Proms on Afternoon Concert 18 (02.09.20): BBC NOW - R. Strauss, Broström, Brahms

[bluestateprommer]

"BBC Orchestras at the Proms: the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at last year's Proms.

The mischievous escapades of the irrepressible Till Eulenspiegel – Germany’s beloved folk-hero – introduce a concert that celebrates the dramatic power of the orchestra. Markus Stenz conducts the BBC NOW in a concert which pairs Strauss’s lively tone-poem with Brahms’s turbulent Symphony No. 1 – the work that announced him as the ‘heir to Beethoven’. And trumpeters Håkan Hardenberger and Jeroen Berwaerts are rival soloists in a rhythmically charged new double concerto by Swedish composer Tobias Broström.

Presented by Georgia Mann.

From 25 July 2019, Prom 9

Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
Tobias Broström: Nigredo (concerto for two trumpets – UK premiere)
with Jeroen Berwaerts; Håkan Hardenberger (trumpets)
Brahms: Symphony No 1
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Markus Stenz (conductor)"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000m6lr

[edashtav]

I'm enjoying this Concert. Here are some posts from the first live broadcast last September that will save me from thinking anew:


Last year, bsp opined:
Tobias Broström's two-trumpet concerto just finished. For a concerto with the subtitle "Dark Night of the Soul", the work itself is quite optimistic in tone, with little in the way or darkness or angst. Some popular or rock rhythms seemed to kick in as an upbeat to the final section. It's very audience-friendly in idiom, nothing greatly profound about it, but pleasant enough. The Richard Strauss opener was OK, with a near-blip in the solo horn at the start. Since the BBC NOW is looking for a principal conductor now, one wonders how much of a test audition this concert is for Markus Stenz.

JLW (Remember her?) wrote, after the Two Trumpet Concert had ended:

Wow!! Like to sum that one up in a few words anyone?
Tobias Broström ...Nigredo.....From the Innocent-Ear notes....

Begins like a quest....shifting fluid lines....climactic continuous soaring trumpets.... VERY loud especially HH.....calmer episode....piano & pitched perc. undulating....continuous flow of molten ideas against percussion pulses and string textures....
dying away again....near-silence.... quieter less purposeful "centre".... slow/static, floating dreamlike textures....trumpets flaring up..."chattering" episode for perc./trumpets....brief climax in the calm.....then percussion more aggressive & rhythmical, dominant in a sense of finale-release, crescendoing into a battering-ram surge to the end....

Big demanding impressive work, mysterious & intense with dynamic extremes & often deafeningly loud....sometimes sempre tutti......I'll look at the background to the piece later and listen again…
......

And NOW for some predictive text:

I noted a year ago that the BBC NOW performance of the Brahms' 1st. was "wonderful".

OVERALL : One of the finest BBC NOW Concerts that I've heard ( and my algorithm awards full marks to Marcus Stenz in his aural examination).

PS Was one leader in the woodwind section tuned a tad sharp at the start of the Brahms?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Listening driving home, I caught much of the Brahms and thought "this is a good performance" - ignorant of the forces involved.. Very crisp and energised in the last movement in particular.