Prom 45: Orchestre de la Suisse Romande & Jonathan Nott – 16.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:00
Royal Albert Hall

Claude Debussy: Jeux
Maurice Ravel: Violin Sonata in G major (orch. Yan Maresz) - UK première of this orchestration
Igor Stravinsky: Petrushka (1911 version)

Renaud Capuçon violin
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Jonathan Nott conductor


Geneva's renowned Orchestre de la Suisse Romande celebrates its 100th anniversary by making its Proms debut under its English Music Director Jonathan Nott.

The orchestra continues this season's strand of French music with works by Debussy and Ravel - the mercurial dance-fantasy Jeux, Debussy's last orchestral work, and a new orchestration of Ravel's jazz-infused Second Violin Sonata with soloist Renaud Capuçon - as well as a Russian piece synonymous with Paris: Stravinsky's colourful folk-ballet Petrushka, heard here in its original version.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was once a regular Decca fixture in the days of Ansermet. John Culshaw wrote in his biography about just how weak this orchestra was, but continued to be recorded because Sir Edward Lewis wanted to keep Ansermet on his books.

Anyway, I like the look of a concert that includes the original Petrushka, and a new orchestration of a Ravel work.

[Darkbloom]

L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was once a regular Decca fixture in the days of Ansermet. John Culshaw wrote in his biography about just how weak this orchestra was, but continued to be recorded because Sir Edward Lewis wanted to keep Ansermet on his books.

Anyway, I like the look of a concert that includes the original Petrushka, and a new orchestration of a Ravel work.

It's been years since I read the Culshaw book, I'll have to go back to it. I mainly remember it for his account of a squabble in the control room between Hilde Gueden and Lisa Della Casa: 'She pooshed me!'

[BBMmk2]

Rather a good programme, by the looks of it. Anyone else heard this orchestra of late. Has the sound changed at all since the Ansemet days.

[bluestateprommer]

Caught out by the 7 PM start time (to quote Homer Simpson: "D'OH!"), so I missed Jeux and the first movement of the new orchestration of Ravel's Violin Sonata. To be honest, with what I heard of the two remaining movements of the latter, my first impression is "meh" (if I wanted to be harsher, I'd use the words "interesting failure"), in that the orchestration struck me as quite unnecessary, given the intimate nature of the original. RC did a very fine job with it, as did the OSR and JN. Ironically, the nicely done encore, the 'Méditation' from Thaïs, unintentionally emphasized why orchestrating the Ravel Sonata wasn't necessary, because Massenet's orchestration is perfectly apt for that passage.

[jayne lee wilson]

Was that Massenet the encore of the season, d'you think? So-o-o gorgeous, orchestrally and solo.....

The startling Ravel orch. Maresz Sonata came across more as a fantasy-paraphrase than a mere orchestration, with its scattering of solo violin ideas around orchestra sections and solos, like echoes amplifying or resonating the main melodic line, with an almost pointilliste effect in the central blues. I would even have liked more of such effects in the finale.
Very fascinatingly done. Really want to hear this again, after a playing of the original (I might even play them simultaneously...).

Jeux “drifts like dreaming and plunges like desire” as Debussy said, nicely quoted by Derham tonight, and I usually find my concentration tends to do the same…I find I always listen for the moment, finding it hard to compare across recordings. The OSR’s conception under Nott, and the lucid, immediate HDs webcast, sounded pretty immaculate to me, beyond which….

[Bryn]

Always happy to hear this cheapo version of Petrushka. It goes well with my Dover printing of the score. Especially glad to hear it when it's as well performed as this.

[bluestateprommer]

Fine reading of the 1911 Petrushka just now (the one unfortunate blip in the final tableau aside - sorry, it jolted me when I heard it), energetic and lively, straightforward interpretation, no fuss or muss. It was interesting to hear during the interval discussion the OSR's plans to move away from the Victoria Hall in a few years, and to hear that the (too) lively acoustic has proven problematic for the musicians. David Nice also mentioned an unfortunate subtext of Ansermet's volume that criticized dodecaphony. Very nice encore just now, of the Concert românesc of Ligeti :) .

