Prom 25: Tchaikovsky, Glinka & Joby Talbot – 2.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:00
Royal Albert Hall

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka: Summer Night in Madrid (Spanish Overture No 2)
Joby Talbot: Guitar Concerto - BBC commission: world première
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker – Act 1

Miloš Karadaglić guitar
Finchley Childrens Music Group ensemble
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Vedernikov conductor

Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić is the soloist in a new concerto written especially for him by Joby Talbot. Taking inspiration from Karadaglić's Montenegrin heritage, Talbot's typically rhythmic piece incorporates Balkan dances into its propulsive flow.

Dance also runs through both Glinka's heat-soaked Summer Night in Madrid, accompanied by pulsing castanets, and the expansive waltzes of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, whose complete Act 1 is here performed for the first time at the Proms.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If we must have "bleeding chunks", I prefer having an entire act to "selections from", or even to the Nutcracker Suite. Sumptuous orchestral writing, even by Tchaikovsky's standards.

[jayne lee wilson]

All very pleasantly diverting so far.... a genuinely warm, Russian sound to the BBCSO strings in the Glinka, the promise of which I hope the unseasonal Nutcracker fulfils...

A soothing, glittering divertissement of a Guitar Concerto - I guess I was in the mood for some light music - but with some darker shades behind the moonlit trees.... could the fast final section have been played with a bit more grip and excitement? I might give it another go later.

[jayne lee wilson]

Wasn’t that fabulous? Adorable!

After such wonderfully vivid musical storytelling, with all the pathos, playfulness, mystery, and grandeur one could wish, it would be hard to find superlatives enough to describe the orchestral response in The Nutcracker Act 1 tonight.

In Memoriam Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, and so colourful, bright, pert and alert was the sound Vedernikov drew from the BBCSO it might have been Rozh himself on the podium. What strikingly rich and characterful winds!

I couldn’t pick a highlight out - the whole performance, never putting those dancing feet wrong, was another dazzling highlight in what has already been a very, very good season…
HDs Sound? Just glorious. All in room-filling 3D technicolor, and yes - very Russian!

Time for another toast (or three...)

[edashtav]

All very pleasantly diverting so far.... a genuinely warm, Russian sound to the BBCSO strings in the Glinka, the promise of which I hope the unseasonal Nutcracker fulfils...

A soothing, glittering divertissement of a Guitar Concerto - I guess I was in the mood for some light music - but with some darker shades behind the moonlit trees.... could the fast final section have been played with a bit more grip and excitement? I might give it another go later.

There’s a lot of sense and a great dollop of kindness in Jayne’s Review of the music in the first half of this well-played concert. All very pleasant... all very much the music of two excellent orchestrators, the one a dilettante who begged, borrowed and stitched up some Spanish-ideas into an exotic, hot overture a postcard to send back to his fellow Russians all more used to bearskins than bearing skins. I suppose , we regard the work as a gentleman’s apprentice piece , whilst Glinka, the dilettante, was preparing to dig his home fields of gold that formed Ruslann and Ludmilla. And now for the revelation: the Glinka of the 2nd Spanish Overture was younger than Jody Talbot was when he (recently ) composed his Guitar Concerto.
My point: Jody has shown an almost effortless ( and utterly forgettable ) proficiency across a wide field of invention from pop music through whole-length ballets to opera. His music is deft and slick, and suits the occasion. But... Jody is nearing 50, or put it brutally Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn had fully matured and their life’s work had been completed by the time they were Jody’s present age. The time for doodling and divertissements is over, Jody. We need to know what matters to you. At present you’ll end as the Malcolm Arnold de nos jours.

Now, I don’t want to tell Jody to go home and take a deep, hard look at Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet. It’s not top-drawer music, nor is it the best of Tchaikovsky, but when it’s played with the total commitment and passion that the BBS SO displayed under Vedernikov this evening, critic’s barbs crumble to dust in their fingers, and all this weed can recommend is that you read post #4 by Jayne Lee Wilson. She became intoxicated, and I was blown away!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The time for doodling and divertissements is over, Jody. We need to know what matters to you.

Well, getting his name correct might come somewhere on his list, eb.

[mrbouffant]

. At present you’ll end as the Malcolm Arnold de nos jours.

Please could you explain this in a little more detail? Thanks!

[edashtav]

Well, getting his name correct might come somewhere on his list, eb.

I’m an odd Job man, apologies to Mr Joby Talbot!

[alywin]

Guitarist Miloš Karadaglić is the soloist in a new concerto written especially for him by Joby Talbot. Taking inspiration from Karadaglić's Montenegrin heritage, Talbot's typically rhythmic piece incorporates Balkan dances into its propulsive flow.

That would explain why I kept getting flashes of "Bohemia" in Act II of his The Winter's Tale, then, I guess. Very enjoyable piece of music, although I'm not sure how much it made in terms of demands on the soloist. It was certainly very enthusiastically received.

... the expansive waltzes of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, whose complete Act 1 is here performed for the first time at the Proms.

Really? Did it miss out on an outing in that run of years when we got a number of full ballet scores performed? I love Act I from the transformation scene onwards, but somehow the performance didn't entirely grab me last night.