View Full Version : Prom 37: Thursday 11th August 2011 at 7.30 p.m. (Bridge, Brahms, Holst, Elgar)
Eine Alpensinfonie
04-08-11, 12:28
Chief Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Vassily Sinaisky, continues his exploration of less-frequented corners of the repertoire, proceeding from an invigorating British concert-opener to an uncommon yet inescapably familiar concerto.
Inspired by the fact that Bach and Beethoven arranged their own violin concertos for the keyboard, Dejan Lazić has done the same for the Brahms with engagingly idiomatic results.
Julian Lloyd Webber is an ardent champion of Holst's Invocation. The concert ends with the masterpiece that put Elgar's name on the world's musical map, with his affectionate sketches of 'friends pictured within' - a firm favourite that retains its own aura of mystery.
Bridge: Overture, 'Rebus'
Brahms arr. Lazić: 'Piano Concerto No.3' in D major (after Violin Concerto) (UK Premiere)
Holst: Invocation
Elgar: Enigma Variations
Dejan Lazić (piano)
Julian Lloyd-Webber (cello)
BBC Philharmonic
Vassily Sinaisky (conductor)
If someone must arrange the wonderful Brahms Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra I wish they had the decency to call it something other than Piano Concerto no 3 in D. However good it is, it is not anything but an arrangement of somethng else.
Ventilhorn
11-08-11, 09:51
If someone must arrange the wonderful Brahms Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra I wish they had the decency to call it something other than Piano Concerto no 3 in D. However good it is, it is not anything but an arrangement of somethng else.
Good morning to you, Salymap
I absolutely agree with you. I have always maintained that composers should leave other's works alone. If a composer wants to do an adaption of one of his own works for another instrument or ensemble, that's fine by me - it's his copyright. (Schumann did it all the time, as did Beethoven on occasions)
Personally I abhor concertos played as piano duets (I confess I can't stand piano duets anyway, whether it be Eden and Tamir, Vronsky and Babin or Rawick and Landauer)
I shall listen to tonight's concert with interest.
My favourite conductor in charge of my favourite BBC house orchestra.
Can't wait for 7.3o this evening
VH
If someone must arrange the wonderful Brahms Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra I wish they had the decency to call it something other than Piano Concerto no 3 in D. However good it is, it is not anything but an arrangement of somethng else.
I'd like to point out that Piano Concerto no 3 in D. is not how the arranger called the piece, though it obviously is meant to be that way. It's the BBC (-progamme note writer) that(/who) is to blame for this, as Lazic called the arrangement Brahms Pianoconcerto in D after the Violin concerto op.77
well I'm glad that Ravel didn't leave Mussorgsky's Pictures alone
Eine Alpensinfonie
11-08-11, 18:57
There is a difference. The piano version of Pictures cried out for the colour of the orchestra. Brahms' Violin Concerto, however, is magnificent as it is.
Not that I am not intrigued by this alternative arrangement.
The Brahms violin concerto seems to me the last work to be given to an intractable instrument like a piano but one can only hopefor the best.
Eine Alpensinfonie
11-08-11, 19:58
Despite initial reservations, I find the piano writing to be idiomatic, and I'm more convinced by this than by Beethoven's piano version of his own violin concerto.
barber olly
11-08-11, 20:15
If someone must arrange the wonderful Brahms Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra I wish they had the decency to call it something other than Piano Concerto no 3 in D. However good it is, it is not anything but an arrangement of somethng else.
I cmpletely agree but this idea sounds more interesting than Payne's Symphony on a few left over fragments by Elgar, which goes on too long and has no big tunes. As with the Piano version of Beethoven VC, it will turn out OK but not quite right somehow.
Ventilhorn
11-08-11, 20:22
Despite initial reservations, I find the piano writing to be idiomatic, and I'm more convinced by this than by Beethoven's piano version of his own violin concerto.
Sorry, E-A but I consider this to be sheer vandalism.
If the pianist is going to harmonise his own solo line, what is the orchestra there for?
Fistfuls of wrong notes. Sounds like he's wearing chainmail gauntlets.
Bad taste. Insulting to one of Brahms greatest works.
The BBC seem to have dug out all the rubbish they can find during these opening weeks. Idiomatic? Idiotic more like.
