Prom 19: Strauss, Schumann & MacMillan - 2.08.19

[jayne lee wilson]

And what about that guy who wrote the music for the Onedin Line.

Another biggie! Someone should start a thread....

Anyway....
Dausgaard went for max power and intensity in the Also Sprach tonight - perhaps bought at the cost of some tonal refinements, but if you're going to do this sonic cinerama live you may as well throw everything at it.... a driven orchestra recklessly hurling its formidable tonal resources around the vast acoustic & interstellar spaces..........

The Sunrise was one of the loudest climaxes I've heard from this venue, certainly this year.... a shame then to note some level-boosting during the last, quieter sections...(the hall atmosphere became oppressively loud...come in Optimod One, come in......no I wasn't on FM by mistake)...

All those great longings made me giddy... need to decompress....

[CallMePaul]

Can someone please tell Kate Molleson not to five her opinion of the performance of a piece of music immediately it has finished, as she did this evening afterAlso Sprach Zarathustra? I also note that she was passing comments on performances at the East Neuk festival before they were played! I would have hoped that she would have introduced these concerts from the venues, but that is another issue relevant to other threads.

[edashtav]

Schumann Piano Concerto

A piece that I've loved since my father took me to hear the diminutive, twinkling Myra Hess all in black, with, I think, Charles Groves conducting the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra soon after Charles took over from the much-loved Rudolf Schwarz. These days, I prize the fresh and youthful interpretation of Jan Lisiecki with the St Cecilia Orchestra under the brilliant accompanist, Antonio Pappano.

I loved Alexander Melnikov's interpretation this evening, which was beautifully graduated with no phrase repeated without nuance and each individual element building towards a coherent whole. The Scottish SO under Thomas Dausgaard contributed sensitively and well. A winning performance. Alexander's encore, Schumann's Träumerei, a piece that can sound repetitious in insensitive hands, was exquisite, full of shape and rubato. Wonderful.

I heard the Strauss… fine but, as so often, after the paling of the stars and the glorious rising of the sun, day seems a tad dull, moribund and protracted.

The dramatic start of Isobel Gowdie reminded me of the influences of Michael Tippett and Harrison Birtwistle on the young Jimmy Mac. A fine piece, yet whilst Sir Jimmy is, possibly, our leading British composer, and his recent music remains colourful and effective, I can't feel that his latest music fulfils his talent... but, I have to, shamefacedly, admit that I schedule and conduct his music with my amateur choir ... because it's accessible, and makes an impact on the innocent listener. Is he, the Sir Charles Villiers Stanford of our times?

The performance was dramatic, edgy and, cumulatively, oppressively effective. Am I being cheap in suggesting that Jimmy Mac understood 'virtue signalling' before that idea took flight?

[cloughie]

Absolutely - true for me too....after we saw the film together (the first I ever saw on a huge wraparound), Dad got the soundtrack album, which led among other things to the discovery of.....
Ligeti.
What a difference that made when I began listening to Radio 3 and ransacking the local Record Library later....!
(PS I thought Blue Danube was OK as well... then I noticed that both this and the Also Sprach were composed by people called "Strauss..." & one thing led to another...)

Yes, Jayne, but like me you wanted more - how many people would know what you were talking about when you mentioned 2001 - A Space Odyssey - loads - Also Sprach Zarathustra - maybe less - Ein Heldenleben - what’s that?

[Tony Halstead]

Another intriguing mix of a program here.... be nice if Melnikov plays a fortepiano with an orchestra of about 30, mikes in close, but hey, I try to live in the real world...

One part of me agrees with you... but the other asks: what would have been the point, in that cavernous space?
26 years after the event, I still feel regretful about the audience reaction in the RAH, when I played the solo harpsichord parts in Bach's 5th Brandenburg concerto and his keyboard concerto #5 in f minor. Despite the fact that I was playing Trevor Pinnock's wonderful, beautiful David Way instrument, (which he kindly lent me), perhaps one of the 'loudest' and most resonant in the world, it was saddening to hear the prommers' shout/ jeer in the interval: "this concert can be HEARD on Radio 3"!

[jayne lee wilson]

PROM 19/II. R3 AAC. Melnikov/BBCSO/Dausgaard

SCHUMANN Piano Concerto Melnikov

Such a subtle touch, such clarity of line and lyrical phrase, such colour, tempts me to say that only a fortepiano-tuned pianist could play it so beautifully as this…such lucency, power only when required.

Dausgaard toned and trimmed his orchestra to suit, light, lithe and nonchalant, sparing of dynamic, the accompanist as your flexible friend…

Lovely danceable finale (whose schwung tonight reminded me of the Violin Concerto’s Polonaise) where Melnikov’s unpredictable rhetorical emphases and his fluid changes of pace occasionally disrupted the flow - but this added the fascination of an impulsive Romanticism to an already very individual performance, and Dausgaard was never off the scent for long.

***
I couldn’t connect to the Isobel Gowdie - I should leave others to judge who respond more positively - yet I couldn’t “hear past” or through, its influences tonight, and the structure seemed too neatly predictable now: lyrical, then disruptive, then an uneasy synthesis of both….
”Overextended” is an overused critical cliché itself, but tonight I did feel that in each of the main sections, the thematic material couldn’t bear such lengthy dwelling-upon, repetition or development (well, what there is of it…)

Perhaps I should listen again, but…I don’t feel drawn back…and there’s another fascinating Prom tomorrow….

[edashtav]

One part of me agrees with you... but the other asks: what would have been the point, in that cavernous space?
26 years after the event, I still feel regretful about the audience reaction in the RAH, when I played the solo harpsichord parts in Bach's 5th Brandenburg concerto and his keyboard concerto #5 in f minor. Despite the fact that I was playing Trevor Pinnock's wonderful, beautiful David Way instrument, (which he kindly lent me), perhaps one of the 'loudest' and most resonant in the world, it was saddening to hear the prommers' shout/ jeer in the interval: "this concert can be HEARD on Radio 3"!

