Prom 39: Mark-Anthony Turnage, Vaughan Williams and Elgar (15.08.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 15 August 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Mark-Anthony Turnage: Time Flies (BBC co-commission: UK première)
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Tuba Concerto
Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 in A flat major

Constantin Hartwig tuba
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sakari Oramo conductor

A muffled drum, a quiet march … and the melody for which a nation had been waiting. From first hesitant notes to heaven-storming conclusion, Elgar’s First Symphony is more than just a landmark in British music: it’s the autobiography of a creative spirit, passionate, troubled and profoundly moving. BBC Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo has loved the music of Elgar for decades, and it’s a thrilling contrast to the playfulness and poetry of Vaughan Williams’s Tuba Concerto, played by rising international brass star Constantin Hartwig. Meanwhile, what’s a composer to do when he’s invited to the Tokyo Olympics during a global travel ban? Mark-Anthony Turnage lets his music do the globetrotting in his jazz-inspired Time Flies.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Elgar 1 is an extremely robust symphony, in that few conductors mess it up. (I can think of only one.) I first heard it at a Halle Industrial Concert in 1966, since when Elgar has been top of my composer list. Michael Kennedy's description of the work in his programme notes (which included musical examples) was eons ahead of this Proms-writer blurbist's embarrassing rant.

[edashtav]

From BOOSEY & HAWKES’ website:
On 15 August the BBC Proms presents the UK premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s recent orchestral score, Time Flies, a triptych celebrating the cities of London, Hamburg and Tokyo.

Mark Anthony Turnage’s recent [?] orchestral score Time Flies receives its UK premiere from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo on 15 August at the BBC Proms in London. The 25-minute orchestral triptych, commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, BBC Radio 3 and NDR, was completed in 2019 but its title took on an unexpected ironic topicality as its planned performances in Tokyo, Hamburg and London suffered a sequence of postponements in 2020 and 2021, amidst global travel restrictions due to international COVID lockdowns.

The original world premiere in Tokyo was to be linked to the 2020 Olympiad, performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kazushi Ono. Similarly planned performances by the NDR Elbphilharmonie and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms had to be postponed. The world premiere finally took place in Hamburg in September 2021 with conductor Alan Gilbert, the London performance was rescheduled for this year’s BBC Proms, and after a second postponement the Tokyo performance is planned for a future season.

Cast in three movements, the work flies between the cities of the commissioners, taking time out in London, Hamburg and Tokyo. Scored for large orchestra with a prominent part for soprano saxophone, one of Turnage's favourite instruments, Time Flies opens in the UK capital, throwing a syncopated theme around the orchestral sections. The central Hamburg movement is broader and more chordal with the orchestra working as a whole, while the final Tokyo movement is an energetic celebration of an Olympic city with jazz band scoring predominating.
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A transcription of the World Premiere in Hamburg may be seen here:

https://youtu.be/GXcsRtOM3Qk

[bluestateprommer]

Since EA mentioned Michael Kennedy, I remember reading in MK's volume on RVW's works that MK had a very low opinion of RVW's Tuba Concerto. Fortunately, that hasn't stopped tuba players and audiences from enjoying the work, as just now. Constantin H. did a very fine job indeed, in his 1st time ever at the RAH. Fun choice of encore as well, where, in keeping with Sir Paul's recent volume, I've credited the composers in the Forum Calendar as "McCartney and Lennon", as it were).

For M-AT's Time Flies, the first section had a playful feel that I've not really noticed in M-AT's music before. Maybe a bit extended, but very good-natured about it. The next two movements kind of felt like more of the same of his past works that I've heard of his music before on iPlayer. But full marks to Oramo and the BBC SO for giving it a very fine launch in the UK.

Good to hear the Forum's own makropulos in discussion with Andrew McGregor now.