[jayne lee wilson]

Dazzling, multifaceted performance of Monteux’s Petrushka, “My Petrushka!”.
The only Petrushka, the real Petrushka!
At least, played like this, it is for me. That sound! Especially into the 4th tableau, like thickly layered pigments of many colours which somehow remain translucent.
How the fairground glitters, threatens and thrills!

Let’s have an embargo on the work, unless you can find all the necessary winds, cornets, tambours and tambourines, celestas etc etc.… It could even lose some of its pall of overplayed overfamiliarity that way.

(As a Four Paws supporter, I wish that bear wasn’t in it though. I always forget until l look at the tracklist as the work plays. Poor bear. I love bears. I have pictures of the rescued ones up on the kitchen wall, rolling around contentedly in the grasses of their reserve).
There’s a Bear Orphan Station in Romania, and Nott’s encore for the Petrushka tonight was….from Ligeti’s Concert Românesc..…all very enterprising.

(HDs sound of stunningly colourful immediacy, outstanding….what did someone cry out after Petruhska’s ghost disappeared? Sounded like “bravi-“)

[edashtav]

Fine reading of the 1911 Petrushka just now (the one unfortunate blip in the final tableau aside - sorry, it jolted me when I heard it), energetic and lively, straightforward interpretation, no fuss or muss. It was interesting to hear during the interval discussion the OSR's plans to move away from the Victoria Hall in a few years, and to hear that the (too) lively acoustic has proven problematic for the musicians. David Nice also mentioned an unfortunate subtext of Ansermet's volume that criticized dodecaphony. Very nice encore just now, of the Concert românesc of Ligeti :) .

I won’t add to BSP’s spot-on critique of the warm-hearted 1911 Stravinsky. Yes, the Ligeti Romanian mini-Concerto makes a lovely encore. And... BSP, you skirted decorously around the Ansermet problem with more diplomatic skills than than are possessed by the current President’s Men. Splendid work... please keep it up.

I want to get stuck into the first half. What did we make of Nott’s Jeux, eh? I loved it and then felt guilty for having done so. It was a gorgeously confident, full-throated performance with every dynamic from fff to ppp fully registered. I thought that I knew and loved Jeux well. Perhaps, I do, but I’m accustomed to a more restricted dynamic range and colours that are pastel not vibrant in their primacy. But, Nott brought the fun, frolics and play elements the foreground and into sharp focus. The quality of the BBC’s transmission was excellent. The SRO was in Top Gear. Probably naughty, Mr Nott, but I enjoyed it, lustily!

Oh dear, now for the Ravel 2nd Violin Sonata, orchestrated by the cheeky, Yan Maresz, and played by my favourite French violinist , Renault Capuçon. As Ravel grew older, his scores became spare: his eraser ruled, and his pencil rarely needed sharpening. His music became allusive, the central Blues movement in this sonata is not an American throbbing blues ballad. No, it’s hinted, suggested in music that’s deliberately and rightly, vestigial. To double notes alters the balance but decreases the balance and the audience’s comprehension. I delight in the original for my mind suggests solutions for the missing context & connexions that Maurice Ravel only hints at. Remember, Schumann’s habit of revising his symphonies , adding notes, doubling , all in the name of the 19th century Health and Safety? The result was 50 Shades of Grey. The same here, the soloist was one amongst equals, not as MR imagined, one of two sparring partners who were born opposites. Worth hearing ONCE, but this effort is, I’m afraid DOOMED to music’s Room 101 because it is an act of sacrilegious presumption, and redundant. I had no grumbles about the performance but...

BOY... did I enjoy the encore ... Renaud ruled supreme and the orchestra played its supporting role to perfection.

