Order and Disorder
Aug. 11th, 2018 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiI spotted Prom 37 in the season listings, and decided I would go. I'm moving jobs at the end of September, and so I have holiday to use up; I decided to take a full day. The current queuing arrangements meant that I still needed to make an early start. On Tuesday, I arrived at the Hall at 9am and got ticket number 4; on Friday, I arrived at the Hall at 9am and got ticket number 27, probably due to an interesting programme and a popular conductor and visiting orchestra.
What to do with the rest of the day, though? I had chosen to book a full day's leave for a Friday so that I could make a trip up to Letchworth Garden City to see the International Garden Cities Museum, which has very limited opening hours. It's a small museum, but the single room exhibition space is quite densely packed with information, and the building is also home to the preserved office of one of the original architects. I learned that Ebenezer Howard may have been an idealist, but he was not without practicality either, with a well-considered financial plan for the first garden city (which was almost located in Staffordshire); also that the distinctive Arts and Crafts style of the first housing was to some extent chance, being the fashion of the time, rather than specific bucolic intent (the later nearby Welwyn Garden City is constructed with the same principles of space but very different building designs). I spent some time meandering around the centre, noting the Art Deco Broadway Cinema and the Spirella Building, and also noticing that the shopping area did seem quite distinctly populated with independent retailers, rather than being a clone town. Unfortunately all this was in quite heavy rain, so I didn't see the place at its best.
Having carefully and warily consulted the interim GTR timetables in advance, I was pleased to find both outbound and return trains ran quite closely to time; indeed the outbound train, which was a stopping service from King's Cross, regularly arrived early and waited for a few minutes before moving on. Of course, one day is not necessarily representative, and I did note some listed trains more severely delayed or cancelled. Nevertheless, I do wonder whether some of my ire for GWR's service is their persistently optimistic and precarious scheduling, which so often leads to dismay at unfulfilled expectations. The return journey was a fast service that made it to St Pancras in about 35 minutes; although there had been some blue sky visible on my journey, I exited the station to a loud rumble of thunder.
Still with some hours to fill, I moved on to the nearby British Library's James Cook exhibition. This told the explorer's tale using manuscripts, drawings (by British artists and also some works now attributed to Pacific artists who joined the voyages), and a couple of "cabinets of curiosities" typical of the Enlightenment period. I usually avoid the more interactive items, but I will commend the "talking heads" videos that were interspersed on this occasion for being thoughtful and interesting, giving perspectives from scientists, anthropologists, and First Nations representatives. Cook's reputation has varied over the years, and the exhibition tries to strike a balance, noting in particular that his own views were not necessarily represented by the more widely publicised work of Joseph Banks.
Returning to the Royal Albert Hall in the late afternoon, the weather had at least relented, though the pavements were still wet. The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome were conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano. The first half was a little odd: beginning with Representation of Chaos from Haydn's The Creation, they moved straigh on into Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 ("Jeremiah"). I've previously seen conductors choose to do this, and it depends on the relationship between the works as to whether it is successful. For me, not so much on this occasion, because the two were of very different character, and both were new to me. Elizabeth DeShong sang the Lamentation with feeling; it seems an oddly prescient choice of Bernstein, to set a Hebrew text in 1942.
The second half of the concert was well known to me: Mahler's Symphony No. 1, which is a Proms regular I last saw in 2010. Pappano's antiphonic arrangement of the orchestra, and the slightly raised double bass section, proved very effective in generating the opening sounds, but I wondered at the pace, which seemed slightly Bernsteinian in its slowness. There were other oddities - the opening double bass line of the Bruder Martin funeral march was a bit squeaky, and the timing of some of the brass chords in the final movement seemed to be swallowed up by the orchestral sound - but the overall impression was of an exciting and passionate live performance. The horns stood in the final section, as per Mahler's direction.