PS: Spacious Elgar 1 from Sakari Oramo and the BBC SO, with what sounded like more prominent bass drum from the sound engineers. In his chat with Andrew McGregor, Oramo alluded to the issue that I have with the work, namely that the opening is so good that it's difficult for the rest of the symphony to live up to it. This feeling has become more pronounced with me each time that I hear Elgar 1. Just my own personal reaction, of course.

[Serial_Apologist]

Can anyone tell me who the soprano sax player was for the Turnage?

[edashtav]

Can anyone tell me who the soprano sax player was for the Turnage?

See below!
Time Flies Mark-Anthony Turnage
London - Hamburg - Tokyo

London arrived in unison with a folksy tune and an upbeat English tang. A more reflective middle section put the deckchairs on the patio. A galumphing bass line bridged… but no it didn’t. No reprise, no time, it was off on a Fanfare flight to Hamburg.

For my taste, Hamburg was a bit too misty to see the wood for the trees except when fanfares dominated the vista. The piece was old hat Turnage, full of his fingerprints but lacking freshness and, at one point it just ran out of steam.

The Tokyo movement was an ‘American in Japan’ , all rhythmic cross-cutting dominated by brass, sax and percussion. I was annoyed when its energy dimmed at the advent of a weak chorale. Gradually, the jazz inflected elements returned but not all of the fizz. The piece has yet to be performed in Japan. It could be regarded as a work celebrating Japan as a vassal state of the USA. Have feathers been ruffled? [ c.f. BB - Sinfonia da Requiem?]

M-A at 60, coasting along, knowing so well how to milk the Co-Commission system

I agree with bsp when he wrote, “Full marks to Oramo and the BBC SO for giving it a very fine launch in the UK”.

The excellent soprano saxophonist, S-A, was long-established Turnage collaborator Martin Robertson.

[cloughie]

Elgar 1 is an extremely robust symphony, in that few conductors mess it up. (I can think of only one.) I first heard it at a Halle Industrial Concert in 1966, since when Elgar has been top of my composer list. Michael Kennedy's description of the work in his programme notes (which included musical examples) was eons ahead of this Proms-writer blurbist's embarrassing rant.

JB?

His Pye Halle recording on three sides of LP was my intro to it and I ‘ve loved the work ever since - The bridge passage from movt 2 to 3 is, as I’ve said on the forum probably more than once, one of the most moving bits of music anywhere - so yes bsp the restnof the Symphony does live up to the intro, for me in many places throughout the work - a divine work, maybe my favourite of all Symphonies anywhere!

[Petrushka]

JB?

His Pye Halle recording on three sides of LP was my intro to it and I ‘ve loved the work ever since - The bridge passage from movt 2 to 3 is, as I’ve said on the forum probably more than once, one of the most moving bits of music anywhere - so yes bsp the restnof the Symphony does live up to the intro, for me in many places throughout the work - a divine work, maybe my favourite of all Symphonies anywhere!

My favourite passage in the Elgar 1 is the glorious string transformation in the finale of the stalking theme that opens that movement - which is itself one of the many transformations of the 'motto' theme that opens the work. My firs recording was the LPO/Solti and they play this passage with great passion.

It's so wonderful hearing the many transformations of the opening 'motto' which permeates the entire symphony and helpful that they are fairly easy to spot.

[Serial_Apologist]

The excellent soprano saxophonist, S-A, was long-established Turnage collaborator Martin Robertson.

Thanks, Ed.

[smittims]

I'm still catching up with the board hence my late addition to this thread.

I thought the Oramo Elgar 1 very good; so often a Prom performance of a well-known work sounds routine to me, but this was an exception. It's a work that can bear different interpretations: two of the best I've heard on Radio 3 were Gary Walker and Vassily Sinaisky, very different approaches.

On CD, Lani Spahr has assembled an Elgar-conducted recording with seven out of the eleven sides unpublished 'take one' which produces a refreshingly more spontaneous reading than the published HMV discs.

I first heard it on Radio 3 or maybe the last days of the Third Programme, played unusually by the Radio Frankfurt SO conducted by Colin Davis, about the time he was appointed Chief Conductor BBC SO.