Prom 42 - 17.08.14: 'Lest We Forget', BBC SSO, Clayton / Williams / Manze

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    Prom 42 - 17.08.14: 'Lest We Forget', BBC SSO, Clayton / Williams / Manze

    Sunday, 17 August
    7.30 p.m. – c. 9.25 p.m.
    Royal Albert Hall

    Rudi Stephan: Music for Orchestra (1912; first performance at The Proms)
    Frederick Kelly: Elegy for strings, in memoriam Rupert Brooke
    Butterworth: Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad (orch. P. Brookes; first performance of this orchestration at The Proms)
    The orchestrator is our very own Pabmusic
    Vaughan Williams: A Pastoral Symphony ('Symphony No 3')

    Allan Clayton, tenor
    Roderick Williams, baritone

    BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
    Andrew Manze, conductor

    The BBC Proms continues to mark the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 with a concert of musical imaginations shattered by the Great War.

    Rudi Stephan was born in 1887, and by 1912 his Music for Orchestra seemed to promise a great deal in its mysterious and expressionistic textures. In 1915 he was killed by a shot from a Russian soldier.

    Frederick Kelly was a talented musician and Olympic rower. His heartfelt Elegy for Strings is a tribute to poet Rupert Brooke with whom he served at Gallipoli. Kelly was killed in the last days of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. George Butterworth, who is best remembered for his settings of E. A. Housman's poems A Shropshire Lad, died from a shot in the head during that same battle. His nostalgic songs are performed this evening by Roderick Williams.

    And the Pastoral Fields of Vaughan Williams' Third Symphony are not the rolling hills of England, but those of France, where the composer served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The rhapsodic symphony, with the wordless voice of tenor Allan Clayton, is performed by Andrew Manze and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and follows their dazzling performance of Symphonies 4, 5 and 6 at the BBC Proms in 2012.
    Last edited by Eine Alpensinfonie; 09-08-14, 15:13.

    #2
    It isn't every day we have a forum member making such an important contribution to a Prom.

    Pabmusic -

    Comment


      #3
      Hello there,

      Very much looking forward to it and also anticipating what Manze does with RVW 3. I have high hopes after his superb readings of 4,5 and 6 two years ago.

      I understand that Pabs won't be present at the performance. A shame - though I'm sure that the BBCSSO, Manze and the music will do him proud

      Best Wishes

      Tevot

      Comment


        #4


        The songs will also be performed in Ottawa on November 7th, sung by David John Pike, who's very good. But it's a long way to go… They've already been done in Belgium (at Mons) and Lithuania (Vilnius). I was in hospital at the time, having had a stroke in March 2008.

        It's a good programme - sombre throughout, of course, but with some lovely music. The Kelly is outstanding. I came across this beautiful Youtube version that's been edited quite wonderfully:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK19TZfoHLo

        Did you know Kelly actually won gold for the UK at the 1908 Olympics?

        Comment


          #5
          congrats Pabmusic. Well done

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by salymap View Post
            congrats Pabmusic. Well done
            Lovely to see you've returned Salymap

            I am afraid I will depend on iPlayer to listen to this concert, as I will be abroad coming weekend (actually between coming tuesday late and Friday Aug 22nd early), but I am very looking forward to it.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by salymap View Post
              congrats Pabmusic. Well done
              Good to see you back, Salymap.

              Comment


                #8
                This concert is the next temptation after the epic Job last night.

                Not least for the Pabmusic

                But ... am I suffering brain-fade? Is there any precedent for a tenor in VW3? I recollect only soprano soloists in any recording I've heard or looked at... Bit late for research - any specialist care to put me straight?
                "...the isle is full of noises,
                Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Caliban View Post
                  T...But ... am I suffering brain-fade? Is there any precedent for a tenor in VW3? I recollect only soprano soloists in any recording I've heard or looked at... Bit late for research - any specialist care to put me straight?
                  I've never heard it done this way, but it's entirely justified - the score has the wordless passage as 'soprano or tenor solo'. It can also be done without a singer, in which case the 1st clarinet plays it (it's fully cued in the score and part). Apparently there was a full performance at the RCM in advance of the 'first' performance. Boult conducted and Frederick Thurston played the solo on clarinet.

                  The score also includes an extra trombone part as an alternative to the 2nd trumpet.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Pabmusic View Post
                    I've never heard it done this way, but it's entirely justified - the score has the wordless passage as 'soprano or tenor solo'. It can also be done without a singer, in which case the 1st clarinet plays it (it's fully cued in the score and part). Apparently there was a full performance at the RCM in advance of the 'first' performance. Boult conducted and Frederick Thurston played the solo on clarinet.

                    The score also includes an extra trombone part as an alternative to the 2nd trumpet.
                    VW was always very practical in his flexibility of orchestration.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post
                      VW was always very practical in his flexibility of orchestration.
                      Yes he was. I've read a comment by Michael Kennedy that it would be good if the 'reduced' or 'alternative' versions of the symphonies were recorded sometime.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Pabmusic View Post
                        I've never heard it done this way, but it's entirely justified - the score has the wordless passage as 'soprano or tenor solo'. It can also be done without a singer, in which case the 1st clarinet plays it (it's fully cued in the score and part). Apparently there was a full performance at the RCM in advance of the 'first' performance. Boult conducted and Frederick Thurston played the solo on clarinet.

                        The score also includes an extra trombone part as an alternative to the 2nd trumpet.
                        Thanks., Pablo I wondered what the score said.
                        "...the isle is full of noises,
                        Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                        Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                        Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Pabmusic View Post
                          Yes he was. I've read a comment by Michael Kennedy that it would be good if the 'reduced' or 'alternative' versions of the symphonies were recorded sometime.
                          A version of The Sea Symphony for barber shop quartet and harmonium, perhaps?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Paul Agnew sang the part at a previous Prom in 1998. All other Proms performances, except that and this season's were sung by sopranos http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/s...-symphony/2525

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by David Underdown View Post
                              Paul Agnew sang the part at a previous Prom in 1998. All other Proms performances, except that and this season's were sung by sopranos http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/s...-symphony/2525
                              Thank you David, interesting about the 1998 Prom.
                              "...the isle is full of noises,
                              Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
                              Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
                              Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

                              Comment

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