Prom 33: Holst’s The Planets (10.08.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Wednesday 10 August 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Richard Strauss: Death and Transfiguration
Matthew Kaner: Pearl (BBC commission: world première)
Gustav Holst: The Planets

Roderick Williams baritone
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Ryan Wigglesworth conductor

In the years around the First World War, Richard Strauss and Gustav Holst both pushed at the outer limits of what an orchestra could do – with results that still startle the ears. But there’s more to Death and Transfiguration than soaring heroics, and Holst’s The Planets begins with great tunes and glittering colours before wandering into other-worldly, distant regions. Ryan Wigglesworth brings a composer’s ear to two works that make a perfect frame for Matthew Kaner’s haunting new commission Pearl – in which an ancient lament (a medieval poem translated by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage) unlocks human emotions that cross centuries – and maybe travel even further than that. It’s specially tailored to the glowing voice and peerless communicative skill of British baritone Roderick Williams with the BBC Symphony Chorus.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, I consider The Planets to be superb composition. That said, I seriously wonder which street they dragged the blurb-writer off to claim that the work begins with great tunes and glittering colours. Mars, the Bringer of War ???

Perhaps they just jumbled their playlist.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, I consider The Planets to be superb composition. That said, I seriously wonder which street they dragged the blurb-writer off to claim that the work begins with great tunes and glittering colours. Mars, the Bringer of War ???

Perhaps they just jumbled their playlist.

Furthermore the Strauss was composed a quarter of a century before World War 1!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Furthermore the Strauss was composed a quarter of a century before World War 1!

“There’s more to Death and Transfiguration than soaring heroics “ . I don’t hear anything heroic in the music at all. It’s almost as if this blurbs are written by an algorithm. How can the writer know that these two classics are a perfect frame for The Pearl? They won’t have heard it…

[PhilipT]

“There’s more to Death and Transfiguration than soaring heroics “ . I don’t hear anything heroic in the music at all. It’s almost as if this blurbs are written by an algorithm. How can the writer know that these two classics are a perfect frame for The Pearl? They won’t have heard it…

Because they match the ideal pattern for a concert, as visualised by the BBC Proms Office - the "sh*t-sandwich construction". So named by a dear, now dead and much-missed, fellow Prommer.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Because they match the ideal pattern for a concert, as visualised by the BBC Proms Office - the "sh*t-sandwich construction". So named by a dear, now dead and much-missed, fellow Prommer.

Either Richard Ingrams or Kingsley Amis christened it the Glock sandwich. I’ll have to give The Pearl a miss as the poem brings back too many painful memories of studying it. All I can say is that the emotions therein may “cross centuries” but they crash landed for me in approx 1977.

[PhilipT]

Either Richard Ingrams or Kingsley Amis christened it the Glock sandwich.

Thank you - I've learned something.

[Serial_Apologist]

Either Richard Ingrams or Kingsley Amis christened it the Glock sandwich. I’ll have to give The Pearl a miss as the poem brings back too many painful memories of studying it. All I can say is that the emotions therein may “cross centuries” but they crash landed for me in approx 1977.

A chip off the old Glock then - to misquote Elisabeth Lutyens!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thank you - I've learned something.

Yes the fact that I can’t remember and have probably got it wrong !
But thanks

[Stanfordian]

Well, I consider The Planets to be superb composition. That said, I seriously wonder which street they dragged the blurb-writer off to claim that the work begins with great tunes and glittering colours. Mars, the Bringer of War ???

Perhaps they just jumbled their playlist.

You are so much more polite than I would be.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You are so much more polite than I would be.

I have to be. I’m a Host.

[oddoneout]

Well, I consider The Planets to be superb composition. That said, I seriously wonder which street they dragged the blurb-writer off to claim that the work begins with great tunes and glittering colours. Mars, the Bringer of War ???

Perhaps they just jumbled their playlist.

Inanity and inaccuracy have become the house style I fear. This from Prom 28

Throughout, he’ll direct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard, just as Mozart would have done.[Mozart and Mahler Chamber Orchestra not contemporaneous so how?] Expect eloquence, insight and (because this is Mozart, after all) lots and lots of fun.

And from Prom 29

... And for his superfans in the music-loving city of Prague, he wrote a symphony designed to knock them backwards ... Leif Ove Andsnes zooms in on the year 1786, and finds Amadeus at the absolute peak of his game.

Who do they think is reading this guff that it is considered appropriate - is it the same as the RT, or written especially for the R3 schedules which of course are read extensively by people who like inanity and inaccuracy...

[Bryn]

Either Richard Ingrams or Kingsley Amis christened it the Glock sandwich. I’ll have to give The Pearl a miss as the poem brings back too many painful memories of studying it. All I can say is that the emotions therein may “cross centuries” but they crash landed for me in approx 1977.

I associated Glock more with a safe first half with a challenge after the interval, possibly even with a different conductor and/or ensemble.

[edashtav]

You are so much more polite than I would be.

I do like the way this concert picks up where the Ulster Orchestra left of at the end of R. Strauss’s 4 Last Songs which, of course, quotes Death and Transfiguration , a work the composer had written 60 years earlier.

Andrew McGregor noted the link in his impeccable response to last evening’s peeformance.

[bluestateprommer]

T&V / D&T just completed. It was OK, everything in place, but IMHO, lacking a bit in Richard Strauss-ian swagger. It reminded me of the reaction in the other thread on RW's appointment to the BBC SSO.

Ed noted, as Andrew McGregor had pointed out, the connection to the Richard Strauss Vier letzte Lieder from yesterday, in terms of programming. David Pickard may have just a little bit to do with that, given all the brickbats that he gets from so many sides for his programming choices .

PS: From just the one listen to Matthew Kaner's Pearl, it sounds very 'safe' and audience-friendly. Full marks to Roderick Williams for his very fine delivery of the text, though (but then that's par for the course for him).