Less than half way through the slow movement and I can take no more of this horror. I find it hard to believe that Sinaisky would allow himself to be associated with this travesty.:yikes::steam::grr:
VH:sadface:
makropulos
11-08-11, 20:39
I cmpletely agree but this idea sounds more interesting than Payne's Symphony on a few left over fragments by Elgar, which goes on too long and has no big tunes. As with the Piano version of Beethoven VC, it will turn out OK but not quite right somehow.
Actually, I think it was worse than that. Having heard the thing I thought it very much not "as with" Beethoven's own version of his VC - that, at least, has the composer's authority. This Lazic transcription had no such distinction, or indeed any distinction.
I've no idea what connection the Elgar/Payne Third Symphony (no big tune? - eh?) has with this. The Brahms VC (or Beethoven VC) are both complete and don't need any interference or reconstructive surgery by other composers. Anyway, regarding the Brahms just now, I have to say that I thought the case against messing about with this sublime piece was made convincingly. Horrible.
I thought cleverly done, if it must be done but the Brahms Violin concerto carries so much baggage for me.
I remember seeing and hearing Ginette Neveu play it and later when she and her brother were killed in a plane crash the BBC played excerpts all day. i heard many great violinists play it when I could go tolive concerts and tonight's arrangement couldn't get near the cadenzas and some of the passages,particularly in the middle movement. A curiosity but why do it in the proms?
Did I hear correctly? Bloch wasn't Jewish?
jayne lee wilson
11-08-11, 21:06
Surprising myself somewhat (always a curious kitty about the unknown...) I was TERRIBLY uncomfortable with the Brahms arrangement. As soon as the piano entered it felt wrong, wrong, not just different.
There was the piano, grumbling and beefing away like the bad-tempered, clumsy, jealous country cousin of the sweetly gracious and passionate violin, determined to bring the dance down to his level.
The piano as Blackamoor and the winds as Petrushka (unsurprisingly rather sadder than usual), the Ballerina violin wisely keeping out of the argument.
Dear me... I kept going (just) to the end, but turned the volume well down during the choppy finale. Everywhere you look in the piece there are singing lines in the solo winds, strings, combined groups, which the violin's melodic shapes and long note-values would mirror, vary and reflect upon.
And the nature of the grand Romantic concerto, always a large-scale public statement, seems to me to present a wholly different musical concept from the fecund creativity of Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and so on, happily rearranging their own (and sometimes each others') works for all manner of practical and musically inventive reasons.
Next few days look a bit grim (especially the Comedy Prom)... back for the Britten on Sunday; see you then!
makropulos
11-08-11, 21:06
Did I hear correctly? Bloch wasn't Jewish?
Yup, I heard that too during the interval feature ... no idea where that pearl of wisdom came from.
But I greatly enjoyed Julian L-W's Holst Invocation.
Excellent Holst, I agree. I can't get worked up about the Brahms - it just seems rather pointless.
Brahms himself did not think that (his) music was by definition restricted to one instrument to realize an idiomatic performance.
Apart from Brahms himself composing identical music for either piano+piano or piano+string quartet (I refer here to the 2-piano-sonata aka piano quintet op.34, published simultaneously), or string sextet for piano solo (variations [from] op.18, again nearly simultaneously published), he also published an own arrangement of Bach's solo-violin Chaconne for piano.
I cannot comment on tonight's performance as I was unable to listen with due attention -and therefore preferred not to listen at all-, but I do think Lazic didn't do a bad job with this transcription. At least it is a more pianistically idiomatic one than Beethoven's arrangement of his violin concerto (provided Beethoven actually was the arrangeur and not only just the corrector of an arrangement made by somemone else with his approval - given the very cliche left hand figurations in op.61a).
Just got back from the Hall (still a lot of Police around !)
Overall a good concert. Not sure what to make of the Brahms - probably a novelty piece that will run its course and keep a concert pianist in funds for a few years ! I don't think it added anything to the work but it certainly wasn't a disaster.
amac
ps not sure what the Elgar 3 has to do with this ?! firstly it was a completion of an unfinished work and in any case a lot of the work was already in short score only the finale was largely incomplete and almost all of which is payne.
