Prom 28 (25.08.21) - Eight Seasons

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

15:30 & 20:00 Wednesday 25 August 2021
Royal Albert Hall

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Astor Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (arr. Leonid Desyatnikov)

Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Joshua Bell director/violin

From an icy Italian winter to the heady, sensual warmth of a South American summer: violinist Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on a musical journey through the sights and sounds of two continents and four very different seasons. Inspired by Vivaldi’s best-known work, Piazzolla – Argentina’s 20th-century tango king, whose 100th anniversary we celebrate this year – created his own response, complete with musical quotations. While Vivaldi’s virtuosic concertos celebrate contrast – the freshness of spring, with its sudden thunderstorms, versus the languid heat of summer – Piazzolla’s musical landscape remains more constant, always swaying to the pervasive rhythm of the tango.

[jayne lee wilson]

Eight seasons......VIVALDI/PIAZZOLLA

Can't see a listing for this wonderful ASMF concert, some of the sweetest and most seductive sounds I've heard all season...

Utterly gorgeous evening of purest musical hedonism from Josh and The Argonauts..... just encoring now with Gershwin's Summertime...

[edashtav]

Can't see a listing for this wonderful ASMF concert, some of the sweetest and most seductive sounds I've heard all season...

Utterly gorgeous evening of purest musical hedonism from Josh and The Argonauts..... just encoring now with Gershwin's Summertime...

Yes, Neville Marriner would have loved it. It was wide awake and super-charged but it was woke-free and hipp-less.
I ought to have despised it but I was hooked, drawn in and quartered. It was beguiled.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Can't see a listing for this wonderful ASMF concert, some of the sweetest and most seductive sounds I've heard all season...

Jayne, thank you for starting this thread. There was a thread, but had inadvertently been ‘hidden’, which it seems I’d failed to do.

Why do some people feel sinful for enjoying music that isn’t played as the Hippites might prefer?

[kernelbogey]

Why do some people feel sinful for enjoying music that isn’t played as the Hippites might prefer?

I've been having fun playing with the phrase 'the HIPP police' someone used on another thread.

There was a loud knock at the front door. Cedric put down his viola with a sigh....

[cloughie]

Jayne, thank you for starting this thread. There was a thread, but had inadvertently been ‘hidden’, which it seems I’d failed to do.

Why do some people feel sinful for enjoying music that isn’t played as the Hippites might prefer?

Exactly - Marriner’s Argo Four Seasons was the recording, along with the Bach Suites and the Water Music probably did more for giving me an interest in listening to Baroque music than any previously heard versions. I doubt the big selling Kennedy FS would have happ3ned without the Marriner example and the hipp movement also I feel benefited from hearing the lighter textures that Marriner showed. Hogwood was I believe an early member of ASMF. Early hipp recordings by VCM and Collegium Aureum were in my view not an attractive sound and it was the arrival of Koopman, Hogwood and Pinnock’s recordings on the scene that enlivened the scene and the Decca sound on many a L’Oiseau Lyre disc!

[BBMmk2]

Can't see a listing for this wonderful ASMF concert, some of the sweetest and most seductive sounds I've heard all season...

Utterly gorgeous evening of purest musical hedonism from Josh and The Argonauts..... just encoring now with Gershwin's Summertime...

I love that nickname you gave, Josh and the Argonauts! Aside from that, yes, a thoroughly enjoyable Prom concert last night. One of the better ones!

[cloughie]

I love that nickname you gave, Josh and the Argonauts! Aside from that, yes, a thoroughly enjoyable Prom concert last night. One of the better ones!

Is Argo(nauts) a reference to the now defunct Decca label once the haven of ASMF recordings?

[Alison]

Yes, Neville Marriner would have loved it. It was wide awake and super-charged but it was woke-free and hipp-less.
I ought to have despised it but I was hooked, drawn in and quartered. It was beguiling.

My thoughts entirely! Thanks.

[edashtav]

[…]

Why do some people feel sinful for enjoying music that isn’t played as the Hippites might prefer?

I feel guilt, Alpie, because I have been ‘enlightened’ by the HIPP Reformation, declared my loyalty, and thought I was immunised against the luscious strains of the old order. I feel fallen from Grace and fear that my hip is, if not broken, dislocated, and needs to be snapped back into place.

[oddoneout]

I feel guilt, Alpie, because I have been ‘enlightened’ by the HIPP Reformation, declared my loyalty, and thought I was immunised against the luscious strains of the old order. I feel fallen from Grace and fear that my hip is, if not broken, dislocated, and needs to be snapped back into place.

Your hip is neither broken nor dislocated edash, it has just had a chance to exercise differently, and as often happens in such cases there may be unaccustomed twinges... If Grace is missing you get back to her otherwise move on, having acknowledged your manifold sin.
Music performed well is music performed well as far as I'm concerned and I'm far from convinced that shutting the door on what went before is either necessary or desirable.

[jayne lee wilson]

Is Argo(nauts) a reference to the now defunct Decca label once the haven of ASMF recordings?

The ASMF recorded for a surprising number of different labels. At one time they were named as..... the Argo Chamber Orchestra....

I loved how Bell and his players switched so seamlessly between the musical styles, from Pastoral Romance to a cool latin mover, oil-painted meadows, clouds, storms and biting bitter winds to the swing of the hips, the swish of a dress and the click of the heels; wonderfully free and fluid phrasing in the Vivaldi, fresh as the Spring even under Summer Lightning…….

*****
So many wonderful chamber orchestras to listen to now, of all instrumental vintages.....and a surprising number of the Vivaldi/Piazzolla interspersal, either with accordion or the Desyatnikov Violin...

Its not what you do its the way that you do it

OR.....

De la musique avant toute chose,
Et pour cela préfère l'Impair
Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air,
Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.
(Baudelaire)

*****
Final vital word for the Radio 3 soundbalance..... they may only have 320 kbps aac to play with, but how utterly gorgeous it sounded last night, so precise, so warm and spacious; the band so very distinctive, the Hall an essential character in the sonic delights, recommending themselves nimbly and sweetly unto our gentle senses........

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I feel guilt, Alpie, because I have been ‘enlightened’ by the HIPP Reformation, declared my loyalty, and thought I was immunised against the luscious strains of the old order. I feel fallen from Grace and fear that my hip is, if not broken, dislocated, and needs to be snapped back into place.

I think I've highlighted the problem. But please be assured, HIPP isn't a religious cult, or a football team, or national pride. So loyalty isn't an issue. Personal preference may push you one way or the other, but such preferences can vary from day to day.

[edashtav]

Your hip is neither broken nor dislocated edash, it has just had a chance to exercise differently, and as often happens in such cases there may be unaccustomed twinges... If Grace is missing you get back to her otherwise move on, having acknowledged your manifold sin.
Music performed well is music performed well as far as I'm concerned and I'm far from convinced that shutting the door on what went before is either necessary or desirable.

Thanks but you are the offoneout.

[edashtav]

Thanks but you are the offoneout.

I ought to edit my response but my computer knows best!