on the bill with Beethoven 9
The final grab for something summery - Proms in the Park - is over, and we're into autumn. The high heid yins in London insist that this Last Night binge is to be done in the open air, but none of them did enough geography at school to understand that the climate up here is different from London....... However, thousands turn up to Glasgow Green and have a great time. Simple maths (the kind that even I can do) tells me that the vast majority that come to Glasgow Green don't normally come to indoor symphony concerts. There must be a powerful appeal - more than just to sit in the rain for four hours. It must also be about the worst way to see and hear the actual music. What is it that is so appealing? Doesn't that appealing element happen in our everyday concerts in the City Hall? If you're coming to Beethoven 9 this week (you won't be if you haven't already got a ticket), would you want the Red Hot Chilli Peppers as a supporting act, or vice versa? (Mind you, I would welcome their dancing girls to accompany anything that we do!) As players, we can't avoid being a bit detached from the big tribal gathering experience that is going on out there in front of us - we are more than pre-occupied trying not to make complete arses of ourselves playing in horrendous conditions. We're there, but we don't belong - wandering minstrels? I wonder if any of you noticed: in the main BBC 1 broadcast, during the rousing rendering of Rule Britannia, there was a sequence of shots showing the various crowds at Proms in the Park venues around the land, all waving flags and shouting. You saw Glasgow Green, you heard Rule Britannia......we were actually singing Highland Cathedral! Oops! Is the BBC colluding with our English overlords? A head should roll.
Enough levity. Back to Beethoven 9. What a piece. We don't often get a bash at it, and this Thursday it launches our season, the Merchant City Festival and it's live on TV. Did Beethoven realise what he was doing when he wrote this? He kicks down the walls of his deafness, bulldozes away the colonnades of tradition, and shouts out something that will go on to echo around Europe, and the whole world. Schiller's Ode might seem a tad effete.......until Beethoven put boots and dungarees on it. The audience at the first performance got the message - though legend has it that LvB couldn't hear them raving, and he had to be turned round to see. What sort of an artist do you have to be to achieve something like that? What sort of authority and credibility must you have? Did he have any vision of the place that he was taking in the history of art, if not in European politics?
Our warm up act in Glasgow is Janacek's Taras Bulba. I've raved about this before. All human life is there - and more. And it is just the warm up. The story makes me feel weepy even before the music starts; though I've never seen the graphic details mentioned in a programme note. You don't want to know. Suffice it to say that it shows the futility of violence, the endless cycles of pain, the cruelty and loss - unleashed if we can't tune in to ideals of brotherhood and equality. The lessons have never been more urgent, and the problems no less intractable. Some aspects have struck me. Janacek was writing in the aftermath of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The assassination blew the gasket on the pressure cooker of Balkan hatred, and launched WW1 (not to mention WW2 and all that came after that). The assassin, Princip, is quoted as taunting his captors to "nail him up and set light to him so that he can become a beacon for freedom". That is what happened to Taras Bulba. Did Janacek know this about Princip? Maybe Princip knew Gogol's story as well as Janacek? Also, Janacek's infidelities had led to his wife's attempted suicide - he was just embarking on a madly obsessive love for another married woman. The most touching and plangent moment in Taras Bulba is at the beginning, and it depicts Taras' son's traitorous love for a Polish girl. We repeat Beethoven 9 in Aberdeen, and the warm up act there is Elliot Carter's Three Illusions - three fantasies about what will make our lives better. The rare contra-bass clarinet appears again (see my last blog, '.....mutter.....mutter...'). This piece was premiered in Boston, on the same day that Soundings (wot we done the other day at the Proms) was premiered in Chicago - so there must be at least two contra-bass clarinets in America. There is no doubt about the respect that Carter commands, but can he prove that Janacek was wrong to say that "There is no music without key"? He is 100 in December, and so may not have too much time left to make his case.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~06~RS~)
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Have you ever been to T in the Park? Do the people who go to hear bands they would never normally listen to think why am I listening to this nonsense that I wouldn't give the time of day to?
Red Hot Chilli PIPERS fitted in very well to the programme- if it was Red Hot Chili Peppers I wouldn't have come. You wouldn't have went together very well!
Because it is live music that you want to experience no matter what the conditions are and it is irrelevant what the music is , because all you want to get out of it is togetherness. That sharing of roughly the same kind of music that suits your taste, and being out in the open where there are no constraints of the concert hall and the ettiquette that goes with it. That is all part of the fun. It's an adventure! Ther were no holds barred when it came to cheering the orchestra- you wouldn't here that in the city halls, and if you did you'd get mighty hefty dirty looks if you were the one shouting, as I have experienced in the past. ie,hear and now concert with a hall full of children.
At proms in the park everyone is your friend, the camaraderie is something to be experienced! But you as a musician do not experience this. If you could swap one by one, the places of the audience, you'd "get it !" There is no feeling like it!
