Prom 7: Schumann, Schoenberg & Mozart - 23.07.19

[edashtav]

Not much depth of feeling in the concerto I felt.

This symphony has engaged me much more.

I will catch up with Concerto later… I was delayed by dinner.

Ben-Haim's style, I feel, is 25% from another Paul (Hindemith), 25% honey, 25% wide screen American epics, and the rest is Eastern Mediterranean / Jewish. The piece opens with suffering and displacement, has a hopeful Psalm at its heart (121, I Will Lift My Eyes Unto the Hills) and ends in an Israeli Hora dance. Paul né Hamburger, once Bruno Walter's young assistant, had left Europe earlier than most Jews and had given himself a new identity and homeland. His harmony is less acerbic than Hindemith's and in some of the more relaxed moments in the first movement I could hear a similarity to RVW. Is his music symphonic? Ben-Haim loves long, sinuous themes e.g. the Persian-Jewish melody in the moving, prayerful slow movement: it's the type of tune that's resistant to development.

What of the performance by the BBC Philharmonic under its new Chief Conductor, Omer Meir Wellber? It was well-rehearsed, nicely characterised but lacked that ounce of freedom which comes from being familiar repertoire. I've heard a little better on CD but, nevertheless, it was worthwhile and came as a relief to me: the first symphony to be scheduled in this year's Prom season, a season that contains not one British symphony! For me the most successful movement was the dancing, rejoicing third which had bounce and snap and an audience-rousing coda.
This Concert is a fine example of the best of Proms' programming. Thank you

[bluestateprommer]

Within the limits of earphones at work (don't tell my boss), very good job from the BBC Phil and OMW of the Paul Ben-Haim Symphony No. 1. I'd never heard it before in any format, so I'd no idea what to expect. It struck me as a bit sprawling in places, but I'll give it a re-listen later at home, on computer speakers, to get a better sense of it.

[jayne lee wilson]

The very first time I ever heard the Ben-Haim.... I'm afraid it didn't find a responsive ear, or heart, here. But that kind of post-late-Romantic rather filmic idiom rarely works for me now...

Just seen Ed's very pertinent post - thanks for those more positive comments Ed., interesting...

[teamsaint]

On a positive note that Mozart was quite beautifully played....

What was the negative note ?

[Petrushka]

Alison (concerto) and Ed (symphony) have it about right, I think.

[edashtav]

Schoenberg's 5 Pieces.
Premonitions: Wonderfully well executed, I was thrilled by the raunchy, colourful performance. ( I wonder if that owed something to the conductor's use if the original scoring for very Large orchestra?)
Past: Soulful and so sad.
Colours: good to hear it soon after Holst's Planets, a work influence by Schoenberg's.
Peripeteia: Arnold at his most cinematic and cross-cutting. An exciting interpretation.
Obligato/ Recitative: a leave-taking but not a resolution, open-ended like so much of life. Orchestra and conductor kept its melody coherent and taut.
Altogether, a winning and most welcome performance.

[jayne lee wilson]

That was a strange one wasn't it?... an Op.16 veering between the wilful the effortful and the soporific....?
Is it the heat or is everyone worn out after the Ben-Haim..?

Please give me a Schumann 4 to lift my spirits and redeem my evening...

[jayne lee wilson]

From the notes....
...rather heavy and rhetorical... bit of a throwback really....dynamics flat or unsubtle...horns trying their heroic best!.....wish inner parts/softer passages were more animated ....fast coda to (i) felt forced....
poor oboist in the romanze...
...finale tempo relations unconvincing... those big agogic grandstanding rhetorical gestures....

..The kinda Schumann 4 you might throw off to get things done, finish things off, get the cheers........
Immature. The music undersold.

Were the conditions difficult, the program too ambitious or the partnership simply not sparking off?
(BTW - Schumann 4 Orchestration/revision - on tonight's evidence Brahms was right...)

[bluestateprommer]

Agree with Ed about the Schoenberg, very well performed indeed. JLW's comment about "a strange one" applies more to the finale of Schumann 4 just now, where OMW rather overindulged more than he had to, even if he did say earlier in the pre-recorded chat that he was going to.

