Prom 40: Queen Victoria’s 200th Anniversary - 16.08.19

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Friday 16 August 2019
Royal Albert Hall

Arthur Sullivan: Victoria and Merrie England – suite
Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No 1 in G minor
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: Songs
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, ‘Scottish’

Alessandro Fisher tenor
Stephen Hough piano
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Ádám Fischer conductor

The programme features music by her favourite composer, Mendelssohn, including his lively ‘Scottish’ Symphony and First Piano Concerto, which will be performed by Stephen Hough on Victoria’s own piano, loaned by HM The Queen from the Royal Collection.

The concert also includes a suite from Arthur Sullivan’s ballet Victoria and Merrie England, composed to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, as well as songs by Prince Albert.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I wonder how much restoration has had to be done on the piano.

[LMcD]

Nice to see a piece, new to me, by Sullivan getting an airing.
I'm not sure, but I THINK I heard the usually sure-footed Sarah Smith refer to 'Stephen Howe' when discussing this concert on 'Today'.

[jayne lee wilson]

I wonder how much restoration has had to be done on the piano.

I guess it's this one...? Excellent exposition...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dVW7Btjmc

Looks gorgeous too, but a well-sorted Erard is usually a joy in this music....

Anyway, at last a concert I can get into, after a slightly dull few days...(& a very busy week IRL...phew...)
Mendelssohn's 3rd is an extraordinary work, highly integrated symphonically, melodically memorable and very inventive....

Great choice of Orchestra, not heard Fischer in this rep before.....we shall see.....!

[LMcD]

...and we get to see it on Sunday on BBC4!

[Stunsworth]

I guess it's this one...? Excellent exposition...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dVW7Btjmc

Looks gorgeous too, but a well-sorted Erard is usually a joy in this music....

Anyway, at last a concert I can get into, after a slightly dull few days...(& a very busy week IRL...phew...)
Mendelssohn's 3rd is an extraordinary work, highly integrated symphonically, melodically memorable and very inventive....

Great choice of Orchestra, not heard Fischer in this rep before.....we shall see.....!

That’s the one. Personally I think it looks revolting, but I realise that a personal thing.

[jayne lee wilson]

That sure is a lovely webcast sound tonight....set quite close for the smaller ensemble..... but warm, immediate and lively... orchestra playing very well in the opener too...

[bluestateprommer]

Nice to see a piece, new to me, by Sullivan getting an airing.

Indeed, it was nice to hear this work given an airing, a new listening experience to me as well. Quite a bit of his orchestral writing is very much in his Savoy Opera mode, to be sure. The OAE did a very spruce job with it.

I'm not sure, but I THINK I heard the usually sure-footed Sarah Smith refer to 'Stephen Howe' when discussing this concert on 'Today'.

As in "bough" : ? SH just spoke very charmingly, as he always does, about the instrument.

Hannah French is in the presenter's box, maybe for her first Prom as a presenter? Here's hoping that she falls into the Penny Gore / Nicola Heywood Thomas school of female presenters, as opposed to the SMP / KM 'gush' school.

PS: Fun, high-spirited reading of Felix Mendelssohn 1 just now, with HM EIIR's Erard put quite through its paces just now. Very nice encore as well.

[jayne lee wilson]

Excellent fortepiano/orchestra balance in the Mendelssohn 1st Concerto, the piano set “with” the orchestra, not too forward, always very lucid and articulate.

Highly original piece with its tutti/solo fusings, its fanfaring interludes between movements. Hough, if a touch prosaic or reserved at first, soon projected the music more boldly - especially considering this was his first public fortepiano outing. Fischer was a closely observant, sensitive and lively accompanist….

I’ve heard Erards sound richer or more songful than this (usually in much closer solo recordings, so...), but it matched the band’s warm colourful sonority well, both piano and orchestra with a strong, lean bass impact, Hough gaining rhetorical confidence into that irresistable finale. Fine, fiery performance - and fun too!

(Wonder what it all sounds like in-hall….)

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 40/II. MENDELSSOHN 3/OAE/FISCHER
AAC 320 - Intriguing balance tonight, which made it sound as if the OAE were playing in a drier, smaller hall. Not unpleasant though…quite clever really...

Sweet safe polite Felix?
Gosh, not tonight…..