BudgieJane
12-08-11, 00:38
I've heard some crap in my time, but this "arrangement" must rank as the worst I've ever heard. It was quite obviously a violin concerto, as the "melody" didn't once move out of the violin register. If you're going to enlarge a violin concerto to fit the piano, surely you want to use the lower octaves of the piano for melody occasionally? Surely also you want to continue descending arpeggios below the G below middle C, inserting extra bars into the score if necessary. The accompaniment played on the piano seemed to be doubling the orchestral parts, so why not leave out the orchestra in those bits? Perhaps he thought he was saving money by having the orchestra play from the parts for the original violin concerto!
Aren't there enough genuine piano concertos already? Why ruin a perfectly good violin concerto to make a new one?
The pianist was very quick to sit at the piano and play his encore. It's as though he thought the applause was flagging and would die away before he got a chance to play something decent (to help us forget the travesty he had created?). Any other pianist would have judged the mood of the audience and left things as they were. And ... I didn't think much of his playing of the encore, either.
Julian Lloyd-Webber was much better.
I had already heard the Brahms some months ago on the BBC and thought it a waste of time. I was shocked to see it was to be performed at the proms. It adds nothing to the original, no insights. It is merely a vanity arrangement. The piano playing (or is it the arrangement) just sounds lumpy.
There are wonderful concertos for the piano that rarely get a hearing, why not programme one of those eg the Rawsthorne concertos, the Busoni concerto, Prokofiev's 4th .... there are also lovely pieces for pno & orch such as Cyril Scott's Early One Morning Variations, Fauré's Ballade and Fantasie......
This Brahms transcription is a travesty.
I agree with everyone who disliked the Brahms 'arrangement' and wish I could have expressed myself better.
The violin part is so much a part of the whole work, echoing and rising above the orchestral strings that it was a travesty I hope I never hear again. I quite liked the Holst but gave up listening before the Enigmas. Not the best Prom ever.
antongould
12-08-11, 07:39
Not the best Prom ever.
Dare one ask, so early in the morning, what was your best ever Prom?
Ventilhorn
12-08-11, 07:44
I've heard some crap in my time, but this "arrangement" must rank as the worst I've ever heard. It was quite obviously a violin concerto, as the "melody" didn't once move out of the violin register.
You've taken the words right out of my mouth, Jane.
If you're going to enlarge a violin concerto to fit the piano, surely you want to use the lower octaves of the piano for melody occasionally? Surely also you want to continue descending arpeggios below the G below middle C, inserting extra bars into the score if necessary. The accompaniment played on the piano seemed to be doubling the orchestral parts, so why not leave out the orchestra in those bits? Perhaps he thought he was saving money by having the orchestra play from the parts for the original violin concerto!
Aren't there enough genuine piano concertos already? Why ruin a perfectly good violin concerto to make a new one?
The pianist was very quick to sit at the piano and play his encore. It's as though he thought the applause was flagging and would die away before he got a chance to play something decent (to help us forget the travesty he had created?). Any other pianist would have judged the mood of the audience and left things as they were. And ... I didn't think much of his playing of the encore, either.
Yes, the pianist's rush to play an encore simply indicated to me that he wanted to leave on a good note. Unfortunately, he failed.
* * *
As for the rest of the concert, I quite enjoyed the Bridge, would have preferred the Holst to be included in a different prom, where the pianistic catastrophy had not preceded it, and thought that the Elgar was neatly played but lacking in substance.
Thinking of the interpretations of Boult, Sargent, del Mar and (of course) Barbirolli, I am reminded that Russian and Scandinavian conductors, good though they are, have little understanding of British music.
Salymap and Jane sum it up for me. I understand E-A's defence, but simply cannot agree. Interesting to note that the word "travesty" in my original post has reappeared in nearly everyone else's.
VH:sadface:
Dare one ask, so early in the morning, what was your best ever Prom?
Good morning anton, you dare ask but I have no idea after so long. I started attending Proms in 1948 and it's all one long concert to me now. Probably one where a composer conducted something of his own, they were always special. My mum insisted that I put my notebooks and programmes in the shed as they filled
my room and they all rotted away in the damp. Never dump programmes, however much room they take up.
antongould
12-08-11, 07:56
Good morning to you - very sad and probably not the wisest decision your Mum ever made - so much wonderful, dare I say, history!
