Prom 42: Grieg's Piano Concerto – 13.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Arvo Pärt: Symphony No 3
Edvard Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat major

Khatia Buniatishvili piano
Estonian Festival Orchestra
Paavo Järvi conductor


A concert with a Nordic flavour from Paavo Järvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra (making its Proms debut) pairs music by Grieg and Sibelius with Estonia's own national composer, Arvo Pärt.

Celebrated Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili - a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist - performs one of the great Romantic piano concertos.

Beloved for its generous melodies and dramatic gestures, Grieg's concerto is matched for sonic drama by Sibelius's stirring Fifth Symphony.

Arvo Pärt's eclectic Third Symphony, with its echoes of Renaissance polyphony and Orthodox chant, opens the concert.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Arvo Pärt's eclectic Third Symphony, with its echoes of Renaissance polyphony and Orthodox chant, opens the concert.

This was the first work by Pärt that I ever heard (at a Prom, I think), but it seemed more Sibelian than Renaissance.

[Lat-Literal]

And this is the other Prom that I would have loved to attend but it's on Monday and there are no tickets available other than on the morning for standing.

[BBMmk2]

My friend and top pianist as well, was in the same class as Katina Buniatisvilli. I think my friend is better than her! She’s started to make some inroads into the concert platforms, so maybe you may hear soon. She did a concert with the Bolton SO, which was very good pkayinfntbe Grieg as well. Keti Ward is her name.

[jayne lee wilson]

Two wonderful symphonies, but.... perhaps an extended interval for me!
Still, with evenings drawing in a bit, more time in the garden with Cat and Jackdaws (who always chatter just before they gather at dusk to fly city-wards, or settle down for the night locally.).

I think the Pärt 3rd was the first piece of his I came to love beyond the famous shorter concert works. I do see it as a religious or at least a spiritual meditation, one to take (like so many so-called Spiritual Minimalist works, which don't always sit comfortably within conventional concert programmes) on its own terms. It is what it is. In fact my favourite recording is the one by Paavo Järvi with the Estonian NSO (Virgin, 2000/2002). I like the phrase from the notes by David Nice about the "very individual sense of struggle and complexity clearing the air for contemplation".

Eclectic? It sounds all of a piece to me, very distinctively Pärt's own. Its brass- and wind-led sonorities, and the vast spaces between them, should sound very well in the RAH.

[Pianorak]

. . . Keti Ward is her name.

Ketevan Ward performs Scriabin live in Italy - February 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgepTv9ocD0

Interesting choice, not the usual crowd pleasers like Vers la Flamme or Op. 11. Well done!

[BBMmk2]

Ketevan Ward performs Scriabin live in Italy - February 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgepTv9ocD0

Interesting choice, not the usual crowd pleasers like Vers la Flamme or Op. 11. Well done!

Thanks for that Pianorak. I’ll post this to her!

[bluestateprommer]

This was the first work by Pärt that I ever heard (at a Prom, I think), but it seemed more Sibelian than Renaissance.

I did hear hints of Renaissance chant, of what seems like a transmuted version of "Veni, veni Emmanuel". Per Kate Molleson, Arvo Pärt is in the RAH, and he's taking his bow as I type. Excellent reading by the Estonian Festival Orchestra of AP's Symphony No. 3 just now.

[BBMmk2]

I did hear hints of Renaissance chant, of what seems like a transmuted version of "Veni, veni Emmanuel". Per Kate Molleson, Arvo Pärt is in the RAH, and he's taking his bow as I type. Excellent reading by the Estonian Festival Orchestra of AP's Symphony No. 3 just now.

Very good Prom so far!

[jayne lee wilson]

Magnificent Pärt 3rd tonight, but did we really expect anything else? It’s in the blood…
Noticeably warmer, more urgently communicative and intense than Järvi-elder-fils’ own recording (almost 20 years old now, which has a stoical, monumental, contemplative feel) and perhaps closer to the earthier attack of dedicatee Järvi-père’s first Bamberg reading.

Stunning technical presentation on the HDs webcast too: more immediately engaging than I expected with terrifically powerful climaxes. The sweetness and purity, then depth and weight, of the strings was most impressive.
It should have been wonderfully sonorous in the hall.

[bluestateprommer]

Well, that was a different take on Grieg's op. 16, where KB took the fast passages faster than I'm certainly used to hearing, but then slowed down for the more spacious passages appropriately. The nice paradox of taking those fast passages that quickly is that she didn't pound the piano while doing so. Extremely clever choice of encore, Debussy's 'Clair de lune', to dial down the atmosphere so quickly and flip it to the opposite extreme.

[edashtav]

I missed most of the Pärt, so I’ll leave that to later.

I loved Khatia Buniatishvili’s playing both in the Greig Concerto and in her gorgeous Debussy encore. She has such a warm, romantic heart. Khatia has contemporaries who can play faster, more accurately,and more forcefully, but none surpass her in terms of humanity: she approaches music as one soul identifying with another. The Estonian band under its founder Pavao Järvi responded in fine, alert style.

[jayne lee wilson]

What a wonderful final stretto to that very fine Sibelius 5th....

Out of my chair, conducting
The pressure-waved air....

The first encore was film music by Lepo Sumera... maybe the EFO can return soon, and bring his 3rd Symphony with them next time...

[edashtav]

What a wonderful final stretto to that very fine Sibelius 5th....

Out of my chair, conducting
The pressure-waved air....

The first encore was film music by Lepo Sumera... maybe the EFO can return soon, and bring his 3rd Symphony with them next time...

The second was Alfven.
(A Swedish Pastoral fiddlers’ dance with sheep being driven by a maiden... I’ll avoid comparisons with English analogues!)
The Sibelius symphony was given a lyrical interpretation, emphasising line, long phrases that built into purposeful paragraphs. Most enjoyable.

[LMcD]

I'm looking forward to seeing this concert on BBC4 at 7.30 p.m. on Friday 17th August.