That's a helpful post, Tony!

[Master Jacques]

I'm just catching up with this one, on Radio 3 this afternoon. The performance of the Strauss Also sprach... was fine; but what was not fine was the lamentably lazy verbal introduction to the work provided by the BBC team.

I don't blame Kate 'I'm Great' Molleson for this, as she merely had to deliver the script; but I do question the utility of merely telling listeners that the opening was a famous representation of a sunrise and that the tone poem was Strauss's response to Nietzsche's book of the same title. This was followed by some vague susurrations from the conductor concerning that opening, but new listeners were not given any guide to what the music goes on to portray, even in general outline. This is hopeless: how is anyone unfamiliar with the piece supposed to make any sense of Strauss's cheeky salon waltz (for example) without any idea of the work's programme?

There is an indignant letter from Alan Davey in today's Opera magazine issue, in response to last month's editorial re. the extent to which the BBC - and this year's Proms in particular - are letting the listening public down: Mr Davey in effect said that Auntie is doing more than ever before for less money, and that furthermore she's doing it better. Complacent nonsense, as this sort of lazy cut-price presentation exemplifies.

(Mind you, I do blame Ms Molleson for her unsolicited editorial comments at the end of the Strauss, informing us that Nietzsche was the chap who said "God is Dead" and that most of us probably first heard Strauss's music in Kubrick's film 2001. Less trivial pursuits and more information, please, Auntie!!)

[Master Jacques]

I couldn’t connect to the Isobel Gowdie - I should leave others to judge who respond more positively - yet I couldn’t “hear past” or through, its influences tonight, and the structure seemed too neatly predictable now: lyrical, then disruptive, then an uneasy synthesis of both….
”Overextended” is an overused critical cliché itself, but tonight I did feel that in each of the main sections, the thematic material couldn’t bear such lengthy dwelling-upon, repetition or development (well, what there is of it…)

Perhaps I should listen again, but…I don’t feel drawn back…

You raise a fair question Jayne, with an interesting observation - it's only when we're not drawn in, perhaps, that we start hearing those 'influences' at the expense of the through narrative of the piece itself.

For what it's worth, I don't much like what I'm hearing from Dausgaard and the BBCSO right now - he seems impatient with the wonderful, slow-burn opening, skittering through those extraordinary string portamenti as if it were nervous Lutoslawski or brittle Britten. What I think of as the specially "Scottish" keening-drone qualities are not being given space to come through at all. And now we're reaching the faster, darker musics the results sound desiccated, even unengaged. It's a very odd reading of a fabulously cogent, wide-ranging piece, from a conductor who is usually so reliable.

Mind you, Dausgaard did a notably good job keeping the orchestra in the Schumann dance-like and light on its feet, indulging Melnikov's caprices with a smile - that was the standout of the programme for me: this Isobel Gowdie is not doing the piece too much justice.

[Nick Armstrong]

One part of me agrees with you... but the other asks: what would have been the point, in that cavernous space?
26 years after the event, I still feel regretful about the audience reaction in the RAH, when I played the solo harpsichord parts in Bach's 5th Brandenburg concerto and his keyboard concerto #5 in f minor. Despite the fact that I was playing Trevor Pinnock's wonderful, beautiful David Way instrument, (which he kindly lent me), perhaps one of the 'loudest' and most resonant in the world, it was saddening to hear the prommers' shout/ jeer in the interval: "this concert can be HEARD on Radio 3"!

[bluestateprommer]

Interviews with TD (e.g. on the Bruckner 9 completion he did with this band) reveal a very strong-minded, vital intelligence. But aren't all concert programmes a result of negotiation, to some extent?

A bold move to put the Strauss first, which is fascinating beyond the showpiece intro...itself offset by that mysterious, uncertain ending... I'm not a huge RS fan nowadays, but always find this one intriguing.... I hear a layer of ambiguity (from its textual inspiration to some degree), even self-doubt in there which isn't often typical of the composer....

I too wouldn't have put the Strauss first, but hearing the comment that the first chord of the Strauss is the same as the last chord of the MacMillan, and thus closes the circle of the concert, reveals Dausgaard's thinking at work. TD has done programs with these interesting internal references both at The Proms and in Scotland, the ones that I've heard on R3, like the Sibelius and Rachmaninov Proms of recent years with additional musicians to set up the outside contexts of the larger concert-hall works. Even if I'm still of a mixed mind of his work with the BBC SSO in terms of whether they have good artistic chemistry, his programming intelligence and flair is pretty impressive.

From hearing the MacMillan, I'd suddenly realized that I'd never heard Isobel Gowdie in any format, not on recording, and certainly not live. It's now easy to see in artistic hindsight all the characteristic sonic fingerprints and style that recur in his works since then. But it made sense why the work had such an impact at its premiere and made JM a star so suddenly. It was nice to hear the reminiscences of BBC SSO musicians who had played in that Proms / world premiere back then.

BTW, in the interval discussion (where Sir JM's calm demeanor is such a contrast to Tom Service, even if TS was marginally dialed-down in this context than he too often is), I'm surprised that no one picked up on this million-dollar (or million-pound) quote from MacMillan:

"...music can be so bewildering to people, because it does require an obedience of listening. That's what many in the outside world who criticize classical music for being one thing or another, elitist or esoteric, sometimes don't fully realize that music does need an obedience of listening; we need to sacrifice something of our time, something of our precious selves, in order to make that deep impact with this music that will not be hurried."

It's at just before 57 minutes on iPlayer.