Prom 58: Tchaikovsky, Janácek, Szymanowski and Linda Catlin Smith - 1.09.19

[bluestateprommer]

I was watching/listening to the Ireland Piano Concerto on BBC FOUR. What, exactly, happened? Was the Smith interrupted? If so, I wonder what will happen with the Sounds ib demand offering. It will probably remain as broadcast, as with Aimard's live dawn sequence of Messiaen'sCatalogue d'oiseaux from Aldborough.

Most probably someone at Broadcasting House accidentally tapped the wrong button and the scheduled interval discussion began to pipe in over the broadcast during the LCS premiere. No doubt that this was totally unintentional, and my guess is that the person who did this feels extremely mortified.

The Janacek just now actually complemented the LCS work quite well, in spite of being quite different in style. Very good job there, as in the LCS, from the BBC SSO.

[jayne lee wilson]

Just the opposite for me I'm afraid bsp..it jarred..... I didn't want the noisy fiddler in the clouds....

I kept wishing we could have gone from Nuages into the Szymanowski Stabat Mater instead of these two short works.... and I don't really do sustained solo soprano things nowadays, (left ear hypersensitivity......)....

Still, a lovely night, cool air under the trees as dusk falls..I'll take a drink out there and come back for Tchaikovsky....where are those cats?
(Ah, here's one for dinner....beef in gravy.....and a hedgehog too! I'm suddenly in demand...)

[bluestateprommer]

Excellent singing just now from Georgia Jarman in the Love Songs of Hafiz (albeit in German rather than Polish), with equally excellent orchestral playing from the BBC SSO as guided by Ilan Volkov. Andrew McGregor mentioned that GJ had sung Roxana (King Roger) at Covent Garden some years back. Perhaps one day the second performance of the KS will be in Polish.

PS: Very good account of Tchaikovsky's 2nd Symphony, where Ilan Volkov clearly treated the work seriously, without barnstorming or additional cheap thrills. He did make the 2nd movement march the work's "slow movement" with his relatively spacious pace. Interesting to hear Andrew McGregor state that IV had actually researched the folk songs that Tchaikovsky had set, and paced the symphony to match the sung texts of the originals.

The happy clappers did make a bit of an appearance in the Tchaikovsky after movements 1 and 3, after behaving themselves admirably, i.e. not applauding, between the Szymanowski songs. Given that the RAH page yesterday showed loads of available seats for this Prom, I would have thought that the connoisseurs would predominate in the audience at this Prom, i.e. no happy clappers.

[jayne lee wilson]

After a good start I was admiring the discipline and rhythmic guttiness of the BBCSSO's playing in the Tchaikovsky 2....so I soon felt very involved with the piece (lovely horn solos), but thereafter.... it seemed oddly cautious to me, too restrained in the scherzo, and rather four-square, even heavy-footed, in the finale. I really craved more kick and swing here, something wilder and more slav, more zip and fizz....

So we did not have lift-off here....A little disappointed, I'm afraid...

[Barbirollians]

You very much surprise me re. both Linda Catlin Smith and Janacek's The Fiddler's Child. The latter was indeed recorded by Volkov and the BBCSSO a few years ago, and the former has featured on this forum previously, and on Radio 3, too. Both well worth your attention, I think.

Fiddler’s Child is also the coupling of that splendid Rozhdestvensky recording of Das Klagende Lied from the 1980 ? Prom

[Bryn]

Fiddler’s Child is also the coupling of that splendid Rozhdestvensky recording of Das Klagende Lied from the 1980 ? Prom

Not on my copy, unfortunately:



However, I note that the later version, replete with The Fiddler's Child is on QOBUZ.

[edashtav]

Linda Catlin Smith's Nuages was played with confidence rather than sensitivity: the performance's colours were primary, were oil-based, or even acrylic, when, in my experience, Linda surrounds strong chords in a watercolour wash. There was a lack of gradation, of delicacy, which undersold the work until a tune surfaced as the whole piece came into strong focus in its coda.

The Fiddler's Child suited the orchestra, leader and conductor much better and the interpretation was robust and strongly folk-inflected. I was pleased to hear the piece live in a sympathetic, colourful performance.

The Symanowski requires delicacy to create its exotic, often ecstatic atmosphere. Georgia Jarman has a big, powerful voice and when she first ascended up her "E-string" I thought, " Gosh: volume and vibrato are too pronounced for me." I must be fair as that adverse reaction was cancelled almost at once when Georgia, settled on a high , half-veiled note with great security and purity of tone. Her best was excellent and the final song a pure triumph. Ms Jarman has the capacity to be more daring and to hold a little more back. I'd like to hear her essay the same, wonderful work in a smaller acoustic.

I love some of Tchaikovsky's earlier scores more than most listeners. With the Little Russian (i.e. Ukrainian) Symphony, I learned the score thanks to two past Masters: Igor Stravinsky (in an off-air recording of the Scherzo with the NYPO, all pesante accents and Stravinskian rhythmic energy) and Constantin Silvestri live with the BSO, who revealed to me that Little Russian has ties to Southern Europe and Romania. Marks out of ten for tonight's performance: 6. Too well-mannered, scherzo nearer to Mendelssohn than Igor. S.. Brass rampant, but strings not digging into gut with a will enhanced by oodles of adhesive rosin.
Pleasant, well-mannered but not the real deal for this 'extreme' listener.