[jayne lee wilson]

Take a look at what Maresz has to say about the Ravel arrangement himself....

https://www.durand-salabert-eschig.com/en-GB/News/2018/01/Maresz-Ravel.aspx

[jonfan]

L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande was once a regular Decca fixture in the days of Ansermet. John Culshaw wrote in his biography about just how weak this orchestra was, but continued to be recorded because Sir Edward Lewis wanted to keep Ansermet on his books.

Culshaw mentions that Ansermet came to the Kingsway Hall to record with a British orchestra and things were not going too well. In exasperation Ansermet said, ‘You think I know f*** nothing, but in fact I know f*** all!’
I'm sure everything was fine after that!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Culshaw mentions that Ansermet came to the Kingsway Hall to record with a British orchestra and things were not going too well. In exasperation Ansermet said, ‘You think I know f*** nothing, but in fact I know f*** all!’
I'm sure everything was fine after that!

According to David Niven (in his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon) this was said to him and Errol Flynn by director Mike Curtiz.

Other sources are also suggested:

https://orangeraisin.wordpress.com/2018/06/13/you-think-i-know-f-nothing/

[jayne lee wilson]

Ravel Violin Sonata arr. Yan Maresz (takes 2 and 3)

In the allegretto, I was transfixed by the bright, gently kaleidoscopic, klangfarbenpassing of the melodic parcels around winds and strings, ascending, descending, then warming through the longer solo line, the darker lower strings brought in very sparingly, grounding the fantasy….

The Blues went daringly further as it tossed the main ideas across sudden shifts of colour and register, hipswinging in a Petrouchkan richness of wind and brass colours; a Dance Fantasy to outdo La Valse, as the soloist skipped along the swaying tightrope of the irresponsible accompaniment.

In the final moto, the severally voiced accompanists, while obviously bored by the idea of, you know, actually supporting the violin’s husky perpetuo, tried their best to mainline some cohesion but couldn’t resist playing a few more games of their own, just about leaping back into their musical chairs in time for the end. The final chord was like a surreally-imported bronx cheer. Enough already!

I loved every brief second of it. They should record it c/w the Tortelier arrangement of the Piano Trio …Valses Nobles would be a good match as well...

***
This was my third hearing of the piece; first one see above, during the second I was thinking, what is this, it’s all over the place….
Familiarity and (as so often with such delicate creatures) an increased volume, was alI I needed to join the party and go out on a high.

[underthecountertenor]

Ravel Violin Sonata arr. Yan Maresz (takes 2 and 3)

In the allegretto, I was transfixed by the bright, gently kaleidoscopic, klangfarbenpassing of the melodic parcels around winds and strings, ascending, descending, then warming through the longer solo line, the darker lower strings brought in very sparingly, grounding the fantasy….

The Blues went daringly further as it tossed the main ideas across sudden shifts of colour and register, hipswinging in a Petrouchkan richness of wind and brass colours; a Dance Fantasy to outdo La Valse, as the soloist skipped along the swaying tightrope of the irresponsible accompaniment.

In the final moto, the severally voiced accompanists, while obviously bored by the idea of, you know, actually supporting the violin’s husky perpetuo, tried their best to mainline some cohesion but couldn’t resist playing a few more games of their own, just about leaping back into their musical chairs in time for the end. The final chord was like a surreally-imported bronx cheer. Enough already!

I loved every brief second of it. They should record it c/w the Tortelier arrangement of the Piano Trio …Valses Nobles would be a good match as well...

***
This was my third hearing of the piece; first one see above, during the second I was thinking, what is this, it’s all over the place….
Familiarity and (as so often with such delicate creatures) an increased volume, was alI I needed to join the party and go out on a high.

I was in the Hall, in a box stage left. Took a long time to tune in to Capuçon’s instrument from that position, but once I became accustomed to it, found the arrangement mesmerising. Thanks for putting into words why. I clearly need to listen to it again at home. Another highlight to add to the crowded list.
Very pleasantly surprised to hear how good the OdlSR are: they deserve a higher profile (and certainly a bigger audience than they mustered last night).