Thinking of the interpretations of Boult, Sargent, del Mar and (of course) Barbirolli, I am reminded that Russian and Scandinavian conductors, good though they are, have little understanding of British music.
VH:sadface: How odd - I recall Maestro Sinaisky causing a stir at Proms 2009 with Moeran's Symphony in G minor :smiley: And Rozhdestvensky's fairly recent Enigma variations was widely praised :erm:
Ventilhorn
12-08-11, 09:21
How odd - I recall Maestro Sinaisky causing a stir at Proms 2009 with Moeran's Symphony in G minor :smiley: And Rozhdestvensky's fairly recent Enigma variations was widely praised :erm:
There will always be exceptions to any generalised statement and I would agree that Rozhdestvensky is one them.
I would suggest that Constantin Silvestri (Romanian) on the evidence of his Elgar recordings is another.
However, based on what I heard last night, Maestro Sinaisky (a conductor whom I greatly admire), is not one of those exceptions.
BTW Did you think last night's Enigma lacked substance, or do you enjoy hearing it played that way?
VH
There will always be exceptions to any generalised statement and I would agree that Rozhdestvensky is one them.
I would suggest that Constantin Silvestri (Romanian) on the evidence of his Elgar recordings is another.
However, based on what I heard last night, Maestro Sinaisky (a conductor whom I greatly admire), is not one of those exceptions.
BTW Did you think last night's Enigma lacked substance, or do you enjoy hearing it played that way?
VHI'm going to listen this morning VH and I shall report back, as you have so kindly enquired :smiley:
barber olly
12-08-11, 11:44
ps not sure what the Elgar 3 has to do with this ?! firstly it was a completion of an unfinished work and in any case a lot of the work was already in short score only the finale was largely incomplete and almost all of which is payne.
My reference to Elgar 3 was purely an example of what not to call a work. As for the Brahms I thought it was an interesting, if not totally successful experiment. There appears to be criticism of Sinaisky's handling of British music. He has over the past few years given us very good Elgar 1 and 2. As a foreign conductor taking on a British orchestra he would have been failing in his duties not to take on the local repertoire. Not only has he done so but to my ears done it very well!
What's all this 'British music' stuff? Elgar was mainstream European, surely?
barber olly
12-08-11, 12:07
What's all this 'British music' stuff? Elgar was mainstream European, surely?
Has anyone told Claudio Abbado or Riccardo Muti?
How much Elgar did Boulez do at the BBC?
Where are Karajan and Klemperer's Elgar 1 and 2?
Where do Szell, Walter and Reiner stand on the Elgarometer?
Perhaps they realised others could conduct those more successfully.
What's all this 'British music' stuff? Elgar was mainstream European, surely?
Not to those who choose to view him through the lens of their own prejudices and see him that way. :erm:
The problem with most criticism is that it gives you far more insight into the personality and biases of the critic than it does anything "objective". Even the works of most interesting and broadminded of critics (Jacques Barzun, JB Steane etc.) can't escape it totally. And if it's true of giants like these, what hope is there for the rest of us? Given that, I don't believe it's wise to recklessly toss off sweeping generalizations about nationality as if they were fact. What end does it serve?
If people want to read something significant into national origin, that's their concern, not mine. But those who take this kind of over-simplistic approach fail to realise that creative artists are massively complex people who seldom fit the pre-defined categories they're pigeonholed and shoehorned into. It just doesn't work that way. You're perfectly entitled to feel your nationality as profoundly as you please; just don't go projecting it onto everyone else.
Has anyone told Claudio Abbado or Riccardo Muti?
How much Elgar did Boulez do at the BBC?
Where are Karajan and Klemperer's Elgar 1 and 2?
