Proms on Afternoon Concert 17 (01.09.20): (a) BBC SO, (b) BBC SSO

[bluestateprommer]

"BBC Orchestras at the Proms: today there's a Nordic flavour to things with music by Sibelius and Nielsen played by BBC Symphony and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. And Proms-favourite Stephen Hough plays Beethoven's most popular piano concerto. Presented by Tom McKinney.

From 17 August 2018, Prom 62

Philip Venables (and Béla Bartók): Venables Plays Bartok (World premiere)
with Pekka Kuusisto (violin)

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo (conductor)

At approx. 3.10pm:
From 14 August 1999, Prom 36

Nielsen: Rhapsodic Overture 'An Imaginary Journey to the Faroes' (Proms premiere)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, 'Emperor'
with Stephen Hough (piano)
Nielsen: Paraphrase on 'Nearer my God to Thee', FS 63 (Proms premiere)
Sibelius: Symphony No 1 in E minor

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Osmo Vänskä (conductor)"

[bluestateprommer]

Gave this Afternoon Concert 'double bill' set of archival Proms a listen just before the 30-day deadline this week. The Philip Venables was a revisit, having heard it through ear buds at work 2 years back, but this time it was through computer speakers at home. I'm not sure if my favorable impression from the first listen then holds up now, although it still sounds effective as a piece of "music theater", if that term makes sense here. It made me cringe all over again to hear the cruel torture inflicted on the teacher, although that's about the words in the story rather than the music. But on the happier side, it was good to hear the strong musicianship from the BBC SO and the Finnish brigade of Pekka Kuusisto and Sakari Oramo. Smart move to include Pekka K.'s encore from the time.

The "novelty listen" was the 1999 Prom, to be sure, another first listen for me. The works of most interest were actually the shorter Nielsen works, both nicely done. LvB 5 was a solid performance from Stephen Hough and friends, but nothing particularly earth-shaking, IMHO. For Sibelius 1, Vanska took some of the fast passages pretty fast indeed in the 1st & 4th movements, and he does love his extreme pianissimos (standard practice with him, from what I understand), in the slow movement and also at the very last chord, just to name some examples. The biggest surprise was at the very end, with the encore, where Valse triste was not in the standard orchestration that I'm used to hearing. It sounded like strings-only. I have to double-check with my Lahti SO recording of the Kuolema incidental music, to see if OV went back to "the original", so to speak.