Proms at … The Roundhouse - 21.07.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

15:00
Roundhouse, Camden

Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question
Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1947 version)
Olivier Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum


Susan Bickley
London Sinfonietta
Conductor Sir George Benjamin

The Proms returns to Camden's Roundhouse - a former railway engine shed reinvented as a spectacular contemporary space - with a programme of 20th- and 21st-century works.

Composer-conductor George Benjamin directs new-music specialists, the London Sinfonietta - celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - in a concert that continues our series marking 100 years since the end of the First World War.

Alongside a quartet of war-themed premieres (co-commissioned with 14-18 NOW), the programme features Stravinsky's homage to Debussy, the elegant Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Messiaen's monumental tribute to the dead of both world wars, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, and Charles Ives's The Unanswered Question, whose haunting solo trumpet famously raises 'the perennial question of existence'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Roundhouse.
Never been there.

Wasn't this Pierre Boulez's favourite haunt?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Alongside a quartet of war-themed premieres (co-commissioned with 14-18 NOW),

This puzzled me for a while. The four premieres included in the programme are:

Georg Friederich Haas(b1953): the last minutes of inhumanity
Hannah Kendall(b1984): Verdala
Isabel Mundry(b1963): Gefallen
Luca Francesconi(b1956): We Wept

... each piece billed to take 5 minutes.

[VodkaDilc]

The Roundhouse.
Never been there.

Wasn't this Pierre Boulez's favourite haunt?

It was used for some of the Proms in the early 70s. I was fortunate enough to have taken part in the televised (and often repeated) Prom where Boulez conducted Ligeti. The crockery smashing scene often crops up on programmes about Boulez. It was/is a nice venue; almost a mini-RAH.

[Bryn]

It was used for some of the Proms in the early 70s. I was fortunate enough to have taken part in the televised (and often repeated) Prom where Boulez conducted Ligeti. The crockery smashing scene often crops up on programmes about Boulez. It was/is a nice venue; almost a mini-RAH.

Also, in 1972, a spectacular performance of the Cage/Hiller HPSCHD, the broadcast of which started after the performance had got under way. Seven luminaries of contemporary keyboard playing were positioned within the performance space with plenty of room for the Promming audience to move around between them. Meanwhile the computer generated aspect of the music eminated from speakers throughout the Round House, and a wide variety of images were projected onto numerous screen, also distributed throughout the venue.




The guy in the berret is Harvey Matusow, who organised the ICES event of which the Prom was part.

[bluestateprommer]

Sterling work from the London Sinfonietta, Susan Bickely, and Sir George B. in this Roundhouse Prom (also a venue that I've never been to, but then it would be more difficult for me [well, duh]). Of the new works, granted that I've only heard them once, the G.F. Haas seemed to make the strongest impression on a 1st hearing. Hannah Kendall's work started fine, but then seemed to turn to a second brew from The Spark Catchers some time back at The Proms. It was nice that Isabel Mundry and Luca Francesconi were present to talk about their works (even granted that they had to deal with Tom Service), where in particular, IM was quirkily charming with her endearingly fractured English. I need to give the new works another listen when I can make the time.

BTW, if one is wondering why certain obscure works don't get programmed at The Proms, the lack of discussion on this thread, where only the Ives and Stravinsky are anything close to "popular" works on the program, is one manifestation of the answer as to why. Look at the number of clicks on this thread, and compare to Jacob Collier or BBC Young Musician at 40, and again, there's your answer.