Where do Szell, Walter and Reiner stand on the Elgarometer?From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made? :whistle:
If people want to read something significant into national origin, that's their concern, not mine. But those who take this kind of over-simplistic approach fail to realise that creative artists are massively complex people who seldom fit the pre-defined categories they're pigeonholed and shoehorned into. It just doesn't work that way. You're perfectly entitled to feel your nationality as profoundly as you please; just don't go projecting it onto everyone else. Bravely & boldly said, cavatina :ok::ok::hug:
barber olly
12-08-11, 13:40
From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made? :whistle:
Yes, and I could have added Johum, Monteux but my real point is that many others haven't. As great Mahlerians it would be interesting to hear a Boulez or Abbado Elgar 1!
Yes, and I could have added Johum, Monteux but my real point is that many others haven't. As great Mahlerians it would be interesting to hear a Boulez or Abbado Elgar 1!Oh yes, Monteux's Enigma variations barber olly :ok: :ok:
And Haitink's symphonies and Solti's symphonies, In the South, violin concerto, etc., of course :blush:
I don't know Jochum's Elgar recordings
From memory - Toscanini recorded Elgar's Enigma Variations, Sinopoli recorded the symphonies and the cello concerto and In The South, Munch recorded Introduction & Allegro for Strings (which caused a huge kerfuffle when played by Jonathan Swain in Classic Collection years ago), Svetlanov recorded both symphonies and Gerontius ... point made? :whistle:
I originally had the Munch on a flood salvage Spanish RCA LP bought for 10 Shillings from a rack outside a newsagents in the mid '60s. I then got a CD issue from the Orchesography closing down sale. A wonderful supplement to Barbirolli and the Sinfonia of London.
makropulos
12-08-11, 17:37
I originally had the Munch on a flood salvage Spanish RCA LP bought for 10 Shillings from a rack outside a newsagents in the mid '60s. I then got a CD issue from the Orchesography closing down sale. A wonderful supplement to Barbirolli and the Sinfonia of London.
Yes, I've got that performance too, and love it. Among non-British Elgar conductors, Solti, Haitink, Monteux, Jochum, Svetlanov, Silvestri, Munch and Toscanini have all done very impressive things and there are plenty of more recent examples too: in the last year: De Waart (Symph 1), Van Zweeden and Kasprzyk (both Gerontius - which Sinaisky also did in Copenhagen), and Kiril Petrenko (Symph 2, with the Berlin Phil, no less). And in the not-so-distant past Leonard Slatkin has done (virtually) all of EE's major works. I've just been enjoying Oramo's Gerontius quite a lot too.
Fritz Reiner conducted Cockaigne and Enigma in concerts, but I don't know if any live recordings survive. But speaking of great Mahler conductors and Elgar, how wonderful it would be to have heard the performance Bruno Walter gave of the First Symphony in 1924 in the presence of the composer (see Ryding and Pechefsky: Bruno Walter, p. 167-8). It looks as if he also conducted the Second, and he certainly did the Violin Concerto with Heifetz and the New York Philharmonic.
Honestly, I don't yearn to hear Boulez doing Elgar on the evidence of some of his other ventures into unexpected repertoire - but one of the symphonies from Abbado would be fascinating, even if that's unlikely to happen.
Panjandrum
13-08-11, 07:41
Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.
At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!
Ventilhorn
13-08-11, 08:17
Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.
At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!
Oh dear! I've just discovered that I'm a Luddite! But at least I can be assured that I am among friends:yikes:
Yes, if you didn't hear it, do pin back your lugholes and have an objective listen. You have the choice of agreeing or joining we Luddites in our prejudices.:biggrin:
VH:winkeye:
Well, what a truly pianistic panache Lazic brought to Brahms 3! There, I've said it. I was convinced by this performance in a way I certainly was doubting beforehand. Provided one approached this performance without prejudice there was a real sense of echt Brahms in this transcription[ the piano writing nothing if not idiomatic, erasing all memories of Joachim and his fiddle.
At times, the thundering chords Lazic produced in the first movement evoked that tiny little wisp of a scherzo from the second piano concerto: elsewhere, in the slow movement, one couldn't help thinking of Brahms's own superscription to the 2nd movment of his first concerto "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini". The audience's spontaneous eruption at the end of the first movement told everything about how Lazic was received in the hall. I would urge anyone who has yet to hear this, perhaps deterred by the peptic utterings of the Luddites on this thread to beg, borrow or steal a recording of the performance (failing that I believe it's on the iplayer). A revelation!
