Prom 29 (26.08.21) - George Lewis & Beethoven

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Thursday 26 August 2021 ON TV
Royal Albert Hall

George Lewis: Minds in Flux BBC commission: world première
Ludwig van Beethoven: Concert aria ‘Ah! perfido’
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 2 in D major

Lucy Crowe soprano
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov conductor

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov pair Beethoven’s dramatic concert aria ‘Ah! perfido’ with the Second Symphony – a work whose vitality and ‘smiling’ mood belie the private struggles and despair of a composer wrestling with hearing loss – with a new commission from celebrated American composer George Lewis. This world premiere blends a conventional orchestra with spatialised electronics, exploiting the unique space of the Royal Albert Hall to create, in Lewis’s words, ‘a medium for meditation on what processes of decolonisation might sound like’.

[jayne lee wilson]

Couldn't find much more on the premiere, except that its around 30'......

[bluestateprommer]

The opening put me in mind of Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus, for one. Not sure about the whole sonic depiction of decolonization theme, but whatever. Unfortunately, with all of Kate Molleson being Kate Molleson right after the work, editorializing gushingly about it, she never actually pointed out if Ilan Volkov invited GL to take a bow, as GL is apparently in the house. Presenter party-foul there. GL is about to speak with KM, after the Louis Andriessen selection on now.

[jayne lee wilson]

How does one respond to, write about, a work like Minds in Flux? Do we have a vocabulary to do that beyond the sonic? Its recurrences appear and dissolve... it seems to challenge consciousness itself.

I wrote automatically as I listened as follows......

rumbling, growling, wild birdcalls, low bells gongs, chaos threatens, chords hold, waves flow and ebb, then jagged and sharp, electro, brass, broken lines, sounds from everywhere rushing, electrometallic swoops across soundspace

calmer

electroinsects, calmer…. piano tinkles improv strings shiver and hover, piano alone…..noisier insects, long drifting brass, electro sweep and swoop, noisy crowded chaos resolving into calm........
winds animated response, abstract electrocreatures, agitated, angry, low bass impact, wild wind voices percbrass thumps, then

out into space….

electroinsects piano… silence….wisps .....bells.... deeper, calmer…..alien twittering,
dark angry brass, strange wind breaths…..fragmentations….

[Ein Heldenleben]

What does the decolonisation of classical music mean exactly ? I don’t think the interval feature got anywhere near answering that.

[edashtav]

Couldn't find much more on the premiere, except that its around 30'......

Just < 30 mins.

It was good to get an extended premiere, so many contemporary pieces are disappointingly brief. I was more intrigued by the electronic components in ‘Minds in Flux’ simply because they sounded inventive, fresh and fit for purpose in the big acoustic of the RAH. The orchestral side of the work was less impressive because it was less original. However, I don’t want to make a firm judgement because hearing a spatial piece via radio is to experience only some of its elements, and the missing facets may be critical. The work held my interest without blowing my mind. Did I find the subtext ‘decolonisation’ helpful - no.
I like Kate Molleson’s enthusiasm but not her hyperbolic tendencies.
Strip off the Emperor’s New Groove is there enough musical muscle?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just < 30 mins.

It was good to get an extended premiere, so many contemporary pieces are disappointingly brief. I was more intrigued by the electronic components in ‘Minds in Flux’ simply because they sounded inventive, fresh and fit for purpose in the big acoustic of the RAH. The orchestral side of the work was less impressive because it was less original. However, I don’t want to make a firm judgement because hearing a spatial piece via radio is to experience only some of its elements, and the missing facets may be critical. The work held my interest without blowing my mind. Did I find the subtext ‘decolonisation’ helpful - no.
I like Kate Molleson’s enthusiasm but not her hyperbolic tendencies.
Strip off the Emperor’s New Groove is there enough musical muscle?

The Emperor’s New Groove sounds exactly like a track that the Count Basie band (where George Lewis once played trombone) used to dazzle with . Is it just me but I find Jazz and Blues so much more subversive and indeed decolonising than most modern classical music ….?

[jayne lee wilson]

What does the decolonisation of classical music mean exactly ? I don’t think the interval feature got anywhere near answering that.

Get yourself a stiff drink and read......

https://www.van-outernational.com/lewis-en/

[Ein Heldenleben]

Get yourself a stiff drink and read......
https://www.van-outernational.com/lewis-en/

Yes tricky to bring out all that in a live interview.

[edashtav]

I’ll catch-up with the decolonoscopy, in the morning.

But, before I forget, I thoroughly enjoyed Ilan Volkov’s forthright interpretation of Beethoven’s wonderful 2nd Symphony, a favourite work of mine. He didn’t belittle it or treat it as ‘one of those even numbered’ Beethoven symphonies that are warmer, friendlier and less grand than the craggy, odd-numbered symphonies which demonstrate the peaks of Beethoven’s originality and invention but let it speak with its own inimitable voice. The returns to positive, happy D major affirmation were particularly well handled. Plaudits, too, for the BBC SSO.

[jayne lee wilson]

Big, weighty, trad Beethoven 2, MOR-LVB which I found a little too safe and steady initially; the larghetto was quite Romantically read, but I would have liked more inner life here and in the other movements, an enlivening rubato, perkier more individual winds. Attack and momentum were better empowered through scherzo and finale, the coda fulfilling enough. (Just).
I guess I expected something more distinctive from Volkov and the Scottish SO.

So for me, all a bit nothing-wrong-with-it-but….

Technically well played, yes, but this time around I was soon craving Earthier Pleasures. How I longed for the tangier timbres and snappier bite of - Les Siècles, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concentus Musicus Wien… some sudden swerve of phrase, dramatic accents, stabbing sforzandi, the blare and blaze of valveless brass……

[Bryn]

I’ll catch-up with the decolonoscopy, in the morning.

But, before I forget, I thoroughly enjoyed Ilan Volkov’s forthright interpretation of Beethoven’s wonderful 2nd Symphony, a favourite work of mine. He didn’t belittle it or treat it as ‘one of those even numbered’ Beethoven symphonies that are warmer, friendlier and less grand than the craggy, odd-numbered symphonies which demonstrate the peaks of Beethoven’s originality and invention but let it speak with its own inimitable voice. The returns to positive, happy D major affirmation were particularly well handled. Plaudits, too the BBC SSO.

Re the 2nd, agreed. My only reservation was the lack of hard beater 'thwack' from the timps. I will listen to Minds in Flux again. I wondered whether some of the electronic processing was intended to have some of its quiet but 'dirty' artefacts. With such works, what a shame the Beeb do not opt for surround experiments, if only via its Sounds online facility.

[Bryn]

. . . How I longed for the tangier timbres and snappier bite of - Les Siècles, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concentus Musicus Wien… some sudden swerve of phrase, dramatic accents, stabbing sforzandi, the blare and blaze of valveless brass……

What, no mention of La Chambre Philharmonique?

[Bryn]

Having now listened to the on-demand recording of Minds in Flux, it has become clear that the artefact I mentioned were confined to reception here of the live 320kbps AAC-C offering. I rarely listen to that stream 'live'. I wonder at what stage the artefacts I heard were getting generated?

[edashtav]

The Emperor’s New Groove sounds exactly like a track that the Count Basie band (where George Lewis once played trombone) used to dazzle with . Is it just me but I find Jazz and Blues so much more subversive and indeed decolonising than most modern classical music ….?

An excellent point, Heldenleben. :