Catching up with a backlog of listening. Listened to the two flute concertos and will definitely return to them. The Dalbavie I heard half of the other day before being interrupted and I hadn't been too impressed with what I heard. However, I warmed to it more second time around, not least because I was pleasantly surprised by how much had sunk in on first hearing. OK, it's hardly cutting edge, but what it does it does with style and economy, verging on the budget-priced at times! Influences - Dutilleux, of course (the constant return to a single pitch, as well as the lower strings music - something I noticed with the first of this year's Dusapin pieces the other week too), but also Lutosławski (the very opening - abrupt chords with scampering in between - struck me as something that Luto would have done with greater energy and creativity; this wounded like the right gestures but with weak notes), Kurtag - the 'depth charge' chords/orchestration reminded me of his wonderful piece Stele - and elsewhere early (Firebird/Petrushka) Stravinsky, Walton (Viola Concerto - some of the melodic shapes, stretching over augmented octaves), Sibelius (5th Symphony in particular - quiet, background scurrying, reminding me again of Walton - 1st Symphony - and Lutosławski). There was something passacaglia-like about the slow theme that ran through the work, and it helped focus what otherwise might have been an exercise in colour. I wished there had been more rhythmic interest in that theme, however; the quasi-baroque gestures got a bit tiresome after a while.
Am I the only one who detected a bit of scrappiness in Pahud's playing? Some very audible breaths (gulps) and high playing that sounded on the edge of losing support at times. The Carter seemed much more assured and the playing here was often stunningly beautiful and varied.
The Carter is a much tougher listen and I found myself having two simultaneous reactions - (1) the culturally conditioned response, tougher = better (than Dalbavie); (2) the equally subjective but perhaps more authentic response, tougher = less rewarding. Maybe I should have listened to them the other way round. I noted the delicate Webern/ late Stravinsky soundworld; the way Carter excavates more of interest from his opening bars than Dalbavie manages in the same space of time; but it wasn't until halfway through, with that extraordinary still music - what wonderful chords! - that my attention was really grasped. First time through, though, I was surprised by the ending - it seemed to come several minutes too soon - maybe I'll understand better why on subsequent hearings.
I'm not sure that two flute concertos in the same programme really works, even sonically gorgeous works like these. BBC NOW sounding great - just a few thin high string lines, but lots of finesse elsewhere. (Pleasantly surprised, having heard the same team's Les biches the other day - I thought that was quite crude, both in playing and interpretation - no match for Prêtre or Frémaux in this repertoire.)
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Originally Posted by jayne lee wilson
. I think that this is a legacy not from Norrington, but Harnoncourt, since I think that Thierry Fischer was a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the time of Harnoncourt's performances and recordings for Teldec, so the "less vibrato than usual" approach got passed down the generations there. I actually enjoyed what I heard from his performances of the Beethoven. On the 'attacca' point of the 1st and 2nd movements of Beethoven 7, the only other conductor I've known to do that is David Robertson. If memory serves, he did that in his 2007 Prom performance.