Fine Prom indeed from JB and the Czech Phil, clearly well on home musical ground in the first half especially. I noticed that the pacing in the Dvorak concerto seemed brisker than the latter-day norm, or to those weaned on the Rostropovich / Karajan recording. AW did very well with her JSB encore as well, where I can see Barbirollians' assessment that the encore went better than the concerto, although I thought that she did OK in the Dvorak. Interesting to note that JB also conducted the previous rendition of the Dvorak concerto at the Proms, with Jean-Guihen Queyras (which I got to hear in person), so he seems to have a mild monopoly on the work at the Proms of late 
.
His rendition of Beethoven 7 was rather refreshingly 'old school', in the best sense. Certainly no Zinman or Norrington zippiness in pace, or trying to lighten up the orchestra size, but fine on its own. JB did observe the first movement exposition repeat, which admittedly wasn't so common in the 'old school' recordings. JB's past experience at the Proms also showed in his planning of 3 (!) encores, although I don't know if he gave the EIF audiences on an earlier part of the orchestra's tour their share of encores as well. True to his past form, he held back the showy element in the Smetana and Dvorak dance pieces (perhaps to the edge of near stolidness), but the inclusion of Nedbal's 'Valse triste' was a total charmer. So if nothing else, we can now answer the trivia question "Name a 'Valse triste' that isn't by Sibelius".
Well, actually, Ian Skelly wasn't quite perfect in his presentation, in that he kept referring to JB as 'conductor laureate' of the Czech Philharmonic, where in fact JB is still very much chief conductor of the Czech Phil. JB is conductor laureate of the BBC SO, to be sure, so I'm sure that this was the simple reason, that IS simply accidentally conflated the two situations. But that aside, I agree that Ian Skelly is an excellent presenter and radio host for The Proms (just one of several).
.His rendition of Beethoven 7 was rather refreshingly 'old school', in the best sense. Certainly no Zinman or Norrington zippiness in pace, or trying to lighten up the orchestra size, but fine on its own. JB did observe the first movement exposition repeat, which admittedly wasn't so common in the 'old school' recordings. JB's past experience at the Proms also showed in his planning of 3 (!) encores, although I don't know if he gave the EIF audiences on an earlier part of the orchestra's tour their share of encores as well. True to his past form, he held back the showy element in the Smetana and Dvorak dance pieces (perhaps to the edge of near stolidness), but the inclusion of Nedbal's 'Valse triste' was a total charmer. So if nothing else, we can now answer the trivia question "Name a 'Valse triste' that isn't by Sibelius".
Originally posted by Caliban
View Post
Comment