BBCSO
Peter Quantrill
Messiaen’s language of juxtaposition over development was always susceptible to the “greatest hits” phenomenon that began to suffuse his music with contented wonder during the 1970s. While younger colleagues were throwing toys out of the pram and marbles at walls during the late 1960s, he was putting heart and soul into a synoptic concert rite – part concerto, part cantata, all-consuming – based on the Transfiguration of Jesus. Not for the first or the last time, Messiaen then used a cycle of quasi-improvisations for his own instrument, the organ, to keep the well from drying up. The Read more ...
Tom Baily
Cindy Sherman predicted the selfie, so goes the claim. From our current standpoint, it is all too easy to analyse her many hundreds of photographic self-portraits made since the late 1970s as cultural forebears of the digital medium. What this BBC Arena film opens up, alongside that bold claim, is a question about the mystery of Sherman as a person: who is she and why has she done what she’s done? Always reclusive, refusing public appearances, and elusive about her work, Sherman seems to have designed the enigmatic tone with which she is publicly discussed. Here, a small but rewarding effort Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
By happenstance, this Prom was fully topical, with Debussy’s languorous Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune fitting for one of the hottest days in London’s history, and the “Infernal Dance” from Stravinsky’s Firebird mirroring the infernal political dance taking place simultaneously in Downing Street.The official connection between three of the four items was that they were introduced to British audiences by Henry Wood among the “Novelties” he threw at his audiences, between oodles of Beethoven and Brahms. In each case he spotted a winner, and last night they were presented in exemplary Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
A new commission, a Romantic tone poem and a choral spectacular – standard fare for the First Night of the Proms. Traditionally, the First Night sets out the themes for the season ahead, but the rationale behind much of this programme was paper-thin. Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass was included because Henry Wood had conducted it, part of a series featuring pieces Wood introduced to the UK. Dvořák’s The Golden Spinning Wheel was played because Henry Wood had not conducted it, a Proms first performance “reflecting Wood’s fondness for expanding the repertoire”. So the Czech theme turned out to be a Read more ...
theartsdesk
It's been much the same trajectory over the past few years for many of us: look through the Proms prospectus, feel a bit disappointed that there isn't more of the rich and rare, be won round when it comes to the performances. After all, you're probably never going to get better than Martha Argerich in Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, Bruckner's Seventh Symphony from the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by 90-year-old Bernard Haitink in his last official UK concert, or Semyon Bychkov taking charge of the Czech Philharmonic in Shostakovich.Always remember, too, that for many it will be a first Read more ...
Tom Baily
The Apollo 11 mission remains the most celebrated journey humanity has ever made. It produced some of our most iconic images, as well as the greatest speech gaffe, and a documentary of epic scale could be made that focused solely on the influence it has had on our popular culture. 8 Days has a different aim, asking the question, “What was it really like for those three astronauts over the course of those eight days?” Using real recordings, archival footage and re-enactments, we are given the inside story of what happened inside the lunar capsules.Like other recent film productions (including Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
Among the greatest violin concertos in the repertoire, the Elgar is far too rarely performed. One of the reasons is its huge dramatic scale and almost hour-long duration – Sakari Oramo wisely programmed it here with Dvořák’s relatively modest Seventh Symphony, but this was still a long concert. Another reason is the superhuman demands it makes on the soloist, of virtuosity, but also of subtle structural thinking, and ultimately, of sheer stamina.So we owe Nicola Benedetti a debt of thanks for her advocacy here of (arguably) Elgar’s greatest work. Her reading was bold and forthright, but Read more ...
Miranda Heggie
A day devoted entirely to the life and work of György Ligeti celebrated this composer’s remarkable oeuvre through a sequence programme of film, talks and concerts of his music. The final two of these performances were a short recital of his choral works, given by the BBC Singers in St Giles’ Cripplegate, and a concert from the BBC Symphony Orchestra of some of Ligeti’s orchestral masterpieces in the Barbican Hall.Under their chief conductor Sofi Jeannin – who led with style, clarity and precision – the BBC Singers (female members, picured below at the later event) opened their concert with Read more ...
Peter Quantrill
Time was when the BBC Symphony Orchestra played austerely wholesome programmes of modern and romantic classics to third-full houses. Now on a more varied diet – such as the collaboration with Neil Gaiman and Alwyn's Miss Julie in concert announced this week for their forthcoming season – they pull in respectable audiences, though last night’s concert of classical, romantic and contemporary Austrians had a reassuringly old-fashioned feel about it.The orchestra itself has also been transformed under Sakari Oramo’s leadership, into one of the most flexible, up-for-anything large ensembles in the Read more ...
David Nice
Practitioners of musical authenticity and scholarly research, so guarded and protective of their territory in the early days, now like to spread the love around. So if an amateur choir of 100-plus like the BBC Symphony Chorus, celebrating its 90th anniversary, and selected members of a symphony orchestra want to tackle Bach's B minor Mass – as anyone in their right minds would wish to, since it's a monumental masterpiece – then they could hardly do better than entice the dynamic John Butt away from the small forces of his Dunedin Consort for a one-off spectacular.Or could they? As Butt beat Read more ...
Gavin Dixon
The big news on this programme was Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande. This early score, completed in 1903, is a sprawling Expressionist tone poem, making explicit all the passions in Maeterlinck’s play that Debussy only implies. The story plays out through a handful of chromatically complex Leitmotifs, but such technical considerations are soon overwhelmed by the sheer urgency of the musical drama.The piece is a rarity in concert, unsurprisingly given the immense demands it makes on the orchestra, so this performance by the BBC Symphony Orchestra was particularly welcome. Conductor Ryan Read more ...
David Nice
Like the fountains that sprang up in the desert during the Holy Family's flight into Egypt - according to a charming episode in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew - Berlioz's new-found creativity in the 1850s flowed from a couple of bars of organ music he inscribed in a friend's visitors book. That became the Shepherd's Farewell to Mary, Joseph and Jesus as they depart from Bethlehem, loveliest of all Christmas carols; then Berlioz added two movements around it, and later two low-level dramatic sequences either side of "The Flight into Egypt" (the scene pictured below by Carpaccio). The triptych - Read more ...