Prom 33 (30.08.21) - Sir George Benjamin Conducts the Mahler Chamber Orchestra

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 30 August 2021
Royal Albert Hall

Oliver Knussen: The Way to Castle Yonder
Henry Purcell: Three Consorts (1680) transcr. Benjamin world première
Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Sir George Benjamin: Concerto for Orchestra BBC co-commission with Mahler Chamber Orchestra: world première

Pierre‐Laurent Aimard piano
Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Sir George Benjamin conductor

When the 20-year-old George Benjamin’s Ringed by the Flat Horizon was performed at the Proms in 1980, it marked an arrival for a precociously talented young composer. Now established as one of the greats of his generation, he returns to conduct regular collaborators, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, in a concert featuring Ravel’s jazz-infused Piano Concerto, an operatic ‘pot-pourri’ by his friend, the late Oliver Knussen, the world premiere of his own Concerto for Orchestra and his new re-workings of Fantasias by Purcell, the ‘English Orpheus’.

[jayne lee wilson]

Main interest here is the new Benjamin Concerto for Orchestra, though I was slightly disappointed to see that it is timed at a mere 18'.... give us more epics, people!

Still, quality not quantity, especially given that the crack MCO, sole visiting orchestra to this year's Proms, were the commissioners....
I just hope the the Ravel really snaps and fizzes in the outer movements (except when the harp dreams and floats...); and sings me to my heart's ease in the swoonsome adagio...

No operaphile, so my connection to Benjamin's music has been intermittent following those remarkable early works after Ringed by the Flat Horizon (heard live on R3, some debut that was!), my favourite among which was A Mind of Winter, a shimmeringly evocative setting of what just happened to be my favourite Wallace Stevens poem. I was much taken with Palimpsests though, from 2002.

[oddoneout]

With an oboist who performed the lunchtime Prom recital at Cadogan Hall. Amusing little exchange with Petroc about taxi, bicycle and whether George Benjamin knew...

[bluestateprommer]

With an oboist who performed the lunchtime Prom recital at Cadogan Hall. Amusing little exchange with Petroc about taxi, bicycle and whether George Benjamin knew...

Given that the concert started pretty much on time, clearly Olivier S. made it back and forth between Cadogan Hall and the RAH in one piece, where David Pickard and his staff clearly did their job :) . Excellent start to this Prom with both the Knussen and the Purcell, plus Penny Gore as presenter (Kate M. could learn much from Penny G. in how to be a presenter), so we are in good hands all around.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well, superb band, but that was a perfectly...... ordinary Ravel G Major.....
More later, need to clear my head for the main event...(hope never dies....! )....

(NB - Kate Molleson should just go on being her inimitably, individually, enthusiastically communicative self..!..)

[jayne lee wilson]

Quite a complex work in several short, dovetailed and interspersed sections of sustained string/wind chords, livelier brass and wind figures, sweeter more expressive string phrases; brief appearances of pitched percussion; alternating activity with hesitation………the Benjamin Concerto for Orchestra builds to a sustained quasi-climax around halfway through, after which the earlier hesitant and calmer moods return, with livelier fragmentary recollections…
So not exactly a dazzling display piece, these somewhat equivocal first impressions may change on a later revisit, but….…(sorry but I had to put a "but" in...)

***
I had a few problems with the Ravel…..

On my usual live Radio 3 webstream, the piano sounded rather clangy and clattery, lacking much coloristic blend, meaningful contrast or dialogue with the band (superbly powerful sleek ensemble themselves). For me the allegramente simply wasn't effortlessly jazzy or poetic enough. The whispering harp came across nicely though.
The closely-balanced piano was more obvious in the adagio, (with the orchestra not far behind); so some lack of the evocative. I would have preferred a smoother, softer pianistic cantabile here; or at least, some elegant charm of a sarabande character. A lighter touch.
As in the allegramente it almost sounded as if the instrument wasn’t really voiced right for the work.
The finale, sadly, was never going to get me out of my chair. Rather ordinary I’m afraid…

Lovely orchestra though. The effortless strength, beauty and profile of a thoroughbred.

