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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #31 on: 11:14:45, 13-05-2008 » |
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Is there any word on whether this might be broadcast?
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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...trj...
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« Reply #32 on: 11:30:59, 13-05-2008 » |
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No idea - no such thing is mentioned in any of the publicity I have (often there's something in there saying 'this performance is being recorded for future broadcast').
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martle
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« Reply #34 on: 14:06:25, 13-05-2008 » |
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That's a spectacularly snotty review by anyone's standards.
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Green. Always green.
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...trj...
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« Reply #35 on: 14:30:01, 13-05-2008 » |
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Did any of these reviewers actually go, or did they just listen to Tom Service's Music Matters piece a week or two ago? The observation that 'ascolta' is the only word "not pulverised by the composer’s complex design" is utter nonsense (or, rather, it was on the night). I also take issue with those who say that there is no linear narrative when there clearly is (complicated by all sorts of other goings on) a structure in text and music in which: Prometheus is born (Prologue), steals fire and challenges the Gods (First Island), brings it to mankind (Three Voices (a)), and ends his quest in the belief that "no god will be able to take this fire away from me" (Third, Fourth and Fifth Islands), with the final two movements as concluding commentary on the situation we have now arrived at.
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richard barrett
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« Reply #36 on: 14:44:02, 13-05-2008 » |
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full of sloppiness ... blah blah Venice Gabrieli blah blah blah... These people ought to be put out to grass if that's the best they can do. |
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #37 on: 15:11:02, 13-05-2008 » |
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Some of these really miss the point quite astonishingly - are they all deaf? Still, the Southbank Centre was right to stage this overdue UK premiere, if only to show how unrealistic modernism had become by the time Nono completed his “theatre of sounds” in 1984-85. He was an idealist. Even if Prometeo is musically too thin to sustain the weight of theory and ideas motivating it, you have to admire the purity of Nono’s artistic/aesthetic quest, something today’s composers, dogged by the demands of consumer accessibility, are not allowed even to contemplate. (my emphasis) That might be the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen written by a critic.  |
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...trj...
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« Reply #38 on: 15:16:33, 13-05-2008 » |
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Nice.  |
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...trj...
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« Reply #39 on: 19:39:22, 15-05-2008 » |
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To quote one of Nono's works, 'Is this all we can do?'
what I'd thought was moving on actually sounds more like giving up. I finally understood (I think) the meaning of "Tragedy of Listening" Rereading this thread and thinking some more, I wonder if these three observations don't get to the heart of something about Nono's music in general - something that I've found in any case and that when I've heard it is among the most moving and humanitarian aspects of his music. It's the acute awareness of the limitations of composing as a mode of political engagement (still less listening). Not that Nono necessarily gives up on either, but that he brings to his art an honest awareness of the probable futility of what he is doing (compared to more direct means of political engagement). The "Is this all we can do" that resonates throughout La floresta ... gains extra weight in its musical setting because our senses tell us, while hearing the music, that it is at least something. And perhaps this is the 'Tragedy of Listening' of Prometeo. It's a sort of giving up but carrying on regardless because one has to, because the cause is just and the struggle is vital. Just tossing some ideas around. Thoughts? |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #40 on: 20:53:53, 15-05-2008 » |
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Just a small aside to trj's points. One thing that came through to me anyway from Prometeo was the importance and centrality of seeing/hearing things as they are, without illusion, wishful thinking or preconception. That's part of what I meant by 'clear-eyed'. That may or may not be specifically 'political' (as opposed to anything else) but if taken as seriously and unflinchingly as Nono seemed to be doing in Prometeo (in relation to suffering, for example) it certainly counts in my book as 'radical'. The necessary starting point for any radicalism.
Unlike others here I know very little about Nono's life and beliefs but to continue to create works that attempted to demonstrate how change was possible by example, while being under no illusion that the direct political effect would be anything other than negligible, seems to be of a piece with such an attitude. It needn't imply any 'giving up' on political engagement per se; but could be seen as looking with the same unremittingly critical eye at the idea of composition being a force for political change as at everything else?
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #41 on: 16:58:54, 16-05-2008 » |
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Someone I was meeting with today suggested to me that a major Nono expert in this country thought that whilst the singing was excellent, there were problems with the instrumental playing in this performance - mostly to do with a playing 'safe' that tended to even out a lot of things and make certain passages sound more 'textural' than they might do otherwise (but one wouldn't really know this unless one knew the work and score very well). I wasn't there, as I say, and this is third-hand opinion, but I wonder if such a thing might have affected some of the more critical perceptions on this thread and elsewhere?
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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richard barrett
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« Reply #42 on: 17:22:53, 16-05-2008 » |
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The idea that they might have been "playing safe" never entered my head during the performance, although of course (a) the performers being mostly of British origin no doubt they were playing safe, as always, apart from the ones from Hartlepool, and (b) I'm such a lightweight myself that I didn't notice. Seriously though, on the subject of criticising the performance, I didn't feel that Diego Masson necessarily had as much of a handle on things as the "second" conductor Patrick Bailey. Masson was often seen to look anxiously at Bailey when he had an entry coming up, and was also seen to turn back a page in the score and then forward again once or twice, never a confidence-inspiring sight. However, the dynamic and timbral range of the playing seemed to me everything it should be.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #43 on: 17:53:42, 16-05-2008 » |
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(a) the performers being mostly of British origin no doubt they were playing safe, as always, apart from the ones from Hartlepool Not sure if that Lionel Tertis played safe? Seriously, this is nothing necessarily to do with characteristics of British performers, just an opinion I heard from two people whose views I trust (one of whom is German, I'm afraid, but also knows more about Nono than just about anyone else resident in the UK) with respect to this specific performance. Certainly such a possibility would be in line with the vast majority of Sinfonietta performances I've heard. As far as British performers in general, I think I've yet to meet anyone from outside of the UK who doesn't think that British musicians tend towards a safeness and emotional reserve. There are exceptions, of course, but I don't believe such perceptions are without foundation. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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stuart macrae
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« Reply #44 on: 00:57:30, 18-05-2008 » |
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Masson was often seen to look anxiously at Bailey when he had an entry coming up, and was also seen to turn back a page in the score and then forward again once or twice, never a confidence-inspiring sight. I spoke to Patrick (Bailey) after the concert, and he said that part of his job was to cue Masson for entries - the second conductor directs the amplified string trio, while the first conductor takes nothing to do with them, merely waiting for his cue when their sections reach certain points. I think this is a residue of the layering of different sources - and tempi. Pat said a lot of the time he couldn't hear what the string trio were playing at all, because of the louder sound of the onstage choir and orchestra, and just had to hope they were still with him! So I think that was what was going on with Masson's attentive (rather than anxious I think) looks. I think. The only instrumental playing I 'wondered' about was the tuba part. From where I was sitting it sounded considerably less multiphonic than I'm accustomed to hearing in the recordings. But I don't have a score so I don't know. I thought the singing and most of the instrumental performance was almost beyond reproach though. |
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