Prom 6: The Rite of Spring - 22.07.19

[jayne lee wilson]

Of all the soloists I have heard over the years I have probably heard Ehnes the most (about 7 or 8 times) and he has generally been the dullest. I tend to avoid him now.

I've been attending concerts for fifty years and reporting from concerts for over 15 years and the violin performances that have stuck in the mind have been from Henning Kraggerud, Nikolaj Znaider, Lisa Batiashvili and Pinchas Zukerman. Of course much is down to my own personal taste.

Yes, but what we need here is your careful appraisal of this particular performance of the Britten Violin Concerto....

It is easy to form opinions of a given artist through various live or recorded encounters & then feel that we know how they are, and that's it...... and forget that creative artists can change - through sheer experience, self-critical appraisal or inspiration from other performers they work with or encounter...

And just the sheer living in the inspirational moment!

I often felt very negative towards Valery Gergiev, for example, largely because of Proms encounters & a handful of recordings. But his LSO/Prokofiev Cycle, initIally accessed through Qobuz and then purchased as a boxset, changed my view of him to something far more nuanced and positive... I heard his later/recent Mariinsky recordings differently after that...(e.g. a really lovely Jeu de Cartes...)

[Alison]

Yes, but what we need here is your careful appraisal of this particular performance of the Britten Violin Concerto....

It is easy to form opinions of a given artist through various live or recorded encounters & then feel that we know how they are, and that's it...... and forget that creative artists can change - through sheer experience, self-critical appraisal or inspiration from other performers they work with or encounter...

And just the sheer living in the inspirational moment!

I often felt very negative towards Valery Gergiev, for example, largely because of Proms encounters & a handful of recordings. But his LSO/Prokofiev Cycle, initIally accessed through Qobuz and then purchased as a boxset, changed my view of him to something far more nuanced and positive... I heard his later/recent Mariinsky recordings differently after that...(e.g. a really lovely Jeu de Cartes...)

Very good post Jayne. This would make an interesting subject for a thread in its own right.

I’ve had similar experiences with the likes of Pollini and Sir Andrew Davis.
No such problems in any case with James Ehnes. I’m thinking of a rather special performance of the LvB concerto heard one winter afternoon BBCSO/Oramo.

[teamsaint]

I have never really understood why it might be difficult to judge the individual merits of a work , recording , or performance, even when there is a history of approval or disapproval.

The disappointments come more sharply into focus with a previously admired musician, and the good surprises are maybe that much more enjoyable.

Soloists in classical music are potentially at the mercy of conductor whims, inadequate rehearsal opportunities, appetite dulled orchestras , jet lag, whatever, so cutting them a bit of slack from time to time in their high visibility role is pretty straightforward.

[Anastasius]

Hannah French is gabbling away, quite unlike other times I've heard her on radio 3 - so I assume anxiety - but it reminds me how these multi-person chats are so much less satisfying than the old Proms Interval Talks. Even with the volume turned right down I find her voice exhausting.

Like so many of the female presenters on Radio 3. There is one lady, mentioning no names, Jimmy, but I've beaten my all-time record for sprinting to the radio to turn it off. Caliban knows who I mean !

[alywin]

(Please, people, don't be too hard on the guy who cried out.... with the original moaning sounds, it reminded me of some cerebral palsy sufferers I've encountered, including one or two in concert halls. It did not sound completely wilful. Go easy now.)

Thanks, Jayne, for finding words that eluded me in immediate response to the 'nutters' posts (15 et al). In our lifetimes people with such disabilities as Jayne mentions were incarcerated so that the rest of society wouldn't be disturbed by them. Happily we live now in a more compassionate era (at least in that regard). It is much more likely that the noise came from someone with such a chronic condition, or unwell, than from someone setting out to ruin the performance.

How many seconds of your listening were invaded...?

Prommers in the Hall tonight certainly thought it was someone with an uncontrollable condition, rather than someone "off his meds". I was listening on the radio, and I don't remember even registering anything untoward.

[Anastasius]

Forgive my slight diversion, but the first version that I ever heard of the Rite was Bernstein's - played repeatedly as a young teenager.

If you look at him on YouTube , at about 11mins 55 secs in the Ritual of the Rival Tribes, between sections 58 and 59 on the score he makes an emphatic rallentando like a mini-climax for the horns (da da da daaaaa). Nobody else seems to do this (for example 17mins 50 on Bryn's video above, 10.55 for Adès), and in last night's performance.

Looking at the score, until that point the bars are 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. But for this phrase it is 3/2, a time signature rarely used in the score.

So is Bernstein correct and are the others wrong? I do hope so, because that's how it's imprinted in my brain.

Ah, thank you, Flay for confirming Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances. Namely, for certain works, it is the very first one that we ever hear that becomes our benchmark against which all others are compared.

[rauschwerk]

Forgive my slight diversion, but the first version that I ever heard of the Rite was Bernstein's - played repeatedly as a young teenager.

If you look at him on YouTube , at about 11mins 55 secs in the Ritual of the Rival Tribes, between sections 58 and 59 on the score he makes an emphatic rallentando like a mini-climax for the horns (da da da daaaaa). Nobody else seems to do this (for example 17mins 50 on Bryn's video above, 10.55 for Adès), and in last night's performance.

Looking at the score, until that point the bars are 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. But for this phrase it is 3/2, a time signature rarely used in the score.

So is Bernstein correct and are the others wrong? I do hope so, because that's how it's imprinted in my brain.

