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qatsiI had planned to go to Prom 40 next Monday, but work has intervened, I need to travel to Manchester and on checking the National Rail website, there was no chance of catching the last train. So, as I scoured the listings, I spotted that Prom 33 also featured works by Dora Pejačević. I suppose I was drawn more to the symphonic than the lieder, but in the circumstances this seemed like a good substitute, and also an opportunity to hear works by Alma Mahler (listed for the occasion as Alma Mahler-Werfel).
The BBC Philharmonic were conducted by John Storgårds on this occasion. The concert began with Weber's Oberon overture; Storgårds was prone to jumping around the rostrum once or twice, and I wasn't convinced the orchestra had some chords quite together. Next up, songs by Pejačević, with Dame Sarah Connolly. The Zwei Schmetterlingslieder were light and airy; Verwandung was distinctly darker, and Liebeslied rounded off the set. Yes, the parallels with Richard Strauss were clear, but it was clear that Pejačević had her own voice. Although I'll miss the concert on Monday, I definitely plan to pick it up on BBC Sounds. The programme moved on to Alma Mahler's Die stille Stadt; Licht in der Nacht; and Bei dir ist es traut. Again, these songs (published between 1910 and 1915) shared orchestral colours with other composers of the period. It's disappointing that Gustav Mahler discouraged his wife from pursuing her compositional career; it was a different time, but these songs offer a glimpse at what might have been.
As with one of last week's concerts, there was no interval, so after a short pause for rearrangements on the stage, the final work was Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1. As the programme notes said, this wasn't particularly well received on its first performance, and caused all sorts of self-doubt in the composer. It's a work that is difficult to assess: there's plenty of potential, good tunes, skilful writing (although this is a work that is reconstructed from a piano reduction and orchestral fragments, so detailed authenticity is open to question) - but the good bits often peter out or struggle and drift. As with the earlier Weber, I wondered about the orchestra - but then I realised that the Hall was somewhat sparsely populated, with significant empty patches in the stalls, and this emptiness was causing an echo. (I recall reading in the 1990s that Symphony Hall in Birmingham had seats specially designed to behave acoustically in the same way, whether occupied or folded up, to avoid this problem.) It doesn't happen often, and it's a shame that the concert wasn't so well attended. (I have heard people say that this season has been well attended, partly because of pent-up post pandemic demand, but also because of an awareness that classical music funding is "under threat" in various forms.) I suppose the central works in the concert didn't suffer in the same way, because working with a single human voice imposes constraints on the orchestral forces.
R tells me that a sign of middle age is observing the rain outside and thinking "it will be good for the garden". Another, surely, is that a concert with an early finish time has the attractive prospect of getting home at a civilised hour.
The BBC Philharmonic were conducted by John Storgårds on this occasion. The concert began with Weber's Oberon overture; Storgårds was prone to jumping around the rostrum once or twice, and I wasn't convinced the orchestra had some chords quite together. Next up, songs by Pejačević, with Dame Sarah Connolly. The Zwei Schmetterlingslieder were light and airy; Verwandung was distinctly darker, and Liebeslied rounded off the set. Yes, the parallels with Richard Strauss were clear, but it was clear that Pejačević had her own voice. Although I'll miss the concert on Monday, I definitely plan to pick it up on BBC Sounds. The programme moved on to Alma Mahler's Die stille Stadt; Licht in der Nacht; and Bei dir ist es traut. Again, these songs (published between 1910 and 1915) shared orchestral colours with other composers of the period. It's disappointing that Gustav Mahler discouraged his wife from pursuing her compositional career; it was a different time, but these songs offer a glimpse at what might have been.
As with one of last week's concerts, there was no interval, so after a short pause for rearrangements on the stage, the final work was Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 1. As the programme notes said, this wasn't particularly well received on its first performance, and caused all sorts of self-doubt in the composer. It's a work that is difficult to assess: there's plenty of potential, good tunes, skilful writing (although this is a work that is reconstructed from a piano reduction and orchestral fragments, so detailed authenticity is open to question) - but the good bits often peter out or struggle and drift. As with the earlier Weber, I wondered about the orchestra - but then I realised that the Hall was somewhat sparsely populated, with significant empty patches in the stalls, and this emptiness was causing an echo. (I recall reading in the 1990s that Symphony Hall in Birmingham had seats specially designed to behave acoustically in the same way, whether occupied or folded up, to avoid this problem.) It doesn't happen often, and it's a shame that the concert wasn't so well attended. (I have heard people say that this season has been well attended, partly because of pent-up post pandemic demand, but also because of an awareness that classical music funding is "under threat" in various forms.) I suppose the central works in the concert didn't suffer in the same way, because working with a single human voice imposes constraints on the orchestral forces.
R tells me that a sign of middle age is observing the rain outside and thinking "it will be good for the garden". Another, surely, is that a concert with an early finish time has the attractive prospect of getting home at a civilised hour.