Prom 17: Parry, Vaughan Williams & Holst – 27.07.18

[BBMmk2]

AND it's on the telly!

Blimey! Just as well I was sitting down there!

[mrbouffant]

Looking forward to this concert tonight!

I love the Parry anthem. To hear it in its orchestral garb will be a real treat. I wonder how often it has been done with orchestra since the first performance in Salisbury in 1894...

[Stanfordian]

I love Bredon Hill and also the Worcestershire Suite - WW2 and WWI as it were!

I don't know Milford's The Darkling Thrush but it sounds like it is based on Hardy?

There is Fritz Hart's 'Idyll' for violin and orchestra, Op. 169 (1949). London born Fritz Hart was one of several former RCM students to take advantage of colonial links by emigrating to Australia in 1908. Former Sir Charles Villiers Stanford pupils Edgar Bainton emigrated to Australia and William Henry Bell moved to South Africa.

[edashtav]

I love those BBC copywriters who inform us that “Hubert Parry (died 1918) was in many ways the father of contemporary English music, teaching both Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.” Tell it not abroad but those contemporaries have been dead for a joint 144 years despite RVW’s remarkable longevity. Perhaps, the choice of Holst’s “ Ode to Death” may send a belated message to those who labour in ignorance. How long must one be dead before ceasing to be ‘contemporary’?

[jayne lee wilson]

Always good to play The Innocent Ear - which is what I'll bring to Parry's 5th....a personal première....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I love those BBC copywriters who inform us that “Hubert Parry (died 1918) was in many ways the father of contemporary English music, teaching both Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.” Tell it not abroad but those contemporaries have been dead for a joint 144 years despite RVW’s remarkable longevity. Perhaps, the choice of Holst’s “ Ode to Death” may send a belated message to those who labour in ignorance. How long must one be dead before ceasing to be ‘contemporary’?

One Forumista described Schoenberg (who died 67 years ago) as an example of "contemporary Music" only a couple of days ago. He was talking about the Music Arnie was writing nearly 110 years ago, too!

[jayne lee wilson]

I wonder when the Pastoral will conclude?

There's a Solar Eclipse - the Blood Moon - from around 2100 - 2215.... does look a bit cloudy here though....

A three-way clash with Any Questions ..iplayer later for the latter at least....

[jonfan]

One Forumista described Schoenberg (who died 67 years ago) as an example of "contemporary Music" only a couple of days ago. He was talking about the Music Arnie was writing nearly 110 years ago, too!

Supposed to be irony Ferney.

[bluestateprommer]

CHHP's Symphony No. 5 just completed. The BBC NOW and Martyn Brabbins performed the work very well. However, none of it really stays in my memory, at least (the advocacy of Jeremy Dibble and HRH The Prince of Wales for Parry notwithstanding). Contrast this with the work about to start, where one bar of it is more memorable than the whole of the Parry, IMHO, to be quite honest.

Follow-up: just now, quite possibly the most spacious The Lark Ascending that I've ever heard, live or otherwise. It seemed more than a bit self-consciously spacious, notably where Brabbins subtly paced the orchestral tutti w/o soloist ever so slightly faster. However, she gently racheted (sp?) up the pulse likewise ever so slightly in her final solo passage, just as the orchestra faded out. TM dispatched the Francisco Tárrega encore (Recuerdos de la Alhambra; now archived in the Calendar) quite well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Supposed to be irony Ferney.

Indeed.

[Tony Halstead]

CHHP's Symphony No. 5 just completed. The BBC NOW and Martyn Brabbins performed the work very well. However, none of it really stays in my memory, at least (the advocacy of Jeremy Dibble and HRH The Prince of Wales for Parry notwithstanding). Contrast this with the work about to start, where one bar of it is more memorable than the whole of the Parry, IMHO, to be quite honest.

Follow-up: just now, quite possibly the most spacious The Lark Ascending that I've ever heard, live or otherwise. It seemed more than a bit self-consciously spacious, notably where Brabbins subtly paced the orchestral tutti w/o soloist ever so slightly faster. However, she gently racheted (sp?) up the pulse likewise ever so slightly in her final solo passage, just as the orchestra faded out. TM dispatched the Francisco Tárrega encore (Recuerdos de la Alhambra; now archived in the Calendar) quite well.

'Quite well'? That seems to damn with faint praise, IMV!
Tai Murray ( based on the evidence of tonight's performance) is a real talent to watch. I can honestly say that I have never before heard a perfornance of TLA that was so engaging and moving. The fact that, for much of the time she played 'chin-off', gave the resonance of her violin an extraordinary 'open' and 'ringing' tonal quality.
Playing the piece slower than many 'received' interpretations was certainly not a soft-option or 'cop out' as it actually makes it more difficult, for bowing reasons. A lovely performance!

[edashtav]

'Quite well'? That seems to damn with faint praise, IMV!
Tai Murray ( based on the evidence of tonight's performance) is a real talent to watch. I can honestly say that I have never before heard a perfornance of TLA that was so engaging and moving. The fact that, for much of the time she played 'chin-off', gave the resonance of her violin an extraordinary 'open' and 'ringing' tonal quality.
Playing the piece slower than many 'received' interpretations was certainly not a soft-option or 'cop out' as it actually makes it more difficult, for bowing reasons. A lovely performance!

I agree, Tony, this was a ‘contemporary’ interpretation that worked wonderfully well. I fear that the Concert , as a whole, had a surfeit of slow movements, but that was not Tai’s fault. I was entertained by her Tarrega encore but wondered whether it was the best choice in a concert dwelling on British music from the fifty years starting in the 1880s?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Enjoyed the Pastoral but if the horn played the reprise of the trumpet solo p non pp ending pp then I'm Bernard Haitink. Or was it over- enthusiastic microphone fader work ? That is such a magical moment - should be like the horn sounding through the mists though not reveille ...
Lovely soprano sound though .The last ten pages or so of the symphony ...the way the climax is undercut at the end..Truly magnificent.

[BBMmk2]

I thought rather moving when the solo trumpet player was plsying that what I cal off beat Last Post. Very moving.

The whole concert is.

[jayne lee wilson]

Extraordinary VW 3, I can't recall hearing it played with greater intensity than that, superbly controlled too..
It came across with vivid presence and immediacy via HDs here.

But then Brabbins, unstarry and unshowy as he is, is a remarkable artist. I admire almost everything I've heard from him.

(Still peering out, hoping for a break in the cloud...)