In my B&H study score (seems to be 1929 revision) there is the marking 'a tempo ritenuto pesante' 4 bars before 59 (the 3/2 bar to which you refer). I take it that this applies only to that bar, since in the next bar the timps resume their opening idea. Some conductors naturally slow the tempo more than others.

[cloughie]

Ah, thank you, Flay for confirming Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances. Namely, for certain works, it is the very first one that we ever hear that becomes our benchmark against which all others are compared.

So that’s why I continually back my choices of recordings from the 50s and 60s against Jayne’s modern day rethinks!

[Mal]

So that’s why I continually back my choices of recordings from the 50s and 60s against Jayne’s modern day rethinks!

Nope. I don''t think Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances is valid.

I have heard many pieces for the first time in modern day rethinks (usually on Radio 3!) but, usually, *much* prefer earlier recordings listened to *after* the rethinks. My theory is that if pieces have survived from the 50s or 60s then they must be good. The latest rethinks are hyped. Will they still be played fifty years from now?

Bernstein's Rite is a bad example to use in trying to prove Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances. It's a classic performance, so someone rates it highly, not because it was their first Rite, but because it's very good. If they listen to another classic performance, e.g., Stravinsky's own, then they might miss something that was in Bernstein's, and rate it a bit lower than it deserves. So Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances might have some application, but only in a context where you are judging between classic performances.

[jayne lee wilson]

So that’s why I continually back my choices of recordings from the 50s and 60s against Jayne’s modern day rethinks!

Trouble is, these "rethinks" go back to the 1990s or earlier now (JEG, Harnoncourt etc), and they don't diminish my respect for earlier recordings (if good of their kind) so much as place them in a larger, refreshed perspective. Within which I of course have my preferences, e.g. Schumann on chamber orchestras or instruments d'epoque; if you listen across the decades then every new recording of, say, a Beethoven Symphony alters the way we hear, and critically view, the rest. (Or at least the better, more revitalised ones do...)

But those wedded to large modern SOs in say, Schumann or Mendelssohn have at least to take on board the far smaller orchestras used at the time of their premieres, in smaller acoustics and with different instrumental timbres, which often goes for Brahms too. It is historical fact, not just preference.

Nor is it just about "modern day".... once you've heard the remarkable 1950s Bruckner Cycle by the VSO under Volkmar Andreae, the first ever complete one and recorded in Vienna by a conductor steeped in the older Viennese Tradition, you never hear HvK or Wand etc. in the same way again. The same would go for Rosbaud's SWR one from just a few years later - different again...

They recognise the Schubertian tradition very vividly in their realisations, but this only sharpens & "quickens" the symphonic structures. Then you have Kna, who marries the Schubertian to his own Wagnerian dramatic sense....
When Venzago's Bruckner Cycle appeared it shocked many who were unaware of those earlier achievements. But it has much in common with them. So it isn't entirely a modern day rethink, as much as a rapprochement ... ..

And so on. It's just a matter of perspective and open-minded, open-eared approaches really....

[Serial_Apologist]

Trouble is, these "rethinks" go back to the 1990s or earlier now (JEG, Harnoncourt etc), and they don't diminish my respect for earlier recordings so much as place them in a larger, refreshed perspective. Within which I of course have my preferences, e.g. Schumann on chamber orchestras or instruments d'epoque; if you listen across the decades the every new recording of, say, a Beethoven Symphony alters the way we hear, and critically view, the rest. (Or at least the better ones do...)

Nor is it just about "modern day".... once you've heard the remarkable 1950s Bruckner Cycle by the VSO under Volkmar Andreae, the first ever complete one and recorded in Vienna by a conductor steeped in the older Viennese Tradition, you never hear HvK or Wand etc. in the same way again. The same would go for Rosbaud's SWR one from just a few years later - different again...

They recognise the Schubertian tradition very vividly in their realisations, but this only sharpens & "quickens" the symphonic structures. Then you have Kna, who marries the Schubertian to his own Wagnerian dramatic sense....
When Venzago's Cycle appeared it shocked man who were unaware of those earlier achievements. But it has much in common with them. So it isn't entirely a modern day rethink, as much a rapprochement ..

And so on. It's just a matter of perspective and open-minded, open-eared approaches really....

I'm sure you're right about this, jayne, probably! The most thrilling performance of Le sacre I ever experienced was at the RFH around 1965 or '66 with Boulez conducting. Yet I hark back for "authenticity" to the 1957 recording with Monteux, on similar grounds to my feeling about period drama, namely that the closer in time to the source, the more accurate the representation in terms of manners, speech and so on. I don't feel anybody will transcend Pinter's screenplay of The Go Between, because no one is around any more to remember that foreign land past. In the end it is always going to be relatively speaking: by the time Stravinsky came to record his Diaghilev era scores he had completely changed aesthetically.

[LMcD]

Ah, thank you, Flay for confirming Anastasius's Theory of Classical Music Performances. Namely, for certain works, it is the very first one that we ever hear that becomes our benchmark against which all others are compared.

That's certainly true, in my case, of Previn's Walton 1st with the LSO (the recording that is - sadly I never saw him conduct it).

[Pulcinella]

In my B&H study score (seems to be 1929 revision) there is the marking 'a tempo ritenuto pesante' 4 bars before 59 (the 3/2 bar to which you refer). I take it that this applies only to that bar, since in the next bar the timps resume their opening idea. Some conductors naturally slow the tempo more than others.

Not marked like that in the score I have (B&H 19441, copyright 1921 assigned to B&H 1947, it says).
That would certainly account for it.
There are also some 6/4 bars around (e.g. two bars after fig 61) that could just as readily be 3/2, perhaps (which is not to deny the specific 3/2 emphasis put on the bar in question).