Prom 56: Mozart & Bruckner – 24.08.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No 21 in C major, K 467
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No 5 in B flat major

Benjamin Grosvenor piano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo conductor

Former BBC Young Musician winner Benjamin Grosvenor may only be 26 but this exceptional pianist is an artist of startling emotional and technical maturity. Here he joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo as the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, with its trickling slow movement and good-humoured buffo levity. Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony, with its astonishing fugal finale, offers a more serious counterpoint in the second half.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony, with its astonishing fugal finale, offers a more serious counterpoint in the second half.

????

[edashtav]

????

“Forget Cern. Claudio Abbado has just revealed the secrets of the universe,” wrote our dear friend and much-loved adversary, TS, after the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s amazing performance of Bruckner’s 5th Symphony in the RFH in 2011.

Forget Tom, you may be thinking, for there’s nowt bar hype in his hipster jeans.

But... I was there that night and thought the performances ( Haffner Symphony, in the first half) were the greatest of my 65 years of listening.

Sadly, Claudio has been called to higher matters, but we do have the BBCSO with its chief conductor, Sakari Oramo, this evening. Both band and beater are bang in form. Spies tell me that Sakari performed the Bruckner very well in Stockholm a year or two back... in fact , he could have equalled Abbado but fell at the last when his orchestra peaked too soon.

Has Sakari the brass neck to rein in his band by its horns, collapse time, and deliver a final, overwhelming peroration that reveals that the previous 70 minutes and three movements have been merely a preparatory upbeat? Some challenge!

My advice... don’t miss tonight’s Prom.

[jonfan]

My advice... don’t miss tonight’s Prom.

Taken your advice Ed and come to London specially for this (and the Bernstein tomorrow thrown in).

[jayne lee wilson]

Very arguably Bruckner's most perfect achievement (if you can grade perfection...) alas the New Philharmonia/Klemperer EMI LP was a very early, much overplayed purchase, so I have the familiarity problem.

(No agonies about versions or editions, at least......)

But I shall of course attend here in the HCH, and if I find anything useful to say...

[edashtav]

Very arguably Bruckner's most perfect achievement (if you can grade perfection...) alas the New Philharmonia/Klemperer EMI LP was a very early, much overplayed purchase, so I have the familiarity problem.

(No agonies about versions or editions, at least......)

But I shall of course attend here in the HCH, and if I find anything useful to say...

Here’s a sad thought: I’ve heard Bruckner’s “purr-fect” fifth three times in the flesh, but poor Anton never heard it played on earth.

How blessed we are but we must not miss out!

[Alison]

First half likely to be pretty special too.

[silvestrione]

(on the last movement of the Bruckner) 'that wild goose chase that stumbles upon heaven...' Richard Osborne

[edashtav]

(on the last movement of the Bruckner) 'that wild goose chase that stumbles upon heaven...' Richard Osborne

[jayne lee wilson]

Woah..woah....OK, some major web stream breakup goin' on here.... very rare, can't remember last time I even had a dropout......

Bruckner 5 on FM? Well, no thanks....quality without (db) quantity won't do for that one...
Try again at the interval, otherwise it's Any Questions on R4 FM....

[bluestateprommer]

Fine performance just now of Mozart 21. I'm guessing (quite possibly incorrectly) now that BG improvised or otherwise came up with his own cadenzas, as they didn't seem familiar. BG seemed to take an expansive, Romantic mindset in his 1st movement cadenza. I heard trimmed vibrato in the slow movement, so Oramo was taking a page from the HIPP movement, it seems. Lovely encore from BG of Lilacs of Rachmaninov.

FWIW, BG and SO "met cute" last week or so, their first encounter with each other in person, on this episode of In Tune with SR presiding over the summit, as it were. SO got to hear BG perform 'Ondine' from Gaspard de la Nuit in the studio, along with SR.

PS: During the interval discussion, Tom Service just may have met his stylistic match, in John Butt.

[edashtav]

Fine performance just now of Mozart 21. I'm guessing (quite possibly incorrectly) now that BG improvised or otherwise came up with his own cadenzas, as they didn't seem familiar. BG seemed to take an expansive, Romantic mindset in his 1st movement cadenza. I heard trimmed vibrato in the slow movement, so Oramo was taking a page from the HIPP movement, it seems. Lovely encore from BG of Lilacs of Rachmaninov.
[…].

I’m in complete agreement, bsp. I like the way BG is shaping, he’s his own man and brings new ideas an phrasing to performances. These always seem to be sensitive and appropriate. Seeing him in the flesh, I feel that he’s a private man, living through and by his music. Long may he thrive.

Hearing the start of Bruckner’s “Pizzicato” symphony, I reckon we have another winning Proms on our hands.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yep and when it's not pizzicato it's tremolo.....

Much as I enjoyed that ( and who could not enjoy this wonderful work) I could have done with a bit of last night's silky strings and refulgent horn sound .

[edashtav]

The BBC SOs performance of the Bruckner is glorious and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Long may Sakari Oramo reign! Why do I like it: there’s nothing routine, every passage and section is fully characterised and... finished? By that I mean that SO knows he’s in a big, resonant acoustic and he must nourish every note and allow time forvthe last ones echo during AB’s inevitable pregnant pause. There’s plenty of liveliness and it’s as if SO has plugged his performance into the wider Austrian-Hungarian traditions revealed in the previous two Proms in such a marvellous manner by Iván Fisher and his brilliant BFO. This is what the Proms are all about: bringing new light and scholarship to bear on scores Old and new.

I must be cautious and heed TSE’s dictum: “ in my end is my beginning” because this symphony depends, entirely in my opinion, on a good ending. Will the awfully short chorale suffice, and be wholly awe full? ...
[…]
Well... a touch of bathos has affected me. Claudio Abbado made real sense of the ending, SO’s remains, for this listener “work in progress”. But, I’m going to give this interpretation an A:second to superlative is a fine rating.

Is SO too collegiate, too trusting, too musical, too little the martinet, to demand that 10% extra ... despite knowing that his orchestra, already, is giving all? His ending was lovely but it didn’t destroy the concept of time, or fuse heaven and earth in one.
I shall be fascinated to hear the views of other Boarders, especially those who we know have made a pilgrimage to South Ken.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It was a very accurate and considered performance ( I was following with the score - maybe a mistake ) with many fine moments but for me the adagio didn't move and the end sounded jaunty rather than triumphant . So yes it lacked the last ounce of commitment . But it's all so personal to be honest ...