Prom 66: Beethoven, Betsy Jolas and Mahler (5.09.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 5 September 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Ludwig van Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus – overture
Betsy Jolas: Tunes (BBC co-commission: world première)
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major

Nicolas Hodges piano
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Karina Canellakis conductor

Imagine if silence had a sound. That’s what the young Gustav Mahler tried to evoke in the massive stillness that opens his First Symphony – a whole world emerging into life, and a young artist walking out to find triumph, tragedy and (of course) love. But youth is a state of mind: expect surprises (and sounds) like you’ve never heard when the revered Franco-American composer Betsy Jolas riffs on the 21st-century listening culture of playlists and downloads in her inventive new concerto for pianist Nicolas Hodges. Karina Canellakis (hailed by The Times for her ‘freshly minted’ interpretations) conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra – and few living conductors are better equipped to channel fire from the gods in Beethoven’s Olympian overture.

[gedsmk]

Looking forward to the Jolas and the Mahler. Is there anyone connect to the hall or BBC who can explain the obsession with bright blue lighting on the stage? Quite off-putting. On some TV relays it makes the musicians look ill.

[Bryn]

Refreshing relevant interval feature.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Refreshing relevant interval feature.

Yes excellent . It sounds like the baby in the audience isn’t very impressed with the opening though…

[Bryn]

Yes excellent . It sounds like the baby in the audience isn’t very impressed with the opening though…

Indeed not, and who brings a young baby to such an event? Still, it makes a change from the unsuppressed coughers, (read that either way).

[Ein Heldenleben]

Indeed not, and who brings a young baby to such an event? Still, it makes a change from the unsuppressed coughers, (read that either way).

It’ll be the people in the boxes. The saving on the babysitter means you can just about afford a bottle of Albert hall champers….

[Ein Heldenleben]

Some tremendous trumpet playing from I guess Phil Cobb and team tonight I thought . The sound balance really favoured them or were they just going for it ?

[Petrushka]

Looking forward to the Jolas and the Mahler. Is there anyone connect to the hall or BBC who can explain the obsession with bright blue lighting on the stage? Quite off-putting. On some TV relays it makes the musicians look ill.

I'm glad someone else has mentioned this as I thought I was alone! The stage lighting has been terrible this season, very blue tinged and it does indeed make the musicians look ill. Nor does it help those with vision problems as at last night's BPO Prom one particular light was annoyingly glinting on my spectacle lens.

I mentioned on the LSO/Rattle Mahler 2 thread that the blue lighting was glinting on the microphones at the back making them look like cat's eyes. Very distracting.

I also mentioned the naff stage floor design which must be annoying for those higher up. What's wrong with a plain stage?

[gedsmk]

Some tremendous trumpet playing from I guess Phil Cobb and team tonight I thought . The sound balance really favoured them or were they just going for it ?

Team Cobb it was. They were, I thought, from my seat in the choir on the opposite side, encouraged by the conductor to really go for it. 8 horns also. It was splendid, though unfortunately I couldn't really concentrate during the 1st movement because of the unhappy critic (2 year old?) Somewhere.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Team Cobb it was. They were, I thought, from my seat in the choir on the opposite side, encouraged by the conductor to really go for it. 8 horns also. It was splendid, though unfortunately I couldn't really concentrate during the 1st movement because of the unhappy critic (2 year old?) Somewhere.

If the trumpets were rhs I reckon the critic was lhs ….

[Petrushka]

...and who brings a young baby to such an event?.

The Proms Guide has this to say: 'Everyone is welcome at the CBeebies Proms and Relaxed Proms. Out of consideration for the audience and artists, we recommend that children attending other Proms are aged 5 or over'.

As one who once had a Prom ruined by a very badly behaved young boy, I think that Stewards should have the power to refuse entry or, in case of trouble during performance, eviction.

Many years ago, though not a Prom, a wailing baby could clearly be heard during a Colin Davis performance of the Mahler 8.

[bluestateprommer]

Yet another late-listening catch up, with but a few days to go on BBC Sounds. Disruptive youth wailing aside in the Mahler (and it's completely the parents' fault, of course, not the child's, who clearly didn't know better, unlike the parents, who should have known better), this was a fine, solid Prom. Karina C. indulged her inner Harnoncourt (or Gardiner) with the Beethoven, with trimmed vibrato and driving at full throttle.

From hearing Ian Skelly's advance description of the stage hi-jinks at the start of Betsy Jolas' bTunes, it sounds as though she was taking a page out of the P.D.Q. Bach playbook - not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as it's genuinely funny. Presumably no one filmed any surreptitious video on the side, so I'm trying to imagine the sight of Nicolas Hodges and Karina C. rushing to the front of the stage. He looks like a big lug of a guy, and she much slimmer than him, so I'd expect that if it really were a race to the stage, she'd win easily. All that aside, Betsy J.'s new work put me in mind of, of all composers, Webern, not in terms of language or direct style, but in its aphoristic nature, where she has a short passage, then moves on to the next short passage, and so on. Betsy J. isn't nearly as sparing as Webern in her use of notes, but her work is considerably snarkier, with much more of a sense of humor. Her Mahler 1 was a fine, solid reading, and she obviously was able to get past the wailing youngster and keep her eyes on the prize.

The big picture, to be sure, relates to this being Karina C.'s first appearance with the BBC SO since the 2019 First Night. I made a rash prediction in that earlier thread about her future with the BBC SO. 3 years and a few months on, things are a bit more ambiguous, with her contracted to the RFO in Hilversum through 2027. However, Oramo has the BBC SO through 2026, at this time. Maybe the rash prediction might come to pass after all (assuming we're all still here in 2027, of course).