Prom 4: The Planets - 21.07.19

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Prom 4: The Planets
19:30 Sunday 21 July 2019
Royal Albert Hall

John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Samuel Barber: Violin Concerto
Gustav Holst: The Planets

Nemanja Radulovic (violin)
Trinity Boys Choir
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Kirill Karabits conductor

A concert of 20th-century classics from Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra continues a weekend marking the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the Moon.

Space travel has never been more richly imagined than in Holst’s suite The Planets, but in order to get there you’ll need to take a Short Ride in a Fast Machine, courtesy of John Adams’s exhilarating, propulsive Minimalist masterpiece.

The lyrical beauty of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, with its exquisite slow movement, offers a contrasting moment of contemplation. Dynamic Franco-Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović makes his Proms debut as soloist.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Perhaps this lunar obsession could have brought us some less frequently performed moon-inspired compositions. Not that there's anything wrong with this offering.

[Mal]

They should have a Patrick Moore prom to celebrate his sterling coverage of lunar matters on the BBC, and in print, over many decades. He specialised on the moon, and had great interest, and involvement in, classical music. I remember owning his famous moon map and checking out where the missions were landing.

http://www.armaghplanet.com/sir-patrick-moore-and-the-first-man-on-the-moon-49-years-on.html

It would also be a great excuse to play that excellent theme tune in full!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Sort-of relevant - about to start:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006sw7

[oddoneout]

It may have been a fast machine but it was hardly a short ride.

[jayne lee wilson]

They should have a Patrick Moore prom to celebrate his sterling coverage of lunar matters on the BBC, and in print, over many decades. He specialised on the moon, and had great interest, and involvement in, classical music. I remember owning his famous moon map and checking out where the missions were landing.

http://www.armaghplanet.com/sir-patrick-moore-and-the-first-man-on-the-moon-49-years-on.html

It would also be a great excuse to play that excellent theme tune in full!

The problem with that ubiquity is that now, I always have to start the marvellous Sibelius Suite from track 2....thereafter it is one of my most cherished works of his....and I think one of his greatest.
Anyway, let's have a Brian Cox Prom instead..... imagine the interplanetary possibilities...the Solar System projected across the magic mushrooms...

[Bella Kemp]

It looks to be a great concert, but perhaps a missed opportunity to give the wonderful Colin Matthews an outing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T5BM_BE8iQ

[pastoralguy]

Good concert! Not the very best of BBC broadcast sound but pretty good.

[bluestateprommer]

Tuned in via iPlayer late (reason explained in the "WAYLTN? 3 Thread"), around the tail end of the slow movement of the Barber Violin Concerto (with applause after the slow movement), the encore (archived in the Forum Calendar), the very enjoyable interval discussion, and Holst's "Seven Movements for Large Orchestra". Nemanja Radulović did a crackerjack job with the Barber finale, as well as the Serbian encore with several Bournemouth SO musicians along for the fun.

Pretty good Holst from KK, mainly straight-up in terms of interpretation, with major exceptions in "Jupiter". For exampl, KK put in a surprise protracted Luftpause before the "washerwoman's dance" section (for lack of a better phrase). Mild momentary piccolo meltdown at the end of "Mercury", but no other big blemishes. I'd forgotten that the choir for this Prom for "Neptune" was the Trinity Boys' Choir, rather than ladies' voices, so that was a bit of a sonic jolt towards the end. Perhaps one benefit was that their very first entry wasn't as obvious, and truly "appeared from nowhere".

The "happy clappers" were in full force between each of the movements in the Holst. I got the sense, though, that Karabits tried to 'tune them out', because the actual pause times between the movements weren't that long, as if KK would have paused that long between each movement if there had not been applause. This contrasted with Prom 2 last night, where Hrusa took his time for silence to settle again before launching into the next movement of Ma Vlast. The intermovement applause bugged me more on this occasion than previous nights, although KK did shut it down when he launched fairly promptly into "Uranus".

But I have to remind myself that there are much more important things to be angry about at this time in the world than applause between movements at The Proms. (Digression: don't count on us to correct the main source of those things in November next year, sad to say.) I saw from the RAH's site that Prom 4 was sold out, so that by inference, there must have been a fair share of newbies to The Proms, and perhaps to full-scale classical music. One has to build future audiences from somewhere.

Need obviously to go back to the start to give the first half a full listen.

