Prom 74 - 8.09.17: Vienna Philharmonic – Brahms, Mozart and Beethoven

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  • David-G
    Full Member
    • Mar 2012
    • 1216

    #61
    Originally posted by Cockney Sparrow View Post
    One might be forgiven they are trying to encourage us to support the digital switch over - I do hope they never get to force us to jettison our battery efficient portable FM radios.
    (Desperately trying to drag the discussion away from politicians...) I couldn't agree more. Just wish though that FM quality was as good as in the good old days.

    Comment

    • makropulos
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 1669

      #62
      Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
      They may not play much British music, but when they do, they do it well. Two years ago, they played Elgar's Dream of Gerontius as though they'd been performing it all their lives.
      Beautiful as it is (and what a lovely performance), it's quite a stretch to consider Delius's "Cuckoo" as "British music" at all. The main tune is Norwegian - Delius borrowed it wholesale from Grieg's Norwegian Folk Songs Op. 66 (No. 14), the cuckoo was one he heard in Grez-sur-Loing (no doubt similar to the one about which he wrote to Heseltine a couple of years later also from Grez), the score was first published in Cologne, and the premiere was given by the Hungarian Arthur Nikisch with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. None of that makes it any less marvellous, of course. I don't know about the Vienna PO and "Cuckoo" (the Musikverein concert archive starts in 1948, which is frustrating), but in 1911 they played the Mass of Life and there's a recording of Barbirolli doing the Walk to Paradise Garden with the orchestra in 1947. One of Delius's main publishers was the great Viennese firm of Universal Edition (though not of Cuckoo) and it would be surprising for there not to have been a few performances of his works by the orchestra. Incidentally, the first performance anywhere of the Cello Concerto took place in Vienna in 1923 (before Beatrice Harrison played it) - a mark of just what an international figure Delius was.

      Comment

      • cloughie
        Full Member
        • Dec 2011
        • 22113

        #63
        Originally posted by Barbirollians View Post
        I think Jezza is actually a classical buff unlike Blair before him .
        ...and being a liitle older than Blair maybe was exposed to more Classical music in his formative years!

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        • ferneyhoughgeliebte
          Gone fishin'
          • Sep 2011
          • 30163

          #64
          Originally posted by cloughie View Post
          ...and being a liitle older than Blair maybe was exposed to more Classical music in his formative years!
          Not necessarily whilst at school - he went to Adams' Grammar School at the same time as ... Simon Bates.
          [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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          • cloughie
            Full Member
            • Dec 2011
            • 22113

            #65
            Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
            Not necessarily whilst at school - he went to Adams' Grammar School at the same time as ... Simon Bates.
            ...and for all we know Simon Bates' broad taste in music encompasses Classical - you are making assumptions ferney!

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            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
              Gone fishin'
              • Sep 2011
              • 30163

              #66
              Originally posted by cloughie View Post
              ...and for all we know Simon Bates' broad taste in music encompasses Classical - you are making assumptions ferney!
              Yup - I'm assuming this:

              Back in the 1980's Radio 1 had a morning DJ called Simon Bates, who, every morning in the week, would read out a letter from a listener, sometimes happy and ...
              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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              • Darkbloom
                Full Member
                • Feb 2015
                • 706

                #67
                Originally posted by cloughie View Post
                ...and for all we know Simon Bates' broad taste in music encompasses Classical - you are making assumptions ferney!
                I'm pretty sure he used to be a presenter on Classic FM, so as to the question whether Bates has any interest in classical music, the answer is presumably 'no'.

                Comment

                • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                  Gone fishin'
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 30163

                  #68
                  Originally posted by Darkbloom View Post
                  I'm pretty sure he used to be a presenter on Classic FM, so as to the question whether Bates has any interest in classical music, the answer is presumably 'no'.
                  [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                  Comment

                  • teamsaint
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 25192

                    #69
                    Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                    Not necessarily whilst at school - he went to Adams' Grammar School at the same time as ... Simon Bates.
                    .... and at the same time as R. Choon ?....
                    I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

                    I am not a number, I am a free man.

                    Comment

                    • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                      Gone fishin'
                      • Sep 2011
                      • 30163

                      #70
                      Originally posted by teamsaint View Post
                      .... and at the same time as R. Choon ?....
                      - took me a couple of seconds!
                      [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                      Comment

                      • Nick Armstrong
                        Host
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 26522

                        #71
                        Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                        - took me a couple of seconds!
                        It's taken me a couple of hours and I still haven't got there....
                        "...the isle is full of noises,
                        Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                        Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                        Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                        Comment

                        • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                          Gone fishin'
                          • Sep 2011
                          • 30163

                          #72
                          Originally posted by Caliban View Post
                          It's taken me a couple of hours and I still haven't got there....
                          "R Choon" - "Our Tune" (a regular feature on Mr Bates' R1 programme). Always seemed to be playing whenever I went for a haircut in my teens. ("Sadly, Doris died on their honeymoon, but Darren always thinks of her whenever he hears Mrs Mills' Party Special") Fond memories.

                          (Of the necessity for haircuts ... not R Choon.)
                          [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                          Comment

                          • Nick Armstrong
                            Host
                            • Nov 2010
                            • 26522

                            #73
                            Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                            "R Choon" - "Our Tune" (a regular feature on Mr Bates' R1 programme).
                            Ah, you comfort me. Never heard / heard of it!
                            "...the isle is full of noises,
                            Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                            Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                            Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                            Comment

                            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                              Gone fishin'
                              • Sep 2011
                              • 30163

                              #74
                              Originally posted by Caliban View Post
                              Ah, you comfort me. Never heard / heard of it!


                              The schmalzy theme from Zeffirreli's Romeo & Juliet (linked in #66) simpered away in the background of thousands of stories of love, loss, and (sometimes) triumph over the years.
                              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                              Comment

                              • PhilipT
                                Full Member
                                • May 2011
                                • 422

                                #75
                                Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
                                .

                                ... we went to this Prom. Mme v claims not to have a musical bone in her body (not true); I really hoped that a live experience of the Viennese Phil wd be something magical. We had excellent stall seats (tho' the noisy presence of a pompous disgraced former tory politician nearby was not conducive to anything... )

                                Very disappointed. The Brahms bland and never took off; the Mozart all a bit fumbly and uninspired (tho' the Schubert encore was charming). I really disliked the Beethoven 7. The second and third movements were nice enuff after a rather lacklustre first; but the fourth I found really awful - it just came over as a repetitive onslaught, and the insistent aggressive blare of the trumpet crassly over-riding the rest of the orchestra was physically unpleasant. The Delius encore was nice enough, if you like Delius.

                                A great shame. Mme v kindly said that she had found the whole experience "enjoyable" - but I so wish her first experience of such great music with notionally such a great orchestra had been truly sublime. The tickets (we were guests) must have cost hundreds of pounds. The best parts of the evening were the walk across Kensington Gardens to get there, and Ax's little Schubert encore.



                                .
                                I can't connect with this view, and I am left wondering whether we were at the same concert. Yes, the Mozart was uninspired. Ax's encore was pleasant enough - I did not know it was Schubert until I started reading here - but not much more. I liked the Brahms, and was stunned by the musicianship of the orchestra during the Beethoven. I'm with EA - this is how it should be played. I thought I knew the piece well but the details of how each instrument contributes to the whole came across in a way I've not experienced before.

                                I missed the Delius, having been posted to hold a bucket at Door 9 (where one of my donors was a woman I first met when we both undergraduates - ouch!).

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