I do go to concerts in the city halls, but there is no way you'd find me talking to my next door neighbour , if I didn't know them, discussing the music, facilities, atmosphere etc. They'd think I was a weirdo. (probably those who know me would agree that I am, picnic and sandwhich n all that)) You may think it is an incompatible way to experience music but the turn out speaks for itself. As for the weather, it was raining, but I didn't even notice, I was too busy enjoying myself to notice. My waterproof stayed in my bag.
The variety of music catered to everyones taste, it wasn't mine, as all I wanted to hear was the orchestra, but hey, it take all sorts.
As for the timing of the live links, nobody would have know except for the people who were there and knew what was happening!
"So What?" It was what it was meant to be. FUN!!!!!
TAKE A CHILL PILL!!!! for goodness sake. I want the musicians that I come to hear to understand the needs of both the people who come to hear the popular stuff and the needs of the discerning punter who wants somethin a little more "high falutin"
The crowds at the park were phenomenal.The traditional punter who go to the city halls and young adults that I encounterd , were full of enthusiasm.
It was the best time ever! roll on next year.
Lesley
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Thoroughly enjoyed Prom in the Park myself - it is indeed something a bit different to the usual symphony concert and therefore something to be encouraged and developed alongside the aforementioned usual symphony concert, whose extinction would be a travesty were it to occur. Speaking of rolling heads, was it just me or did we lose sound on the horns during the bugle calls? Bit of a blooper there if so.
Last night was excellent - I would never dream of suggesting a performance is all down to the conductor, but hopefully those who were suggesting that Ilan Volkov had lost his spark are eating their words after that concert. The orchestra played with great passion and intensity throughout; the choir in the Beethoven 9 - "a bit small" according to one woman I overheard in the row behind me - packed a healthy wallop in the increasingly famous City Halls acoustic, bringing back memories of nearly being blown out of my seat by NYCoS during the Chichester Psalms a couple of years back; and Neal Davies was the pick of the soloists for me, underlining that with a very accomplished performance in the post-concert recital. Not knowing any Schubert lieder or useful German I hadn't the foggiest idea what he was singing about, but it was a good way to round off the evening nonetheless!
On the question of "no music without key", it seems to me to depend on how rigidly the term "key" is defined - I've heard it suggested that even supposedly atonal twelve-tone music can hint at a key or keys if the tone row is organised in a certain order, for example. Apparently hearing that in Schoenberg inspired Robert Simpson to base some of his earlier music around the dissonance generated by two keys in conflict.
Anyway, great start to the season, and keep up the good work!
Derek
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I was at the concert in Glasgow last night featuring Beethoven's glorious 9th. I have loved his music for years but this was my first concert.
I'm not sure I can find words to express how much I enjoyed it. Absolutely superb! Bravo!
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I enjoyed the television coverage last night, though it would have been nice to see the whole concert. I was amused (or should that be encouraged?) to hear Jeremy say that he was worried he'd make a mess of his solo. He needs to play with the Merchant Sinfonia more often. We'd show him that there's nothing to worry about.
With regard to the Proms In The Park broadcast, I watched the Albert Hall gig and taped the red button stuff. It was only when I saw the latter that I realised that the Glasgow audience hadn't been indulging in some rebellious Scottish country dancing to 'Rule Britannia", after all. I will admit to employing the FF feature when the RHCP were playing, as well as for the choirs and much of Maria Friedman. It's a "taste thing", I guess. I always like to hear the "band" without the distraction of singers (and, in this case, the sound of cats being strangled to the beat of an electric bass). I'm sure that the people in the park had a wonderful time, but there's no remote control at such an event. Mind you, it could have been worse. It makes me sick just typing "Sharleen" and "Spiteri".
Karen
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I was at both Proms in the Park and the Beethoven 9 concert last night and they were both thoroughly enjoyable. Anthony's comments re the Proms in the Park suggest to me that he doesn't enjoy playing at the event (although I may have picked you up wrongly, Anthony, and I apologise if I have). We have been so lucky with the weather the past two years anyway; both nights have been fine, mild, and, crucially, dry. A huge percentage of the people coming along are almost certainly never through the doors of a traditional classical concert, but that's because the Proms in the Park isn't a traditional classical concert. I think it's great that lots of the audience are getting at least something of a taster of how great orchestra music is, even if it isn't 'high-falutin' stuff!! Additionally, it's free. The atmosphere in Glasgow Green is wonderful, and whichever element of the concert you're there for, you just accept the rest-it's just part of the night. Nobody minds if you chat with your friend, everybody's got a picnic and a bottle, and everyone is in a good mood. I suspect it is not so much fun for the band. Like Lesley and Karen, I was there mainly for the orchestral music, but the whole night is a package, always enjoyable. I wouldn't want to go to the Albert Hall last night, even though their audience is made up of regular concert-goers-you have to book tickets for a number of other Proms concerts before they will even put you in the ballot for the Last Night tickets.
And I have to agree completely with what has already been said re last night's opening concert-it was tremendous, and hope Aberdeen enjoys it as much tonight. We are really lucky in Glasgow to be served by so many top-class orchestras.
Allison
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