Prom 20: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (31.07.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Sunday 31 July 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Harrison Birtwistle: Sonance Severance 2000
Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major
Iannis Xenakis: Jonchaies
Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring


Tom Borrow (piano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

Iannis Xenakis contemplated reeds in the wind; Stravinsky pictured a Russia before the dawn of civilisation. But Nature is unstoppable, and both composers unleashed forces beyond the imagination: riotous, explosive masterpieces from opposite ends of the 20th century, using supersized orchestras to redefine the limits of music itself. In Xenakis’s centenary year, Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra reap the whirlwind that grew from Stravinsky’s storm. Ravel’s gorgeous, jazz-influenced Piano Concerto appears like an oasis of calm before Jonchaies and The Rite of Spring – though with the ‘astonishing’ (according to Bachtrack) BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Tom Borrow as soloist, it should be every bit as gripping. And to begin a summons by the late, much missed Harrison Birtwistle.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Note the addition of the Birtwistle - not in the original programme.

[Joseph K]

I'll be catching this.

I even contemplated going to it.

[Joseph K]

I seem to recall Jonchaies packing more of a punch than that - still sounded great though. I should listen to the version I have on CD some time soon to compare.

[Joseph K]

This is a good Rite.

But I couldn't hear the strident quadruplet guero part in 'Procession of The Sage'.

[Pulcinella]

This is a good Rite.

But I couldn't hear the strident quadruplet guero part in 'Procession of The Sage'.

Very fine indeed, especially given that it was the first time Brabbins had conducted it in a public concert, we've been told.

[alywin]

I was very taken with Jonchaies - from the Gallery, it sounded as though the music was chasing itself round and round the auditorium - I half expected to see that additional musicians had been stationed all around the oval, but no.

Anyone remember the days when Rite of Spring was an almost-guaranteed sell-out, though? :(