Thanks for listening to this transcription with open ears, Panjundrum (see my Msgs 4 and 17), though I wouldn't call our co-messageboarders luddites.
I cannot comment on the performance as I haven't listened to it, but the CD of this pianoconcerto (http://www.amazon.com/Brahms-arr-Lazic-Concerto-Rhapsodies/dp/B003122H50)reveals the secrets of Lazic's arrangement after repeated listening quite easily.
Brahms could have made this himself, and that is (for me, see M17) the criterium.
[Btw, the highly critical Concertgebouw has scheduled a performance coming September 24th.]
Oh dear! I've just discovered that I'm a Luddite! But at least I can be assured that I am among friends:yikes:
Yes, if you didn't hear it, do pin back your lugholes and have an objective listen. You have the choice of agreeing or joining we Luddites in our prejudices.:biggrin:
VH:winkeye: Good Morning fellow Luddite [I thought you were a Druid} 'Pin back your lugholes'
BWS would be shocked. Have a good day. :biggrin:
BudgieJane
13-08-11, 09:13
I certainly wouldn't call myself a luddite. The music is certainly OK, and there was nothing wrong with the performance; it's just that it's not a piano concerto.
In a couple of years' time everyone will have forgotten it.
Ventilhorn
13-08-11, 09:27
I certainly wouldn't call myself a luddite. The music is certainly OK, and there was nothing wrong with the performance; it's just that it's not a piano concerto.
In a couple of years' time everyone will have forgotten it.
Let's hope so!
Well spoken and "without prejudice" (as letters from my bank manager say)
VH:laugh:
I certainly wouldn't call myself a luddite. The music is certainly OK, and there was nothing wrong with the performance; it's just that it's not a piano concerto.
In a couple of years' time everyone will have forgotten it.
I am not so sure about this PC disappearing: in the 1970s the Beethoven concert no.6 wasn't performed, and IIRC there was only one (Felicja Blumenthal on Everest) and a little later a second (Barenboim on DGG) recording available.
Nowadays it is heard more regularly, and the work is widely available, even on budget labels.
Ofcourse the difference being that this Beethoven is said to be Beethoven's own arrangement (he at least approved it).
If the record companies pick it up, it might survive IMO.
jayne lee wilson
13-08-11, 19:51
Time for the luddites to strike back! Oh, well, not really...
Wonder if it comes down to relative familiarity? Most here will "know" the Brahms Concerti more or less well, but certainly in my own case it's one of those works I carry with me, somewhere at the back of my mind, most of the time. The main finale them often surfaces as I potter about, or the very opening, the first violin entry, that long cantabile (SO violinistic!) second subject, those minor-key 1st movement tuttis... all a bit nearer the surface of memory than many other things. Perhaps that's why I found the piano so "wrong" and disturbing...
I couldn't even begin to suspend my disbelief!
Colonel Danby
13-08-11, 22:06
I've got Holst's 'Invocation' both with Lloyd Webber's own recording with Tod Handley, and with Alexander Baillie and David Atherton on Lyrita: I've always considered it an out and out masterpiece, and still think that now: it's a bit of a shame that Holst didn't expand it into a full blown Cello Concerto, but there you are.
But why do we have to have yet another trawling out of the Planets. Surely this has been done too many times before. I'd rather have heard the Dances from 'The Morning of the Year' Op 45 No 2 any day:biggrin:
BudgieJane
14-08-11, 01:21
I've got Holst's 'Invocation' both with Lloyd Webber's own recording with Tod Handley, and with Alexander Baillie and David Atherton on Lyrita: I've always considered it an out and out masterpiece, and still think that now: it's a bit of a shame that Holst didn't expand it into a full blown Cello Concerto, but there you are.
But why do we have to have yet another trawling out of the Planets. Surely this has been done too many times before. I'd rather have heard the Dances from 'The Morning of the Year' Op 45 No 2 any day:biggrin:
Non sequitur. The Planets is in Prom 70 on 7 September. Did you mean the Enigma Variations?
I listened to the live broadcast of the Brahms but missed the remainder so listened to the repeat today and how glad I am that today I caught this performance of the Enigma Variations.
Wonderfully played and interpreted - surely one of the highlights of the Season so far.
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