Interact & Reviews / Reviews

Joseph McNulty
Great performances of the two Beethoven works, particularly the 5th Symphony. Why do you spoil concerts with such weird music like Elliott Carter's oboe concerto, just a noisy cacophony, ugh!!

John Woodhouse
The Carter was heavy going despite Nick Daniel's persuasive and committed performance. The symphony was exciting and I enjoyed it.

Franziska Stressmann
Beethoven's 5th is a tricky one. An exclusive few hallmark performances in the past hold the standards so extremely high as to make it uncomfortably challenging for every conductor/orchestra ...

This performance however had me in shock. It was not so much the orchestra seeming unenthusiastic to tackle the bold streaks of this symphony, it was as if the instruments (and the conductor) could not agree with one another. Hesitant strings were outplayed by bold and almost too eager winds. On occasions the first violin even seemed to disagree with the rest of its own kind. The horn gave a particularly abysmal performance, slurring its solo entrances so spectactularly that actually a few people in the audience winced visibly. It took me the whole second movement to recover from the first one and I only managed to pick up my concentration in the third one, which admittedly was much better with an orchestra that had started converging both in tempo and expression. Overall though I thought I was sitting in a rehearsal.

Z Joshua
A bit disappointed with the Beethoven Fifth Symphony despite positive newspaper reviews. Aside from the shaky brass sound, the strings often couldn't start on the same foot and it sounded like more rehearsal time was needed. Also I felt it was a bit hurried. The 2nd half did improve though. I didn't feel the buzz, the life affirming energy I usually experience with the Fifth.

Peter Lewis
How refreshing to hear a well known symphony (Beethoven's 5th) given an articulate and muscular reading from a relatively young conductor. Most recent recordings of Beethoven feature the now fashionable 'period instrument' orchestra, playing for all they are worth yet still sounding somewhat thin and weak. Personally, I think the BBC Symphony Orchestra are in fine form.

Paul
The last time I heard the Grosse Fuge in the orchestral version, it was immediately followed by Bartok's Music for Strings etc (Barbican, Budapest Festival Orchestra 2005) - a quite marvellous pairing, brilliantly illuminating the 'forever modern' (Stravinsky) nature of Beethoven's writing.

I have to say - whisper it - that I do think that those who questioned whether the Grosse Fugue was an appropriate final movement of the original Op.130 were perhaps right, and I prefer to hear it as a separate piece. Not for me as wonderful as the orchestral version of Op.131, but still fantastic.

Steve Evans
I enjoyed Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and endured the Carter Oboe Concerto. The Carter piece isn't music to most people's ears, and shouldn't appear on the same programme as Beethoven. But it was (just about) worth going to the Proms just for the Fifth Symphony.

Nicholas Hewlett
Aspects of this performance of Beethoven's C Minor Symphony may have indicated an unhappy orchestra. Was the conducting too insensitive? Was the tempo wrong? Had the rehearsal schedule been too tight and too varied? Was the Hall really hot again? No audience breathing or shuffling between movements could indicate rapture or shock, and in this case shock is more likely. If this symphony broke and made a mould for symphonists, then where was the Beethovenian joke of the pauses at the beginning? The interval talk referred in its jolly contemplation of riffs to the well-known phrase of those times that Beethoven abruptly ended. Where were the tense melodic lines? Did the instruments' characters come through?

Allen Worcester
Oh dear! I thought Beethoven wrote the Grosse Fugue for two violins, one viola and one cello (no basses!). I have never hear this music played by a string orchestra and never want to hear it again! The audience was obviously underwhelmed by the experience. This is not Auntie's fault of course. The musicians(?) in charge of commissioning this fiasco should be shot! Do they not understand the issues involved in diluting music that is meant for the dynamics of a string quartet! As for Natalie Klein's comment at the end that this music still packs a punch, (as though surprised) does she not realise that this piece of music is amongst the very greatest of the entire output of Western music. Oh lord if this is the best Proms stuff you can broadcast - all of a piece with the total decline in standards. I didn't watch the rest of the Prom, I was too depressed.