This posting is being cross-posted to the Mahler-List for several
references to Mahler, Brahms, Elgar, and Schoenberg.
During a business trip to the UK this week, I took advantage of a
free evening to make the trip to London and attend my first BBC Proms.
Additionally, this was the first time I had been inside the Royal Albert
Hall. On tap that night, Aug. 2, was a Bach organ piece, Prelude and
Fugue in C minor, BWV 546; Johnathan Harvey's "Mothers Shall Not Cry," a
BBC-commissioned piece being given its world premiere; the Brahms Double
Concerto, with Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis on violin and cello; and
another Bach piece, Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552 (St. Anne),
but orchestrated by Schoenberg.
The organ in the RAH is visually impressive, and musically so also.
Martin Neary played the piece with suitable drama, emphasizing the "scary"
organ dissonances. I was surprised to read in the program notes that the
organ, many of whose internal parts have never been touched, is due for
yet another major overhaul in 2002. It was hard to believe that we were
hearing this instrument at possibly its weakest.
Next was "Mothers." The BBC had commissioned Harvey to write a
"millennium cantata" using many religions. The title came from a
placard held by Taiwanese women in Istanbul protesting about their and
other mothers' "disappeared" ones. I had my doubts reading the titles
of various segments: Samsara, The Bodhisattva's Resolve, Vision of the
Mother of Pondicherry, and so forth. The start of the piece filled me
with misgivings. It started with the cackling of woodblocks to simulate
gunfire. The choir started chanting the names of the dead. Words that
some victims had written were intoned. There were bits of music
transmitted through loudspeakers in various parts of the hall. The music
was about what I feared: random notes splattered everywhere, various
eruptions of sound, that sort of thing. I felt that the screams from
parts of the hall were more sensationalistic, cliche, than dramatic.
Yet, about halfway through, when the Blindfolded Warrior entered just
to my left almost all the way up (I was three rows from the top), I began
to get involved. As the soprano soloist, dressed in purity-white, and
the Warrior began their long reconciliation -- their singing scored in "an
unknown language" -- the music got more accessible. At one point, with low
instruments seeming to rip the music to shreds, it was absolutely riveting.
As the Warrior descended the stairs v-e-r-y slowly, all the while singing
his dialogue with the soprano, the music became more spare. The reason:
The orchestra and choir were walking out in sections. The piece finished
with the soprano and Warrior onstage, a unison note lowing as they finally
made hand contact over the Warrior's downed sword. But there was so much
unpredictable stuff up to then -- the low tension-music, the unknown
language, spotlights panning over the audience, and much more -- that I
half expected him to kill her at the end. That would have been totally
at odds with the theme of reconciliation, however. Cantata? More of a
multimedia drama, I'd say.
The piece ended on that one note, and the audience roared its approval.
I said to my neighbor, "I don't know, I kind of liked it after it got
going." "When was that?" she said, "the last note?" So there was at least
one dissenting voice as the audience hailed the composer. Two days later
The Times reviewed it warmly; have any Listmembers seen other reviews?
After the dissonance, unsettlement, and unknown languages of "Mothers,"
the audience I think was ready for the Brahms Double Concerto. Bell and
Isserlis played beautifully, of course, as did the BBC SO under Jac van
Steen. But I thought Isserlis was slightly overpowered when he wasn't
soloing. Didn't I read once that he sometimes makes a point of playing
with gut strings instead of whatever cellists play with? Could that have
been the reason?
The last piece was Schoenberg's orchestration of Bach. I'm not familiar
with the underlying piece, so it was great fun trying to pick out the Bach
amid the late-19-century orchestration (though Schoenberg orchestrated it
as late as 1928). The ending was classic: a Tchaikovskian climax complete
with a 100-percent predictable cymbal clash. It reminded me, of course, of
one of my favorite pieces, Stokowski's orchestration of Bach's Toccata and
Fugue in D minor (hoots of derision from many of you, but darnit, I like
the piece).
I had so much fun the night before that I decided to go to the Proms
a second night. Besides, how could I resist the chance to hear Elgar
performed in the Royal Albert Hall itself; I later found out that Elgar
himself conducted this piece, Falstaff, twice at the Proms, in 1921.
Perfect! Also scheduled was another BBC-commissioned world premiere,
Violin Concerto by James Dillon; and Brahms Symphony No. 2.
As I looked up at the arches at the top of the RAH, the red and white
so reminiscent of the Union Jack, I couldn't help but picture those poor
Victorians, with all those woolen clothes, in what was again a stifling
hall. I hoped it was cooler below, on stage.
I had never heard Falstaff before. Elgar denied it was program music, but
with that name what else could it be? His assertion that it is a series of
interludes based on Shakespeare's Falstaff -- well, to me that's program
music. Again I nearly fell asleep at the start, but recovered. I can't
say I was hugely impressed with Falstaff. But there is a string part
(violas?) about three-fourths of the way through that sounded as if it
was lighter than air. This piece ends on a pizzicato note signifying
Falstaff's death, and the audience reacted enthusiastically. I was
thrilled to hear Elgar in situ, as it were.
Next was Dillon's Violin Concerto. I knew I was going to be in for a
tough time when the program notes spoke of "hard-liner James Dillon."
Dillon, practicioner of what the notes called the "new complexity" in
modern music, produced a work that was continuously dissonant, jerkily
arhythmic, in-your-face. In fact, this piece brought to me the old
cliches about modern music: notes splattered on the page a la Jack the
Dripper (mixing art and music cliches here); people running out of the hall
screaming "I confess!" (in fact, I saw only one person leave); how can you
tell if world-class violinist Thomas Zehetmair missed a note, even if he
*is* using a score; and wondering if crowd noise I heard was actually in
the score. There was to be no last-minute conversion for me that night:
I did not like the piece, and I really wonder if it will ever be played
again. And yet, I couldn't help wonder if I wasn't reacting like Pfohl,
Liebstoeckl, among many others, those turn-of-the-last-century critics who
blasted Mahler because *they just didn't get it.* After all, Mahler did the
same things as Dillon did and Harvey did the night before: out-of-tune
instruments, spatial tricks, unusual orchestration. Like last night, the
audience welcomed the piece and the composer enthusiastically.
The Brahms 2 was, well, Brahms 2. At the end of the Adagio, the music
faded away into the air, but accompanied by...a telephone. this was not
a digital phone, but a jangly Carnaby Street-era phone that everybody
could hear but nobody could answer. You could see poor conductor Martyn
Brabbins's shoulders sink in disappointment. Finally, a Promenader yelled
from the floor, "Answer it!," to roars of laughter and applause. And this
was a concert, like all the Proms, being broadcast to the whole of the
British Isles and probably beyond. Did any Listmembers hear this? Anyway,
the BBC Scottish SO carried on gamely, and I'm sure that most listeners
will remember the fine performance they put in, not a fine performance
marred by a phone. I sure will.
When I think that the same thing could happen during the last pages of
Mahler 9, which is being performed at the Proms in about 10 days....
Will any Listers be in the London area through mid-September? Do yourself
a favor, try to make at least one night at the BBC Proms. Tickets are
easy, except (probably) for the really big-name performances. I'm sure
you won't regret it.
Mitch Friedfeld
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