inexorably advancing on a peasant village!

Indeed, ferney, an early commentator, "chorister", trilled that such moments were "in Russian 'Khaki': barbaric and bellicose".

To return to the Beeb's "musical nationalism", there has been a suggestion that the symphony's leitmotif is based on a Polish death-song. Were that to be true, the Symphony could be nicknamed "2nd Polish" or " Little Polish" (as it's shorter than no. 3). So much for nationalism.

[PhilipT]

Ooh, I dunno .... there're probably some listeners who hear the Introduction to the last Movement and imagine hoards of Cossacks inexorably advancing on a peasant village!

You mean someone's been saving them up?

[richardfinegold]

Ooh, I dunno .... there're probably some listeners who hear the Introduction to the last Movement and imagine hoards of Cossacks inexorably advancing on a peasant village!

It definitely sounds like it was a Russian Composer; I would never mistake it for the work of a Walloonian, for example.I don't think that it is meant to be a celebration of Russian-ness, which is what the ad blurb implies; for that we have Tchaikovsky 1812 (incongruously played by every American Orchestra on July 4th) or the (Pan Slavic) Slavonic Marche.
Tchaikovsky couldn't not sound Russian. I am always amused when I read that he was under attack from the Mighty Handful for sounding to European. What did they require; vodka dripping from the notes on the paper?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Between 8 and 9am on Today Radio 4 this morning they had a piece about the orchestra performing it at Edinburgh with Charles Dance. Don't think it referenced the Proms but I was sleepy - amazing if "BBC Music at the BBC Proms" missed an opportunity to push the forthcoming "BBC Prom".....

It started with a recording featuring Maya Angelou (I mean, so many of the other recordings feature WASP males uttering Lincoln's words.....). She was speaking like a recording of an audiobook, and the voice was drowned by the orchestral sound. No doubt they were not in each others' presence and it was dreadful mastering of the recording to blame.

I was similarly disappointed to hear Zeb Soames playing the Voice of God in a broadcast of Noye's Fludde at an Aldeburgh performance - read it like it was the shipping forecast and completely failed to rise to the occasion. (My favourite was a Welsh lecturer who had trained his voice by also coaching at the local swimming club....).

These pieces need a trained actor (or even singer) with a suitable declamatory voice - SURELY ! (Whatever their gender or ethnicity).

[BBMmk2]

Charles Dance, I see is the narrator, in Copland's A Lincoln Portrait!!

[pastoralguy]

Charles Dance, I see is the narrator, in Copland's A Lincoln Portrait!!

We are just about to leave to hear their Edinburgh Festival concert". We're going to try to resist the urge to shout 'LOCK THE LOO DOOR' when Mr. Dance appears on stage! (Only kidding!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was similarly disappointed to hear Zeb Soames playing Noah in a broadcast of Noye's Fludde at an Aldeburgh Festival performance - read it like it was the shipping forecast and completely failed to rise to the occasion. (My favourite was a Welsh lecturer who had trained his voice by also coaching at the local swimming club....).

Are you sure it wasn't the Voice of God he was playing? That's a speaking part,