Prom 25: Tchaikovsky, Sibelius & Weinberg - 6.08.19

[Bryn]

I must check my copy of the score as I could have sworn that Tchaikovsky didn't score for manic and untimely applause after the 3rd movement.

I blame the BBC especially In(essential) Classics for just playing single movements. That's what you get...an audience thinking it's finished. Wossat ? You mean there's more ?

There's nothing new about applauding a the end of the third movement. It happened in early performances and it has been suggested that that is what the composer wrote it that way for.

[ANON]

it has been suggested that that is what the composer wrote it that way for.

GRIEF! are you serious or making it up?

I blame the BBC especially In(essential) Classics for just playing single movements. That's what you get...an audience thinking it's finished.
Wossat ? You mean there's more ?

They did that in the middle of the Lizst for the organ recital...ouch!
duhh.... how can you carry on after that?

BS-Branson ClassicFM dumb down is also the BIZ for making people willingly ignorant with their "top 20" et al...
The kind of person who would deliberately go and live on a tropical island which is directly sited on the path of regular devastating hurricanes.

[edashtav]

Weinberg new to me -- this concerto noodles along very pleasantly in a tonal idiom twhich brought to mind, at various junctures, a folkier Hindemith or Nielsen, & even Falla, but I could discern little influence of Weinberg's friend Shostakovich (Ed & others may provide enlightenment here). Beautifully played by Sol Gabetta, though not without a tendency to rush her fences at times. Dalia was alert & kept things moving. The Karelia suite built impressively to a rousing Alla Marcia, & the cor anglais player got a bow for her solo at the end of the Ballade.

I do love your verb 'to noodle', Maclintick, which I take to mean to wander around, to develop in a casual and undigested manner. Weinberg's clothes are similar to DSCH's : long themes mixed with short motifs and gestures; instrumentation, and 'borrowings'.
There is a short motif which occurs in this work and also in DSCH's Young Guard film score. However, the works are contemporary, and the two composers played their music to each other as they composed. The same motif is vital to DSCH's First Cello Concerto. Is it useful to think of RVW and Holst? They shared ideas but their finished compositions are quite different. DSCH was never a teacher of Weinberg. The influences go in both directions. Russian commentators have 'blamed' Weinberg for DSCH's 'Jewish' works. The main theme of the 3rd movement of Weinberg's Cello Concerto could have been composed and scored by DSCH, don't you feel?
I feel that you have characterised Weinberg all to well: he noodles. He's akin to Milhaud in terms of his astonishing industry but both 'noodle', and splash around without rhyme or reason just for the hell of it: compositions pour out like ectoplasm. DSCH can be long-winded but he worries his material, he knows where he and it are going and he can discriminate between wheat and chaff. Everything is grist to Weinberg's mill. He can write great counterpoint but ... are the motifs pregnant, or sterile? Neither composer is great. For me, DSCH is a minor master whereas Weinberg is an interesting historical figure, the type of composer who attracts dedicated, articulate disciples who ensure that revivals occur and who assure us, constantly and confidently, that the next dip into the bran-tub will be 100% Au.

[jayne lee wilson]

There's nothing new about applauding a the end of the third movement. It happened in early performances and it has been suggested that that is what the composer wrote it that way for.

Yes...Exactly...
You make them think they get a triumphant resolve, raucous cheering, and then - devastation.....(just to spell it out....)...
So the applause becomes part of the performance - almost of the work itself.
Probably works best if the conductor starts the finale before the applause has died...

You could see such (even knowing) post-molto-vivace applause as honouring a spirit, an authenticity.... an hommage à...

I've heard few stranger suggestions than waiting until the end of a Haydn movement, before laughing at a joke in the middle of it.

Jon Swain remarked post-concert that after that enthusiastic early applause, "maybe the Russians had a point reversing the order of the last two movements all those years ago"...
(then quickly added that he wasn't being serious, but.... well you know, he was on R3 air... & I've no idea how authentic such a claim is... presumably would be a Socialist Realist manoeuvre....)

Maybe we should try it now, why not, no I don't think it works musically, but, familiarity etc., it is so easy for us to look down...

***
I found the interval feature excellent, the heartbreaking letters beautifully read, and utterly relevant to Tchaikovsky's music (not just the 6th).
Lest we forget?
Things didn't change for decades! For any LGBT person d'un certain age, the relevance is all too contemporary...

