Prom 47: Elgar, Prokofiev & Venables – 17.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro
Philip Venables: Béla Bartók, Venables Plays Bartok - BBC commission: world première
Sergei Prokofiev, Symphony No 5 in B flat major

Pekka Kuusisto violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo

Maverick Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto made a memorable Proms debut in 2016. Now he returns to premiere a new violin concerto written especially for him by award-winning young British composer Philip Venables. The piece grows out of a recording the composer found of himself as a teenager playing one of Bartok's Hungarian Sketches to his teacher's teacher, Rudolf Botta, a Hungarian refugee - and the journey that ensued.
The concerto is framed by two works suffused with sunny optimism - Elgar's lovely Introduction and Allegro for strings and Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, a piece that rejoices in 'the strength and beauty of the human spirit'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And the number of new works continues. I wonder how many will be given significant further performances?

[Serial_Apologist]

This would have probably been the one Prom I would have gone to.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And the number of new works continues. I wonder how many will be given significant further performances?

Probably in about the same proportion as any of the commissions since the Proms began commissioning (and the same for "insignificant further performances", for that matter).

And, after all, further performances are not necessarily a signifier of the quality of a work - how many of Bach's works received more than one performance (significant or otherwise) during the lifetime of their first audiences, or, for that matter, Haydn's Symphonies 10 - 70? (Not to mention the many performances in the 19th Century of works that aren't done nowadays.)

[Serial_Apologist]

[h]ow many of Bach's works received more than one performance (significant or otherwise) during the lifetime of their first audiences, or, for that matter, Haydn's Symphonies 10 - 70? (Not to mention the many performances in the 19th Century of works that aren't done nowadays.)

I would imagine Bach's smaller religious works (cantatas etc) would have got pretty generous dissemination through the various "dioscesan networks" existing during his lifetime. As to concert works, not so sure.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would imagine Bach's smaller religious works (cantatas etc) would have got pretty generous dissemination through the various "dioscesan networks" existing during his lifetime.

Eh?

(If you mean, "other Churches ourside those Bach had responsibilty for in Leipzig", S_A, then what performing materials did they use? Bach kept the fair copies of all his Cantatas - including the individual instrumental and vocal parts. These never left his possession, AFAIK - which is a pity, as, if they had, we might have copies of the missing Cantatas that were destroyed after his death.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Eh?

(If you mean, "other Churches ourside those Bach had responsibilty for in Leipzig", S_A, then what performing materials did they use? Bach kept the fair copies of all his Cantatas - including the individual instrumental and vocal parts. These never left his possession, AFAIK - which is a pity, as, if they had, we might have copies of the missing Cantatas that were destroyed after his death.)

Assuming as I did that Bach's commissioners would have wanted his church works performed throughout their province, I hadn't realised that.

[BBMmk2]

I’ve a feeling there’s been more new works this year than ever before.

[Paulie55]

Self Conceit

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Edward Elgar: Introduction and Allegro
Philip Venables: Béla Bartók, Venables Plays Bartok - BBC commission: world première
Sergei Prokofiev, Symphony No 5 in B flat major

Pekka Kuusisto violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo

Maverick Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto made a memorable Proms debut in 2016. Now he returns to premiere a new violin concerto written especially for him by award-winning young British composer Philip Venables. The piece grows out of a recording the composer found of himself as a teenager playing one of Bartok's Hungarian Sketches to his teacher's teacher, Rudolf Botta, a Hungarian refugee - and the journey that ensued.
The concerto is framed by two works suffused with sunny optimism - Elgar's lovely Introduction and Allegro for strings and Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, a piece that rejoices in 'the strength and beauty of the human spirit'.

How self-indulgent can one get? I can't help thinking of "Cheggers Plays Pop"!

[bluestateprommer]

Very fine opening to this Prom just now, with Elgar's Introduction & Allegro nicely paced by Sakari Oramo; no surprise, given his background as a violinist.

[Richard Barrett]

I would imagine Bach's smaller religious works (cantatas etc) would have got pretty generous dissemination through the various "dioscesan networks" existing during his lifetime.

I doubt that very much.

[bluestateprommer]

PV has a write-up in The Guardian on his new work:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/14/strings-attached-philip-venables-on-how-a-refugees-story-inspired-his-violin-concerto

Definitely a curiosity to show, whose overall construction put me in mind of, of all composers, Steve Reich, in the general idea of the music theater-hybrid nature of this new work, the mashup of spoken word, pre-recorded material, and original music (where I actually found PV's original material more inventive than Steve Reich's). Granted, PV's material doesn't match the instant memorability of the Bartok, but PV writes very idiomatically for the violin and allows the violin to sing lyrically. Creatively assembled encore by PK of the Swedish folksong, with backup humming and bass line support from BBC SO musicians.

