More Bachtracking, as it were; this time in Cardiff with the BBCNOW:
"William Walton’s brief had been to compose a small choral work; it grew and grew by 1931 into Belshazzar's Feast, a piece about which nothing is small. Walton had nearly given up in the middle, but pressed on as the piece changed out of all recognition. Thomas Beecham, such a supporter of Delius, had quipped to the younger Walton: “as you’ll never hear the thing again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?” Brass players have appreciated the extra work ever since."
The Queen with Kathryn McDowell of the LSO and Nicholas Kenyon of the Barbican
Peter Maxwell Davies’s tenure as Master of the Queen’sMusic has produced one innovation worth celebrating: the Queen’s Medal forMusic. Rumour has it that Her Majesty’s not the biggest classical music fan, but
it’s good to see her clout being lent to the music world. Previous winners have
included Colin Davis, Judith Weir and Emma Kirkby. The 2012 medal was awarded
to the National Youth Orchestra, the first organisation to receive the honour,
at a gala concert given by the London Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday. Violin
fans will have known that this marked Maxim Vengerov’s return to an orchestra
he played with often before his period of retirement, but it wasn't all plain
sailing for the returning king of the violin. I was at the concert and wrote areview for Classical Source.
What’s Elgar’s Cello Concerto got to do with the Queen? Good question, and not one answered by the Philharmonia’s Diamond Jubilee concert on Tuesday. Natalie Clein played the Elgar, though I wasn’t wholly convinced:
“Natalie Clein’s elegant and clean performance began well by replacing the doom-laden trudge that sometimes overwhelms the opening movement with a noble and rhythmically-conscious tread, but her small sound and consequent lack of projection led to the question of her suitability for the work. Stylish portamenti were appealing in isolation but generally seemed to be a distraction from the music’s intensity and purpose.”
We're doing very well for violin concertos at this year's Proms, though as (bad) luck would have it, I'll be missing many of the best at the other end of the series. Prom 24 (BBCSO/Davis/Little - Elgar/Grainger/Strauss - August 2nd) gave us one of the very best: The Elgar. Tasmin Little has recently recorded it for Chandos, though hers appears shortly after acclaimed versions from James Ehnes and Nikolaj Znaider. I've not heard her disc, so I'm not sure how it compares with this concert performance, but here it seemed that Little's interpretation was more successful at some moments than others. The slow movement was particularly impassioned in her hands and the dream-like accompanied cadenza at the heart of the finale appropriately wistful, but in casting so much of the great first movement as a sombre elegy Little gave it a rather one dimensional reading.
One of the delights of a concert (and even more so a Prom), is that, unless you're one of those people who makes for the exit at half time, there's a good chance of hearing something totally unexpected and utterly wonderful. Those moments are some of my most treasured concert memories - John Adams's Harmonielehre conducted by the composer; Saint-Saens Fifth Piano Concerto with Stephen Hough; a revelatory Brahms 1st Symphony with Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouw when I didn't think I liked the piece. I'm adding Percy Grainger's suite In a Nutshell to that list, which opened out in it's third movement, Pastorale, into an awe inspiring landscape with twinkling pianos and percussion redolent of Charles Ives at his zaniest. UK readers should watch it on iplayer where it's available for a few more days.
My last Prom before the weekend was Wednesday's Prom 26 (BBC Scottish/Runnicles/Harrell - Debussy/Dutilleux/Ravel - August 3rd). Runnicles has done great things with the BBC Scottish, though he's had a fine tradition from previous maestros Osmo Vanska and Ilan Volkov to build on. His Daphnis et Chloe was terrific, resisting luxuriating in the fine details in favour of pace and balance; the playing and singing were also excellent and I really think we're in a golden age of the BBC orchestras (something politicians would be wise to realise before hacking away at the BBC any more). A low key Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune began the concert, though the flute solo at its outset was ruined by dreadful clattering from the boxes. The level of coughing throughout the Prom was also infuriating; this seems to be particularly (though not exclusively) a Proms problem that isn't getting any better.
The string interest came with Lynn Harrell's traversal of Dutilleux's nocturnal cello concerto Tout un monde lointain... . Harrell is a fan of the work and it showed is his flowing and transfixed performance. His face was often a picture of wonderment, mouthing along to the rhythms of the orchestral tuttis and in an encore of music from Bach's Third Cello Suite, he beamed at the prommers, as though enjoying our enjoyment of what he was doing.
It's one of the mightiest of all violin concertos and one of the longest. At around 50 minutes in length, Elgar's concerto is one of the greatest challenges in the repertoire, though a look at the Proms archive shows that the work is less often heard than it once was. Tasmin Little comes to the Albert Hall tonight to give the concerto its 33rd Proms outing, though only two of the previous 32 have been in the last ten years.
Little played the piece in 1994, but at (what will be) two performances, she's some way down the leader board. Albert Sammons, who made what some consider to be the difinitive recording of the work, with Proms founder Henry Wood in 1929, clocked up an admirable 8 performances between 1914 and 1944 (all but one with Henry Wood). Ida Haendel gave 4 between 1942 and 1986, though its highly unlikely that she'll add any more to that tally. The most celebrated performer of the work, Yehudi Menuhin, gave just 2 (1946 and 1972; both with Adrian Boult).
Another Proms Elgarian is Itzhak Perlman, still performing but rather less active than he once was. He solitary performance of the work came in 1981 and was captured on film. It's available as a DVD now, and a chunk of it can be seen below.