[Ian_of_glos]

I don't know, but it really spoiled it for me. Surely that desperate chord at the start of the 4th movement is intended to destroy the sense of triumph created by the third movement - or at least that is the way I have always felt it. Then what amused me was the bewildered clapping at the end of the symphony, as if that had been some extra long encore designed to send everyone home in a bad mood.

[Anastasius]

GRIEF! are you serious or making it up?

....

My sentiments exactly.

[Edgy 2]

Fabulous to be there and hear the MW Cello Concerto played so fantastically well live.
If this performance doesn’t help establish the work in the general concert repertoire then nothing will,doesn’t seem to have made a great impression on here though.
The Tchaikovsky seemed rather ordinary to me afterwards,which it probably wasn’t

[edashtav]

Fabulous to be there and hear the MW Cello Concerto played so fantastically well live.
If this performance doesn’t help establish the work in the general concert repertoire then nothing will,doesn’t seem to have made a great impression on here though.
[…]

I think it made a decent impression on our fellow boarders, Edgy 2, as a work worthy of an occasional hearing. With dedication and hard work by those who 'believe', I suspect it will become an occasional visitor to our concert halls.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ian and Anastasia - none of us can ever control what happens in a live performance, not even the conductor can totally do that (whatever arms-held-still shapes they throw)... if you want a completely uninterrupted, applause-free or applause-disciplined-just-when-I-want-it 6th, couldn't you choose a commercial recording.... ?

The point about Live is the risk, inherent in both performers and the audience & their interaction.... isn't that why we listen to the Proms instead of selecting a disc or file?
Doesn't mean applause or other sonic extraneity isn't sometimes annoying or inapt.... but we can't control that aspect...(except that listening at home, you can; you have the choice...)

But this Tchaikovsky 6th Symphony is surely a very special case, especially as regards live acclamation and response...
One to provoke much thought.

[ANON]

Well I put it mildly.
You should see what people have written on Norman's website!

Dalia Stasevska, the BBC Symphony’s new principal guest conductor, made a nervous debut last night at the BBC Proms.

https://slippedisc.com/2019/08/pathetique-for-a-woman-conductor/

OUCH! and so right!
In fact SPOT ON.

[Bryn]

Though I'm not exactly a devoted fan of Alex Ross, he got it right, here:

https://manchestercamerata.co.uk/lets-hear-it-for-applause/

[Bryn]

Well I put it mildly.
You should see what people have written on Norman's website!

Dalia Stasevska, the BBC Symphony’s new principal guest conductor, made a nervous debut last night at the BBC Proms.

https://slippedisc.com/2019/08/pathetique-for-a-woman-conductor/

OUCH! and so right!
In fact SPOT ON.

Not fact, just pompous opinion.

[ANON]

Though I'm not exactly a devoted fan of Alex Ross,

I thought the whole point of the proms, was that the audience could let off as much steam as they liked at the beginning with the routine shouting and laughing going on from the arena to the gods..

If you wanted a perfect example of how to manage an audience it was the other night on the finnish evening:-
Trad Karelian - Runolaulo

The problem is not the clapping at the wrong moments it's the mediocre music, the orchestras playing on autopilot, and the lack of communication between sad looking musicians who don't appear to be enjoying what they are doing.

[Edgy 2]

Why are so many threads ending up like this ?,no wonder some of us aren’t inclined to post as often as we once were.

[Anastasius]

Ian and Anastasia - none of us can ever control what happens in a live performance, not even the conductor can totally do that (whatever arms-held-still shapes they throw)... if you want a completely uninterrupted, applause-free or applause-disciplined-just-when-I-want-it 6th, couldn't you choose a commercial recording.... ?

The point about Live is the risk, inherent in both performers and the audience & their interaction.... isn't that why we listen to the Proms instead of selecting a disc or file?
Doesn't mean applause or other sonic extraneity isn't sometimes annoying or inapt.... but we can't control that aspect...(except that listening at home, you can; you have the choice...)

But this Tchaikovsky 6th Symphony is surely a very special case, especially as regards live acclamation and response...
One to provoke much thought.

Sorry Jane but I have to disagree. If you argue your point ad infinitum then we will have picnics in the Gallery, BBQ's in the stalls and an orgy in the Arena ! You're missing my and Ian's point. Namely that 'we' are fed by the 'new' transmogrified Roger Wight's abomination of Radio 3 that music consists of snippets. It does not. It consists of whole works. If the BBC broadcasts just the third movement then that is what VoxPop locks into and thinks that it is the end.