Notes from a friend

I have been in south Wales...

as my mother is very unwell...but a more musical friend has given me his permission to quote his thoughts. I always enjoy reading Will's emails: they are always intelligent, extremely cogent, and very well-written. Thank you, William Willans, of Bath!

Prom 26 - Thursday 1 August

... missed the Henze.

About the best performance yet, for me, of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments. I really enjoyed the whole of it. Likewise Sir Michael Tippett's 2nd - again for the first time, the contrasting styles of the first movement ("sunlight on a fast-flowing stream", did someone say?) and the last, all jagged, all made sense. And the second movement was magic.

But what really got me was Movements. I've been aware of this piece from earliest days. But heard it for the first time only recently. And found it very, very difficult to follow. But ye Gods - not this time. It held together. It worked. It was lovely. For me, at any rate.

Having bitched about R3 presentation lately, have to admit, this time it was stunning. Bits from Oliver Knussen and P Serkin that really were helpful. And, two recorded bits from Sir Michael, one (1960), on the Symphony, and the other (1970's) on Stravinsky; the latter making an excellent point, that in spite of the radically different musical language as time went on, "Stravinsky is still Stravinsky" (might not be an accurate quote). That really was a tonic, after the Concerto and before Movements. An encouragement to look for similarities, in the terse fragments of the latter, rather than be put off by strangeness.

Incidentally, Oliver Knussen also said (can't remember his words), Movements really is a difficult piece for the listener, he didn't get it all at first, but when he did he loved it - and, he and P Serkin probably have done it more than anyone else, etc. A bit like Hendrick's Gin adverts - "This is not for everybody" ... After that, who could resist ?

I had asked Will to listen to James MacMillan's Violin Concerto, given on Saturday 3 August. I'd heard this at its Proms premiere, and been distinctly underwhelmed. Would Will agree, and if so, why? Here are his thoughts:

Okay, here goeth.

Gesture. First and second movements, anyway - solo part in second might just as well have been improvised. Third did get my attention, in a biggish way, with tremendous sounds (esp piano clunking away in the orchestra).

Up to the point when the woman spoke. Which was effective, in its way, because I nearly laughed out loud.

After that, more gesture, and I found the cadenza most uninteresting.

And now, an Obscure Comparison. Found myself thinking of modern worship styles, with everything focussed on the individual and the group, looking inwards. For the soloist, as in so many violin concertos, was being made to say "Me, me, me ..." And we were being brought together in a response to that. As opposed to the old BCP way, celebrant facing E, leading us to something beyond our wretched selves, which is what music can do. Of whatever sort. Bach, or folk, or country-and-western fiddle player, or plainchant, or whatever. If it's the real thing.

One violin concerto does that for me, and only one. Samuel Barber's.

Still my view after this evening.

And - Dear Mr Macmillan, all the violin pyro stuff has been done before, by Mr Paganini. Much better. Get over it.

So: hollow, then. I didn't have the words for it three years ago, just a sense of it missing a core. I had returned home on Wednesday 7 August, but was in no frame of mind to attend the RAH that evening. Here are Will's thoughts on Tuesday's & Wednesday's Proms:

To continue - didn't get on any too well with the Korngold Symphony. Competent, of course. And excellently played. It would have been perfectly okay as background for the right sort of film (gay love story set in a provincial university, with romantic sunsets and perhaps a hint of S/M?).  But not quite the real thing.

Nor did I warm to the Rubbra piece. And I really wanted to - but, like the ER pieces I've heard, one gorgeous bit, and the rest again, not quite the real thing.

I saw ER once. It was at St Bartholomew's the Great, in (I think) Nov 1973, and I was peeking in through the door before a special service. I knew that ER had done a piece for it - and the Rector, Canon Eddius Neville Wallbank, burst out with a great cry of:

"My dee-ah Edmund ... !"

And there he was. Just as in pictures. A very, very distinguished-looking man, grey hair, grey beard carefully trimmed.

That was the one time I saw Sir John Betjeman, already with his mobility impaired, shuffling through the gateway, in the rain, escorted by ENW holding an umbrella over him. Poor, poor man, I thought. Much later, I read Anthony Powell's journals, in which the suggestion was made that at that time, at least, he did rather put it on. And if Spoken To, could function much better...

 Back to that Prom. "Orb and Sceptre" was fun, of course, and great stuff for an occasion, but as a concert piece ... This is all very negative, and will go on thus for a while - the Bruch concerto made little impact on me. But I did enjoy the encore. Which reminds me - in my comments on the Stravinsky / Tippett wingding, I forgot to say, the encore was wonderful. In its own right, of course, and also as the perfect bridge between Movements and the Symphony.

Anyway. After Tuesday came Wednesday. Good Heavens. GOOD HEAVENS ... what an evening. Missed the first piece, alas. But was ready for "Egdon Heath". Or thought I was. I was not ready to be quite so completely overwhelmed. From the start. Okay, thought I, this one understands. This is a conductor whose aim is to give the music its own shape and substance, all the feeling and at the same time the strictest attention to detail. And in the second half, he'll do "The Planets..."

But first, the Lutoslawski Concerto, which I loved, really exciting, and challenging in the best way.

Then the interval, and a talk from some feller on the borrowings from the "Planets" in pop music.  Whilst I attended to domestic Stuff, and only just got back to the armchair in time for Mars.

Oh, my. The pace, just a little faster than most do it. The detail. The drive - building up tension all the way, and for once not slackening off in returning to the 5/4 beat,  but urging on, to those last spaced chords, each one a hammer-blow, absolutely annihilating. I tell you, the hush afterwards was palpable. The audience seemed stunned.

And so through Venus, and Mercury, each breathtaking.

To Jupiter ... I find this movement less gripping, after the first three. Or rather, I used to - this time was different - such verve. And again such attention to detail, a bass-line I'd never noticed before, a brass note sustained through a chord putting the phrase in a new light. And this time, yes, I was gripped. So much so, that when The Tune started, I was saying to myself:

"What's this wonderful tune ... ?"

It really was as though hearing it for the first time.

On again. Saturn, slower than I've ever heard it, chilling in its beauty - and, I heard every harp note. Uranus -  can miss-fire, be made to sound facetious, but no hint of that - wonderful timps, and, in the big chord when everything vanishes, I HEARD THE ORGAN GLISSANDO. That really was a first. Maggie heard it, too:

"What WAS that chord? I've never heard anything like it ..."

And Neptune - well, sometimes this very beautiful piece can be made to lose its way. Not with this lot. Beautifully shaped, and the choir making a perfect end.

Did I get the impression that the audience had enjoyed it ?? I rather think so - sounded that way, anyway, once the applause began.

Here's a review  - and another, here, from two other commentators which agrees that it was a rather good performance of The Planets! And for another opinion of the Korngold, see here