[edashtav]

That was a strange one wasn't it?... an Op.16 veering between the wilful the effortful and the soporific....?
Is it the heat or is everyone worn out after the Ben-Haim..?

Please give me a Schumann 4 to lift my spirits and redeem my evening...

I don't think it was... but it was a RAH-crowd pleaser!

Schumann Symphony no. 4 in D minor.
Ziemlich langsam - Lebhaft : Was the opening a little too massive and heavy, Jayne, or was that emphatic style written into the revised version? Perhaps, the microphony was a bit close but I felt it started in too Brucknerian a manner. Oh dear, am I suffering from HIPPitus? But, in this unsymphonic season, I shouldn't be grumbling about a bit of gravitas supported by a developing structure, should I? When the sun came out, it was harsh.
Romance: I'd have liked more rubato, greater relaxation, and yes, more graceful romance.
Scherzo: Heavy pounding, and Mendelssohn's delicate ghost failed to grace the trio.
Finale: I liked the mysterious introduction, but the main theme needed even more air and joy. The gear changes were clunky and needed oiling. Some dynamic effects were startling but overdrawn.
I thought the performance was, on balance, efficient but light on charm and bass-heavy, despite being heard on headphones. I thought the BBC Phil. delivered what its conductor demanded. Am I alone in hoping that he attends the next Schumann Boot Camp? (Gosh, boot's the wrong word ...carpet slippers?)
I need a corrective: I must get Jayne to tell me of the HIPP remedy.

[Alison]

Noseda did a much better Schumann 4 with the same orchestra.

[jayne lee wilson]

I don't think it was... but it was a RAH-crowd pleaser!

Schumann Symphony no. 4 in D minor.
Ziemlich langsam - Lebhaft : Was the opening a little too massive and heavy, Jayne, or was that emphatic style written into the revised version? Perhaps, the microphony was a bit close but I felt it started in too Brucknerian a manner. Oh dear, am I suffering from HIPPitus? But, in this unsymphonic season, I shouldn't be grumbling about a bit of gravitas supported by a developing structure, should I? When the sun came out, it was harsh.
Romance: I'd have liked more rubato, greater relaxation, and yes, more graceful romance.
Scherzo: Heavy pounding, and Mendelssohn's delicate ghost failed to grace the trio.
Finale: I liked the mysterious introduction, but the main theme needed even more air and joy. The gear changes were clunky and needed oiling. Some dynamic effects were startling but overdrawn.
I thought the performance was, on balance, efficient but light on charm and bass-heavy, despite being heard on headphones. I thought the BBC Phil. delivered what its conductor demanded. Am I alone in hoping that he attends the next Schumann Boot Camp? (Gosh, boot's the wrong noun… carpet slippers?)
I need a corrective: I must get Jayne to tell me of the HIPP remedy.

COE/Harnoncourt, Hanover/Goodman or ORR/JEG in the 1841....

[teamsaint]

From the notes....
...rather heavy and rhetorical... bit of a throwback really....dynamics flat or unsubtle...horns trying their heroic best!.....wish inner parts/softer passages were more animated ....fast coda to (i) felt forced....
poor oboist in the romanze...
...finale tempo relations unconvincing... those big agogic grandstanding rhetorical gestures....

..The kinda Schumann 4 you might throw off to get things done, finish things off, get the cheers........
Immature. The music undersold.

Were the conditions difficult, the program too ambitious or the partnership simply not sparking off?
(BTW - Schumann 4 Orchestration/revision - on tonight's evidence Brahms was right...)

I was beginning to think it might be my stereo. A distinctly ordinary run through IMO.

Interval comments were odd as well. Not sure what he was getting at.

[edashtav]

COE/Harnoncourt, Hanover/Goodman or ORR/JEG in the 1841....

Cheers, I've ordered Jeggers version which I shall take with PILS.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

( I wonder if that owed something to the conductor's use if the original scoring for very Large orchestra?)

The revision is also for "very large orchestra" - only six instruments fewer (one each Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, & Trumpet, and 2 Horns). There should, presumably, be a corresponding reduction in strings (losing, say, two players from the two sets of violins, and one each from the lower strings) but orchestras tend to use whatever strings are available to them. The only real giveaway is whether or not you can hear the contrabass clarinet.