Proms Performmances
Wed, Jul 21 2010, 1:42PM
Whatever some might say about the choice of music/performers, I thought the Manfred symphony by the RLPO was excellent. This is not the first time I have heard this orchestra's Tchaikovsky. About 30 years ago they gave brilliant performances of the 2nd and 5th in Grantham Parish church, the first of these was broadcast live on Radio3.
Soundwise, Radio3 is still very good via both FM and DAB, but the TV action leaves room for improvement. Most people are now watching this on large high definition televisions and there is no real need to see violinists' fingernails in such glorious technicolor !!
Sat, Aug 7 2010, 8:19AM
#2
RE: Proms Performmances
The Gergiev/World Orchestra for Peace Mahler concert must surely have laid to rest the grievous misunderstanding most critics have of this conductor's interpretations of the symphonies. What Gergiev understands better than any living conductor is that this composer, above all others, needs full rein given to the visceral excitement of his music, and that those hankering after this or that incidental lingering or exaggeration are missing the point. I suspect decades of ears being corrupted by post-Bernsteinian psychodrama, based upon the erroneous belief that Mahler was neurotic (if we must use spurious medical terminology, he was a sufferer from manic-depression, a psychosis), or the reaction against it, Abbado and Zinman-style 'objectivity' have actually forgotten just how sheerly thrilling these symphonies are, without the fetishisation of particular passages or the polar opposite emphasis on 'structure' in the classical sense (Mahler's works, like the great Gothic cathedrals are organic in shape and form). Mahler, we must remember, was Bohemian in background, not Viennese, and pseudo-Strauss wlatzes are secondary to the folk music of the Sumava mountains. Like his mentor, Solti, and, indeed, Bruno Walter, whose own interpretations are of much the same pace as Gergiev's, and completely unsentimental and forceful, Gergiev never allows the texture to cloy, nor the impact to falter. Any resulting rough edges, are part and parcel of the seat-of-the pants experience essential to the music's aesthetic core.
Whatever the critics may say (especilly those who are crass enough to claim that Gergiev doesn't 'get it' as far as Mahler is concerned - a jibe that they could more pertinently apply to themselves, in fact), they were roundly and soundly contradicted by the the tumuluous reception afforded the conductor and his fine band by the capacity audience on the night. Fear not, Valery: carry on regardless and a curse upon the carpers: the people are with you!
Declaring an 'interest' straightaway - the RLPO is my local orchestra - I thought their perfomance of the 'Manfred' at the RAH was even better than their Naxos recording, and a slightly higher notch above their performance here a day before they went to London. It was also interesting to see the way Petrenko communicated facially to the orchestra, something you don't see at the Philharmonic Hall here unless you sit in the choir gallery. I leave it to the many good reviews of this Proms concert to comment on the quality of the performance itself.
HD has its drawbacks visually as one sees too much - nailbiters beware! But the camerawork was excellent, capuring the finer details of Tchaikovsky' rich orchestration: it was always in the right place at the right time, rather than being generalised shots of sections of the orchestra.