[edashtav]

Quite a complex work in several short, dovetailed and interspersed sections of sustained string/wind chords, livelier brass and wind figures, sweeter more expressive string phrases; brief appearances of pitched percussion; alternating activity with hesitation………the Benjamin Concerto for Orchestra builds to a sustained quasi-climax around halfway through, after which the earlier hesitant and calmer moods return, with livelier fragmentary recollections…
So not exactly a dazzling display piece, these somewhat equivocal first impressions may change on a later revisit, but….…(sorry but I had to put a "but" in...)

***
I had a few problems with the Ravel…..

On my usual live Radio 3 webstream, the piano sounded rather clangy and clattery, lacking much coloristic blend, meaningful contrast or dialogue with the band (superbly powerful sleek ensemble themselves). For me the allegramente simply wasn't effortlessly jazzy or poetic enough. The whispering harp came across nicely though.
The closely-balanced piano was more obvious in the adagio, (with the orchestra not far behind); so some lack of the evocative. I would have preferred a smoother, softer pianistic cantabile here; or at least, some elegant charm of a sarabande character. A lighter touch.
As in the allegramente it almost sounded as if the instrument wasn’t really voiced right for the work.
The finale, sadly, was never going to get me out of my chair. Rather ordinary I’m afraid…

Lovely orchestra though. The effortless strength, beauty and profile of a thoroughbred.

I’m in agreement re the Ravel Concerto. I found the piano imperfectly tuned and Pierre-Laurent’s interpretation lacked fizz and sparkle. He played all the right notes in the right order but viewed the work from a lofty, intellectual pinnacle and found it wanting. He once wrote words, in the Gramophone, to the effect that it wasn’t worth crossing the Atlantic to play it, adding that the work builds on the example of Saint-Saens… The tempo for the first movement was too slow and it sounded ponderous. The graceful slow movement was charmless with some unusually heavy emphases breaking up the finely spun line of melody. The piano was too closely miked which exaggerated the characteristics of this performance which I disliked.The orchestra was on good form: much better than the last Prom performance that I heard in the RAH with Mr and the former Mrs Dutoit (MA) with the RPO in poor shape.
The terminal thwacks on the bass drum were terrific this evening.

I feel that P-L Aimard’s huge talents are better suited to, or more stretched by, Ravel’s Concerto for the left hand.

The charm that was missing in the G major Concerto returned to the fore in the pianist’s encore : Relativity Rag (George Benjamin), but we nearly missed out on that for it took a claque of hardcore Prommers to sustain and revive the uncertain applause.

I loved Benjamin’s realisation of the 3 Purcell Consorts, full of delicacy and charm with the wonderful clashes in harmony highlighted by scrupulous orchestration. I was put in mind of Bruno Maderna’s restoration of some continental contemporaries of Purcell. Great playing by the MCO!

When the final chord of the new Concerto for Orchestra sounded, I was expecting, and I don’t know why, one or two movements to follow and I swore at the pesky Prommers’ premature clapping. They were right and I was dumbfounded. Jayne used the word ‘hesitant’ to describe some of the earlier moments in the Concerto. I would apply the same word but, for once, in the context that the MCO took time to settle, that, perhaps, they were nervous, that they wanted to do well by their newly commissioned piece and were trying too hard! The work was introverted and surprisingly free of virtuoso flashiness or moments of bravura. I know ‘Concerto’ has multiple meanings but Concerti for Orchestra is a genre with a ‘tradition’ which heightens a certain expectation: ‘Listen to us virtuosi, see… we don’t need management to fly in an expensive star from an exotic country’.
I need to hear it a few times: I hope its appeal will grow on me. In general, I love Benjamin’s works.