They might as well have clapped between movements, better that than the bloody coughing.
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I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I am not a number, I am a free man. -
May I ask what did the talk-giver conclude about the tempo of the ending? I'm not a great fan of the super-slow colossal approach that seems much in favour preferring a faster Stokowski-ish speed. Y N-S didn't hurry but I enjoyed the performance nonetheless and the encore (Mussorgsky arr. Shostakovich) was unusual and thus most welcome.Originally posted by jonfan View PostComment
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Apparently the original score had too slow a marking, it should be crotchet = 188 which my Boosey score has, which is quite fast. Conclusion in the talk seemed to suggest there’s no right answer which leaves the controversy to carry on.Originally posted by gradus View PostComment
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The interval feature was properly complex and reached no easy conclusions (there aren't really any simple ones to reach...). Frolova-Walker had fresh insights to offer even if you broadly know the story - do hear it.Originally posted by gradus View Post
Forgive the recent lack of comment - unwell since Sunday, patchy Proms attendance & much rest, poorly Cat needing TLC too.
But a miraculously comprehensive interpretation of DSCH 5 from a master conductor, unstintingly intense & compellingly urgent; as ambiguously and agonisingly Tragic as it must be, as we perhaps understand better now thanks to the guidance of such excellent discussions as the one we heard tonight.
Intending to be refreshed for the start, I only woke up in time for the Beethoven 2 finale - which sounded equally wonderful.... will catch up later.
More detail then, I hope..Comment
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The coughing didn’t bother me as much as the mobile phone rings,unforgivable.
I don’t usually warm to the first 2 Beethoven Symphonies but this performance has made me think again.
The quiet passages in the DSCH 5,especially the slow movement,were breathtaking,hope that came across so on the radio.
Dawn on the Moscow River encore was the icing on the cake“Music is the best means we have of digesting time." — Igor StravinskyComment
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Re the ending of the symphony - we performed the piece with our orchestra this year and we tried the quick and the slow endings to the movement. The quicker ending was unanimously preferred as the slow version was just too bombastic to fit with the mood of the rest. Also no rit in the last two bars where the bass drum joins the timpani, Shostakovich didn’t write one. It’s so exciting to keep momentum to the last bar. Another ratching up of tension on Shostakovich’s part is his use of the xylophone to double up on the first violins in the high resister. Genius.
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I didn’t realize until now that Jansons was indisposed, having missed some of the posts here (was this thread split into two at one time?). While I have been critical of him, I certainly don’t wish him ill health. Incidentally, M.J. received one off the first implantable defibrillators that I was ever aware of in the nineties, I believe. It’s fantastic that he has had such longevity, whatever his perceived virtues and deficits. I also know from people in Pittsburgh when he was there that he is a very gracious man. All of which genuinely pains me to have to rap his knuckles as an interpreter, but I hope he is all right.
YNS is certainly not mediocre. He takes a lot of chances, some work, some don’t, at least I look forward to hearing him.
Perhaps I should save it for the techie board, but having added the iplayer app, I can’t get a damn thing to play except the live feed. I’d really like to hear this oneComment
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Well, you can see it as "bombastic" (a term so overused in comment on DSCH as to be virtually meaningless now, unless the distinction of bombast/portrayal of bombast etc is clearly made) - but as with the 2nd movement, you can of course (and perhaps more aptly) hear the slower ending as grotesquely triumphant, the parody of (forced) triumph we know from the famous quote: "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing!"...... "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing..."Originally posted by jonfan View PostRe the ending of the symphony - we performed the piece with our orchestra this year and we tried the quick and the slow endings to the movement. The quicker ending was unanimously preferred as the slow version was just too bombastic to fit with the mood of the rest. Also no rit in the last two bars where the bass drum joins the timpani, Shostakovich didn’t write one. It’s so exciting to keep momentum to the last bar. Another ratching up of tension on Shostakovich’s part is his use of the xylophone to double up on the first violins in the high resister. Genius.
Personally I feel it still has to actually sound triumphant, and the slower ending brings out the ambiguity better: in such an authoritarian state millions of people do feel and express their belief in its control and authority; literally, self-convincingly, connivingly so; or in spite of themselves, looking the other way from its horrors. Vide the present-day popularity of Vladimir Putin.
Since YNS pointed up this parodistic grotesquerie in the 2nd movement to, (strikingly so at the end) with a similar approach to tempi and above all, the vivid characterisation of a puffed-up apparatchik, the reading was remarkably carefully thought through.
One way (among several) of viewing the DSCH 5th is to see the 1st and 3rd movements as tragic-pathetic; but the 2nd and 4th as satirical of the Russian Revolutionary state with all its pretences, triumphalist assumptions and pressurising of thought and deed upon its poor, confused, frightened and beleaguered citizens; disguised (with as it were a transparent mask) as a Socalist-Realist celebration of the very state that was holding a knife to Shostakovich's throat. That is surely why its first audience was so profoundly, tearfully moved.
