Prom 9: War & Peace - 21.07.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Eriks Esenvalds: Shadow
Benjamin Britten: Sinfonia da Requiem
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No 9 in D minor, 'Choral'

Erin Wall soprano
mezzo-soprano
Russell Thomas tenor
Franz-Josef Selig baritone
BBC Proms Youth Choir
World Orchestra for Peace
Simon Halsey conductor
Donald Runnicles conductor


In the centenary year of the end of the First World War, the World Orchestra for Peace - founded by Georg Solti as an expression of international musical harmony - returns to the Proms with one of classical music's most potent statements of brotherhood and fellowship, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Composed in the shadow of the Second World War, Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem adds its own emotive warning against war. The concert opens with a new, First World War-themed work by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, commissioned for the talented young singers of the BBC Proms Youth Choir.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not sure who is conducting what.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not sure who is conducting what.

Nor I - but the Esenvalds is described on the composer's website as "commissioned for the BBC Proms Youth Choir", so I suspect that it's an a capella piece, for which Mr Halsey will be in sole charge.

[Darkbloom]

The Runnicles 9th may be worth hearing. He's someone I have grown to appreciate more over the years.

[bluestateprommer]

I'm not sure who is conducting what.

Halsey is conducting the Ešenvalds, while "good Donald" (....) will conduct the Britten and Beethoven. The RAH entry is much clearer on this than the BBC Proms entry. So does the Forum Calendar entry, where I do all this searching and manual data entry for a reason ;) .

[PhilipT]

Just got home after this. I liked the Ešenvalds - definitely the best world premiere I've heard this week (out of three). Was looking forward to hearing Runnicles do B9 and he did not disappoint. I thought the choir and orchestra did well, but could not say the same for the lady soloists. I look forward to reading the opinions of others here.

[Rcartes]

Terrific concert

Just got home after this. I liked the Ešenvalds - definitely the best world premiere I've heard this week (out of three). Was looking forward to hearing Runnicles do B9 and he did not disappoint. I thought the choir and orchestra did well, but could not say the same for the lady soloists. I look forward to reading the opinions of others here.

I've been often to hear the Choral Symphony at the Proms (we've been going for at least the last ten years, latterly in memory of my mother in law, who always enjoyed it so much) and I've heard a fair few indifferent performances. This was definitely not one of those: it was terrific. The first movement was more dramatic than I remember hearing it, tense yet very dynamic, the lovely woodwind solos in the second movement floated out gloriously, and the slow movement was meltingly beautiful. And the final movement was the best of all: despite indifferent, anonymous singing from tenor, soprano and mezzo it was superb, with orchestral playing and the choir wonderful.

I look forward to hearing it on the iPlayer to see if it was as good as we felt it was in the hall - and to hearing others' views.

[oddoneout]

Came in part way through the 3rd movement and very taken by the orchestral playing and then completely blown away(as I had rather expected) by the choir in the last movement. What a pity the soloists weren't up to it - the tenor in particular seemed to be singing a different work at times. Given the agility and accuracy of the choir I couldn't help thinking that the solo parts could have been better tackled by the SATB sections....
This isn't the first time that I have heard this work and thought the soloists were, at best, indifferent. Surely it can't be that difficult to find singers capable of singing what was written? The general level of collective excitement(performance, occasion, visuals) by that stage of the work probably covers up a fair amount of the inaccuracies for those in the venue, but much of that filter is absent when listening at home.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Given the agility and accuracy of the choir I couldn't help thinking that the solo parts could have been better tackled by the SATB sections....

This was certainly the case, too, with the Barenboim/East-West Devan Proms performance of the work a few years ago. A choir of young voices, singing joyfully and seemingly effortlessly the composer's "unsingable" lines - professional soloists sounding dire, ruining a performance that otherwise was as perfect as is possible for humans to expect.

This isn't the first time that I have heard this work and thought the soloists were, at best, indifferent. Surely it can't be that difficult to find singers capable of singing what was written?

You'd've thought so - but judging by the number of performances of the big choral works of the later 19th/Early 20th Centuries in which the soloists make a deplorable racket, it must not be so.

[Serial_Apologist]

Has Prokofiev's opera of this concert's title ever been put on at the Proms, anyone know?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Answer may be here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3SsklRvCSPvfHr13wgz6HCJ/proms-performance-archive

[Bryn]

Has Prokofiev's opera of this concert's title ever been put on at the Proms, anyone know?

Prom 63, 2003.

Never been done in Russian at a Prom though.

I probably have the DAB mp2 somewhere, but am not going searching for it right now.

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 9 PART 2; BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO.9. SOLOISTS/BBC PROMS YOUTH CHOIR/WOFP/RUNNICLES. R3 IPLAYER HDs.

With a clearly-defined orchestral profile, spaciously set in the RAH with superbly natural dynamics and soundbalancing, this 9th was magnificent in its first 2 movements. Beethoven’s 9th can be many things in 2018; here it was a full-bloodedly large-orchestral Romantic vision, but with a keenly-articulated swiftly-paced sense of symphonic direction - nothing overblown, fudged or approximate. The central cataclysm of the 1st movement was very powerful but not allowed to overwhelm the whole; the coda was impressive but equally proportionate. The pianissimos were equally true.

The scherzo wasn’t just hammered out undifferentiated; Runnicles made sure that climactic passages were truly that, more intense and more dynamic. Sharply articulated rhythms and flowing tempi again, right through the trio. Things were going very well!
But in the adagio, I could have done with greater delicacy, or at least more dynamic subtlety: more quiet from The Peace. Whilst beautifully played, it often seemed too loud and with fairly quick tempi, a little generalised. I wondered if any sound-balancer level-manipulation was going on but couldn't detect anything obvious as the orchestral volume reduced into the coda.

The finale became truly and quite wonderfully joyful as the great tune reached its apex, and the first choral entries had stunning power; I don’t go in for air-conducting much now, but was compelled to it here; I felt I was being drawn into something great.
But later in the movement the peak levels seemed to fall, especially on the bigger choral passages, leading to a very slightly anticlimactic final impression (the last three orchestral crashes didn’t disappoint though). Perhaps the sound-balancer found the earlier, tremendously powerful choral declamations a shade too “hot” and decided to play safe…? But I could turn the volume up a bit, so this didn’t spoil my deep involvement in the performance too much.

***

This Beethoven 9th really felt like a statement of vital human principle: we need its message more than ever as so many political forces seek to pull us apart, to set us against each other, argue and cavil and fight; yet it had, too, the feel of a universal, spiritually generous, cosmic event; reminding us of our modest responsibilities - to ourselves and to the planet - in a mysterious, probably arbitrary, grander evolution.

“…..to prove
our almost-instinct almost true;
What will survive of us is love.”
(Philip Larkin)

[Barbirollians]

I wish they would put the Ninth back to its old place on the penultimate night.

[jonfan]

Glorious dark colours from this orchestra with a lot of weight but no loss of delicate expression, especially in the Britten which was given a great performance. For me the stars of the night were the choir which gave EE’s Longfellow poem of childhood angst the authentic passion which only a choir of young people could achieve. What accurate, fearless singing in the Beethoven with the sopranos scaling the heights to the end plus great weight and belief from the whole chorus. How about this choir and the NYO doing a Ninth? Some ragged ensemble from the orchestra in the final movement which goes to prove that knowing your orchestra colleagues really well can match an orchestra of relative strangers put together with little rehearsal, no matter how brilliant each player is and how noble the cause.