Visiting orchestras often give encores, but one can never be sure. However, at the front, you can often see the strings rearranging their music stands, or members of the percussion coming and going, so you can tell the concert hasn't quite finished. This orchestra was created to perform Italian music: where was that in this concert? And so, an Italiana from Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances. As Pappano came and went from the platform, the applause continued, and he waved his baton to begin the second encore before arriving at the rostrum: the trumpet fanfare announced the galop from Rossini's William Tell overture.
What to do with the rest of the day, though? I had chosen to book a full day's leave for a Friday so that I could make a trip up to Letchworth Garden City to see the International Garden Cities Museum, which has very limited opening hours. It's a small museum, but the single room exhibition space is quite densely packed with information, and the building is also home to the preserved office of one of the original architects. I learned that Ebenezer Howard may have been an idealist, but he was not without practicality either, with a well-considered financial plan for the first garden city (which was almost located in Staffordshire); also that the distinctive Arts and Crafts style of the first housing was to some extent chance, being the fashion of the time, rather than specific bucolic intent (the later nearby Welwyn Garden City is constructed with the same principles of space but very different building designs). I spent some time meandering around the centre, noting the Art Deco Broadway Cinema and the Spirella Building, and also noticing that the shopping area did seem quite distinctly populated with independent retailers, rather than being a clone town. Unfortunately all this was in quite heavy rain, so I didn't see the place at its best.
Having carefully and warily consulted the interim GTR timetables in advance, I was pleased to find both outbound and return trains ran quite closely to time; indeed the outbound train, which was a stopping service from King's Cross, regularly arrived early and waited for a few minutes before moving on. Of course, one day is not necessarily representative, and I did note some listed trains more severely delayed or cancelled. Nevertheless, I do wonder whether some of my ire for GWR's service is their persistently optimistic and precarious scheduling, which so often leads to dismay at unfulfilled expectations. The return journey was a fast service that made it to St Pancras in about 35 minutes; although there had been some blue sky visible on my journey, I exited the station to a loud rumble of thunder.
Still with some hours to fill, I moved on to the nearby British Library's James Cook exhibition. This told the explorer's tale using manuscripts, drawings (by British artists and also some works now attributed to Pacific artists who joined the voyages), and a couple of "cabinets of curiosities" typical of the Enlightenment period. I usually avoid the more interactive items, but I will commend the "talking heads" videos that were interspersed on this occasion for being thoughtful and interesting, giving perspectives from scientists, anthropologists, and First Nations representatives. Cook's reputation has varied over the years, and the exhibition tries to strike a balance, noting in particular that his own views were not necessarily represented by the more widely publicised work of Joseph Banks.
Returning to the Royal Albert Hall in the late afternoon, the weather had at least relented, though the pavements were still wet. The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome were conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano. The first half was a little odd: beginning with Representation of Chaos from Haydn's The Creation, they moved straigh on into Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 ("Jeremiah"). I've previously seen conductors choose to do this, and it depends on the relationship between the works as to whether it is successful. For me, not so much on this occasion, because the two were of very different character, and both were new to me. Elizabeth DeShong sang the Lamentation with feeling; it seems an oddly prescient choice of Bernstein, to set a Hebrew text in 1942.
The second half of the concert was well known to me: Mahler's Symphony No. 1, which is a Proms regular I last saw in 2010. Pappano's antiphonic arrangement of the orchestra, and the slightly raised double bass section, proved very effective in generating the opening sounds, but I wondered at the pace, which seemed slightly Bernsteinian in its slowness. There were other oddities - the opening double bass line of the Bruder Martin funeral march was a bit squeaky, and the timing of some of the brass chords in the final movement seemed to be swallowed up by the orchestral sound - but the overall impression was of an exciting and passionate live performance. The horns stood in the final section, as per Mahler's direction.
Visiting orchestras often give encores, but one can never be sure. However, at the front, you can often see the strings rearranging their music stands, or members of the percussion coming and going, so you can tell the concert hasn't quite finished. This orchestra was created to perform Italian music: where was that in this concert? And so, an Italiana from Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances. As Pappano came and went from the platform, the applause continued, and he waved his baton to begin the second encore before arriving at the rostrum: the trumpet fanfare announced the galop from Rossini's William Tell overture.