After some orchestral uncertainty in the intro (apt to the mood I guess, but..) Fischer then plunged us (definitely us too, it was involving) headlong into a fast allegro, exciting if slightly flat rhythmically, dynamics a bit unsubtle (mostly at a similar level punctuated by bigger, harder punches…)….. adventurous yes, but ensemble wasn't quite perfect…the coda not quite stormy enough.…I was getting a bit worried….how’s this going to go…?

Similarly in the scherzo, with those intonation and ensemble troubles still apparent… I was uneasy… but…
Thankfully, redeemed by a lovely adagio, sweet senza-vibrato strings and dark warm wind and brass sonorities asserting the motto episode, throwing the arches across the symphonic architecture.… Much better!

If the finale was more about speed and power, physical excitement and impact than subtlety, I wasn’t about to complain… Fischer stirred up a great storm of scurrying strings, hollow shouts and mellow-toned sonorities from woody winds and brass, with climaxes flung out at our ears. But the preparation for the coda was beautifully, patiently done…then the coda itself, unashamedly playing to the gallery. Air conductors unite - out of the chair!

Not technically perfect, no…. but I love this music, this composer so much and - for live excitement in the here and now, I was happy to go with the flow...

[LMcD]

This may be good news for some Forumistas (myself included): Sunday's TV coverage will be fronted by friend Petroc and historian Suzannah Lipscomb.

[kernelbogey]

[...]
As in "bough" : ? SH just spoke very charmingly, as he always does, about the instrument.

Hannah French is in the presenter's box, maybe for her first Prom as a presenter? Here's hoping that she falls into the Penny Gore / Nicola Heywood Thomas school of female presenters, as opposed to the SMP / KM 'gush' school. [...]

Did I correctly hear Hannah French pronouncing the conductor's first name as Aah-Daahm? And would that be correct (I've just noticed the accents)?

[Darkbloom]

Did I correctly hear Hannah French pronouncing the conductor's first name as Aah-Daahm? And would that be correct (I've just noticed the accents)?

She should have gone the whole hog and called him Fischer Adam, as the Hungarians would. I think (but I could be wrong) an 'a' without the accents sounds close to our 'or' sound, while with the accent it sounds like the 'a' from 'bat' or 'mat'. It seems like she gave it more of a German pronunciation. Surely she knows he's Ivan's brother?

[cloughie]

PROM 40/II. MENDELSSOHN 3/OAE/FISCHER
AAC 320 - Intriguing balance tonight, which made it sound as if the OAE were playing in a drier, smaller hall. Not unpleasant though…quite clever really...

Sweet safe polite Felix?
Gosh, not tonight…..

After some orchestral uncertainty in the intro (apt to the mood I guess, but..) Fischer then plunged us (definitely us too, it was involving) headlong into a fast allegro, exciting if slightly flat rhythmically, dynamics a bit unsubtle (mostly at a similar level punctuated by bigger, harder punches…)….. adventurous yes, but ensemble wasn't quite perfect…the coda not quite stormy enough.…I was getting a bit worried….how’s this going to go…?

Similarly in the scherzo, with those intonation and ensemble troubles still apparent… I was uneasy… but…
Thankfully, redeemed by a lovely adagio, sweet senza-vibrato strings and dark warm wind and brass sonorities asserting the motto episode, throwing the arches across the symphonic architecture.… Much better!

If the finale was more about speed and power, physical excitement and impact than subtlety, I wasn’t about to complain… Fischer stirred up a great storm of scurrying strings, hollow shouts and mellow-toned sonorities from woody winds and brass, with climaxes flung out at our ears. But the preparation for the coda was beautifully, patiently done…then the coda itself, unashamedly playing to the gallery. Air conductors unite - out of the chair!

Not technically perfect, no…. but I love this music, this composer so much and - for live excitement in the here and now, I was happy to go with the flow...

I heard the beginning of the Symphony 3 and it sounded very promising - I’ll catch up later.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Excellent fortepiano/orchestra balance in the Mendelssohn 1st Concerto,

Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?
Fortepiano?

They generally called it a pianoforte even in the 18th century, and definitely in the mid-19th century. The usage of 'fortepiano' is largely an error put out by modern musicologists for whatever reason.

Mind you, the rapid decay of those prototype instruments does perhaps merit the term.