[edashtav]

I'm joining the club of later comers to this concert and I still await part 1 on iPlayer. My leave note indicates that I was leading an historic walk which turned into a marathon twice as long as I had been told to prepare. Off the topic, but a general point: where have all the symphonies gone, long time passing? We're at Prom#4 and no symphony to date. I suspect that we must wait until Prom #7 before we get at BOGOF offer: Ben-Haim#1 and Schumann's 4th. This is not a trivial point, symphonies are at the intellectual heart of the repertoire of 'symphony orchestras'. Having listened to the Holst: as bsp neatly noted "seven pieces for large orchestra", i realised I was suffering from S.W.S of symphonic withdrawal symptoms. Oh dear, I must be an addict:I'll organise a quick fix for the morning.
I'am a Bournemouth boy, weaned on the BMO and educated by the BSO. I still think their LP of The Planet under Anglo-Romanian George Hurst takes a lot of beating. I love the work that Kirill Karabits has done with the orchestra so I
had high expectations of tonight's Prom. It was good, but not that good. My overall comments will be similar to bsp's. Technically it was largely secure. Rhythms were clear and taut, the balance was good and the BBC sound was crisp with Prince Albert's bathroom less prominent than of yore. Mars was suitably martial and came out top of the 7 for me. Vnus was lacking in humanity and warmth: the tempo just as tad on the fast side. Mercury had a quicksilver quality that cannot be bad. Jupiter was too straight and matter of fact and it was at that juncture that I thought: is this Planets-lite? The element that I was missing was the human factor. Holst's Planets are not a space odyssey, his planets have human characters and foibles. I needed more empathy, more humanity, more sheer frailty and less glistening chrome. Saturn failed for me because it skated over issues of age and infirmity. Uranus was earthy but Neptune was too quick, its mystery became crystalline and lacked obscurity. The final fade was too 'open and shut': it needed to linger longer.
I'll catch up with Part 1, later.

[maestro267]

Karabits' Saturn was a bit too sprightly and energetic to be The Bringer Of Old Age.

And the clapping put an enormous enormous dampener on the concert, as it does for every Prom. But apparently we're not allowed to say that because it's not PC, or it "deters a new audience" from classical music. If the focus is entirely on trying to attract new people to classical music, it is always at the expense of the audience that classical music already has.

[Bryn]

Karabits' Saturn was a bit too sprightly and energetic to be The Bringer Of Old Age.

And the clapping put an enormous enormous dampener on the concert, as it does for every Prom. But apparently we're not allowed to say that because it's not PC, or it "deters a new audience" from classical music. If the focus is entirely on trying to attract new people to classical music, it is always at the expense of the audience that classical music already has.

Oh, you are allowed to say it but others are also allowed to disagree.

[edashtav]

I'm catching up on my bke!
John Adams "A Short Ride in a Fast Machine" is a cheerful, trivial piece of minimalism. The BSO's rhythms were clear and its lower brass puffed along like h.g.v.s running out of gas in the fast lane. A couple of fellas in the RAH audience hadn't heard it before and cheered to the echo.

[edashtav]

Almost a day late, I've arrived at the jewel in this Prom's programme: Nemanja Radulovič's wonderful interpretation of Sam Barber's luscious Violin Concerto, lovingly accompanied by Kyrill Karabits and his South Coast band. I'm a great believer in the value of giving musicians 'residencies': Nemanja has enjoyed one in Bournemouth, and, O Boy, did it show in the intimacy and rapport between the soloists and the orchestra. At times, they were like lovers, embraced and entwined in song. I must admit that my heart rules my head in this concerto, and this sublime performance reminded me why I fell for a Record Club offer that showcased it when I was at University over 50 years ago. Super stuff, as was the Serbian traditional Round Dance encore. Encore une fois. Play it again, Sam!

[Brixton Dave]

I enjoyed this concert - part from the clappomania. The violinist Radulovic was physically very striking as well as doing a good job of the Barber. The encore chosen sounded to me like Klezmer music, though the BBC describe it as Serbian folk music. Maybe its the way it sounds played with a lead violin rather than a lead accordion.
The Planets seemed fine to me - and the boys voices diminuendo at the end was quite effective - considering they were singing in the gallery. Usually its women's voices of course - and they generally retreat down the corridor outside the auditorium in order to die away.
Barry Millington in the Evening Standard gives this concert his usual 4 star thumbs up - but says:
"The now apparently statutory applause between the movements at the Proms destroys both the contemplative mood and unity of a work like The Planets."
True indeed.