So the finale ending may be more "exciting" (in a musically abstract or physical sense) played quickly (this approach can also sound aggressively defiant), but a slower one may be the more richly ambiguous and meaningful (Rostropovich certainly played it in this latter, heavier, mock-triumphant way, as did Kurt Sanderling, who saw the work, one he felt especially close to and responsible for its truthful expression, as essentially tragic).
Surely though, given the extraordinary story behind its composition, the appalling threat Shostakovich had to live with (suitcase packed ready by the door for when the KGB might arrive at any time of the day or night) this is one work in which we simply have to allow a conductor the freedom to shape and shade the music as she wishes, so far as is possible to attempt to express those complexly layered meanings.Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 31-07-19, 03:43.Comment
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Thank you Jayne for your superb analysis, leaving one in awe of the greatness of the piece with its many ambiguities in meaning and interpretation. Shostakovich liked Bernstein’s speedy ending, contrasting Rostropovich with the LSO at the Barbican where one needed a calendar rather than a clock to time the ending.
One of the many joys of this performance was the superbly controlled horn playing in the canon-like duet with the flute at the end of the first movement. The composer makes a note that the high concert E should only be attempted if it can be done piano. A superb, serene example of how it should be done.Comment
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I've just listened to the Beethoven. It was a wonderfully elegant and disciplined performance - not that I would have expected anything less from what Messrs Skelly and Trelawney rightly call, not the 'Rolls-Royce', but the 'BMW' of orchestras. I shall listen to the Shostakovitch as soon as my 'schedule' permits (how did I EVER find the time to go to work?
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The interval feature was intriguing, but I think I’d want to hear a bit more evidence, that’s all.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
Get well soon, Jayne
The tortie stray that turned up isn't having kittens, is she?
And the tune ends too soon for us allComment
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No - a neutered male, relying on me (and one or two others sometimes, but then they go away for a while and....) for food and shelter (old greenhouse now with one covered bed, one open etc - he still curls up among the weeds and grasses of course, true cat as he is...). Resident cat Mizzy's OK with him (well, tolerant..) but she won't let him in the house.... to be continued...Originally posted by Constantbee View PostThe interval feature was intriguing, but I think I’d want to hear a bit more evidence, that’s all.
Get well soon, Jayne The tortie stray that turned up isn't having kittens, is she?Comment
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With the Beethoven 2, I wondered if the 1st movement wasn’t a bit too comfortable, the winds rather anonymous and recessed in the large ensemble; but the elegance and sensitivity of the playing, the rhythmic alertness, kept me going. (Not to mention the full, warm groundswell of those Bavarian double-basses…)
The larghetto was tactfully poised between sweetness and surge; but this LvB 2 saved its best energies for the last two movements, with an especially lively joyful finale. So despite my inescapable devotion to Chamber or Period Instrument Orchestras in this repertoire, I enjoyed much of this precise, polished, larger-scale and slightly laid-back account.
YNS does tend to the reverential and respectful in 19thC symphonic music, as we know from his Bruckner (rather livelier and more intriguing with the COE in their exceptional Schumann and Mendelssohn however). But the sheer beauty of sound he cultivates, and above all that close attention to detail of phrase, rhythm and dynamic, that inner orchestral clarity, usually compels my attention.
(Webcast sound impeccable in Prom 15 - as almost invariably so far this year).
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In the DSCH interval feature, I liked Marina Frolova-Walker's concluding comment...
"Those who insist that politics is separate from Art do so for political reasons"
And.. don't you love that accent...? I just lurve that accent.....Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 31-07-19, 16:30.Comment
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There was a bit of coughing in the gods and one mobile phone going off. But much more disturbing in the Beethoven was the number of latecomers admitted between each of the movements; not all made surreptitious entrances either. Is that one drawback of an early start? To make it worse, one couple decided to occupy two free seats other than their own. Then the booked occupiers (one quite disabled) appeared.Originally posted by teamsaint View Post
Has anybody commented on the orchestra turning its back on the audience during the final appluase? A tribute to Sir Henry (I hope!) or a political statement?
A very young orchestra and, judging by the personnel list, very few non-German players.Comment
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Originally posted by Once Was 4 View Post
I sincerely hope it was for the Orchestra acknowledging the applause of the audience sitting behind. I've certainly seen this happening in the Usher Hall where the (incredibly uncomfortable!) choir seat are often very full. Die Berliner Philharmoniker also acknowledge the choir stall in the Philharmonie. I really don't see a visiting ensemble behaving in such a boorish fashion unlike some political parties I could mention...Comment
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