(FWIW, for running time, this Prom is definitely value for money.)

PS: PMC running total of £53K so far.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Listened almost accidentally to the PV as it was between two favourite works. Completely gripping: seek it out on iplayer if you missed it: a highly contemporary exposition of man's utter inhumanity to man and, to some extent at least, humanity's good side with and without music as healing agent.

Would be very interested to listen again and check out how well it wears further hearings - now I know the story it obviously won't be so edge-of-seat as a dramatic narrative but I might grasp PV's own music better (tonight it was mainly the borrowed Bartok and some very obvious sonic punctuation-marks that held my attention).

Do seek it out!

[bluestateprommer]

Oramo and the BBC SO just rocked the house with Prokofiev 5, with the orchestra sounding in great shape (as if one needed reminding). Oramo did the same trick that Karabits pulled in his Bournemouth SO Proms Prokofiev 5 several years back, namely jumping attacca directly into the scherzo, which shut down the 'happy clappers' pretty promptly, although the sheer visceral force of the end of the first movement makes the momentary applause understandable. There was the tiniest of horn blips in the scherzo, which the player covered pretty well and quickly with a note just about a third off, that I could tell (I don't have perfect pitch at all, far from it). Well worth a listen on iPlayer if you missed it the first time, as is the whole concert.

[edashtav]

Very fine opening to this Prom just now, with Elgar's Introduction & Allegro nicely paced by Sakari Oramo; no surprise, given his background as a violinist.

I came to tonight’s Prom and the Elgar in the middle of a review of the piece w.r.t. both the composer’s output and the renaissance of English music. I may have to finish this in the morning as there’s today’s washing up to do but I’ll make a Firstly, the performsnce ... yes, a sensible pace, bsp, and accompanied by some gloriously alert and charged playing from the lower strings. Bsp noted that Sakari was a violinist, and so was Elgar. others have observed a flaw in his scoring of the Introduction and Allegro: that Elgar anticipates that the lower strings will be as nimble, as athletic, and as quick on the draw as “his” violins. such virtuosity is displayed by few orchestras, but, ‘Hats off, Guys’, tonight’s performance was the first in my experience where the cello and basses equalled the upper strings for accuracy, punch and velocity. ( I sometimes think that Elgar heard so many works of Bach played by Cathedral Organists with twinkle feet, that he expected bass strings to be as agile.) The introduction to tonight’s performance made much of what Elgar had learned both from Bach’s organ works and JSB’s distillation of the baroque Concerto Grosso but it failed to mention the others two sources that were fused into a satisfying amalgam by Elgar's originality: Welsh and the Borders, nor did it mention that the Introduction & Allegro’s debt to his own In the South Overture. In an all Elgar programme that the composer conducted to celebrate the formation of the LSO and which starred two premieres: the I & A and the 3rd P & C March, I think it was significant that the composer also scheduled his Alassio Overture.

Later today, I want to examine what Elgar published about the genesis of his string piece at the time of those premieres in 1905:

‘Some three years ago, in Cardiganshire, I thought of writing a brilliant piece for string orchestra. On the cliff, between the blue sea and the blue sky thinking out my theme, there came me sound of singing. The songs, too far away to hear distinctly, but one point common to all was impressed upon me, and led me to think, perhaps wrongly, that it was a real Welsh idiom—I mean the fall of a third. Fitting the need of the moment, I made the tune which appears in the introduction (as a link) and in the coda of this work; and so my gaudere became touched with romance. The tune may therefore called, as is the melody in the Overture “In the South”, a canto popolare, but the suggesting country in this case was Wales, and not Italy.

The sketch was forgotten until a short time ago when it was brought to my mind on hearing, far down our valley of the Wye, a song similar to that pleasantly heard on Ynys Lochtyn. The singer of the Wye unknowingly reminded me of my sketch. This I have completed and,- although there may (and hope there is) a Welsh feeling in one theme—to quote Shakespeare, again. "All the water in the Wye cannot wash the Welsh blood out of its body." The work is really a tribute that sweet borderland where I have made my home.’

I shall also take as my text that later, rather enigmatic and cheeky remark of Elgar’s : “I am Folksong.”