Prom 25 (22.08.21) - Sir Simon Rattle Conducts the London Symphony Orchestra

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Sunday 22 August 2021 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments
Igor Stravinsky: Symphony in C
Igor Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle conductor

The London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle mark 2021’s Stravinsky anniversary with a series of symphonic snapshots. We follow Stravinsky’s view of the symphony from the experimental, colour-blocked ‘ritual’ of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments, through the transitional Symphony in C – reflecting both the composer’s European past and his American future – to arrive at the bold Symphony in Three Movements.

[khiiutvhjui]

Good content but a meagre 62 minutes of music, perhaps the shortest of the season.

[Ein Heldenleben]

My guess for the encore is Firebird final movement …

[gurnemanz]

I read somewhere that Covent Garden once invited Hans Knappertsbusch to conduct Elektra and Salome on the same evening. He replied by telegram: "Only if we do Meistersinger as an encore."

[Ein Heldenleben]

Fantastic playing this - my word the strings are on form….

[cloughie]

Good content but a meagre 62 minutes of music, perhaps the shortest of the season.

Steady now, quality is important too!

[makropulos]

Good content but a meagre 62 minutes of music, perhaps the shortest of the season.

When 25 of those minutes are the Symphony in C I’m more than happy for the orch to get it rehearsed properly which seems to be exactly what’s happened - it’s very hard to do it as well as this.

[Ein Heldenleben]

When 25 of those minutes are the Symphony in C I’m more than happy for the orch to get it rehearsed properly which seems to be exactly what’s happened - it’s very hard to do it as well as this.

For a live performance this is really sensational …

[makropulos]

For a live performance this is really sensational …

Isn’t it just! Stunning.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Isn’t it just! Stunning.

The precision of that! You almost wanted a mistake to show they’re human . What a loss SSR going to Germany is….

[makropulos]

I hope we shouldn’t be worried that SR is using a stool for some of the concert… I hope he’s okay. Certainly the musical bits are - I’ve never heard a better live Symph in C.

[Dave Payn]

Fine performances all round and a good choice of presenter in Clive Myrie, IMHO.

[Petrushka]

I hope we shouldn’t be worried that SR is using a stool for some of the concert… I hope he’s okay. Certainly the musical bits are - I’ve never heard a better live Symph in C.

My thought too. Conductors usually eschew such things unless they really have to or reach great age.

[jayne lee wilson]

About as fine a Symphony in C as one could hope to hear, meeting all the work's many and subtle demands with effortless skill, light on its feet and jaunty, but with apt gravitas, a classical danceability and a weighty bass punch. Quicksilver switches of expression and intensity. Brasses assumed all their different roles with effortless theatricality. And all with so much warmth.

Symphony in Three Movements….all that and more, spectacular brasses, precise but virtuosic attack, even weightier dynamic impact; then a stunningly sharp and brilliant final chord!

Sound-balance excellent via AAC live, spaciously set like the Rameau/Mozart on Friday, displaying the very distinctive characteristics of this great orchestra vividly. (Strings exceptional in their range of articulacy texture and colour).
All led by a master conductor and a Stravinskian of long, rich and deeply matured vintage. Music-making drawn late from the Oaken Casks. Very special event.

(Unwell earlier, late to the Symphonies of Wind, but they seemed to be equally fine….)

****

I went through to the TV room to watch the Three Movements again… very moving and atmospheric spectacle to see Rattle and the LSO there, bonding with a packed, rapt and joyful RAH crowd.
Clive Myrie was a very welcome presenter, my all-time favourite newscaster and a sharp, witty conductor of the three-way late-night Press Previews on BBC24.

By the end credits, I’d heard the last bars of the Symphony in Three Movements three times this evening. The perfect tonic after a difficult day.
Given this level of execution, even three more would not have been too much…..

Three is a Magic Number tonight!

[alywin]

And a friend rang up this evening while I was watching it on BBC4 :(