Hi Toneeee

I rather agree with all your points.   Valse Triste at last !!

The playing was terrific in the Sibelius 2 yet as usual I remained on the outside of a Jansons
symphonic journey.

What shocking news at Leicester:   I hear they played superbly on Saturday.

Agreed that the encores were the best playing of the evening.  The band actually achieved a pp!

Rather odd sentiments from a bass trombonist I know, and I did enjoy the prom, but I felt that the orchestra was never challenged to produce a decent dynamic range.  The climaxes of Also Sprach were generally too quiet (perhaps piston trumpets might have helped?) and the quiet passages were too loud, and often too fast for my taste.  Special mention to the first trumpet for his last note (even though he split it) pp top B muted with lovely tone.

Similar for Sibelius 2, just generally a bit too loud to hear the woodwind colour properly.  Horns were unbumped, and blew themselves out too early into the recap of the last movement.  And why was the tubist swapping between different 1/4s of CCs?


I think like all Strauss you have to really believe in it and play it in widescreen.  First rate second rate music, or whatever Strauss actually said about himself as a composer.  I have a soft spot for it because it was the first Strauss tone poem I got to know (inherited score rather than via 2001)

NB

Another thing - having instruments on stage which clearly aren't needed for the advertised program rather gives the game away doesn't it?

(piano, tam-tam, cymbals, xylophone, snare drum...)

NB

Unfortunately I didn't hear the second encore properly  as I'd signed up to do the collection on Door 8 (the diametrically opposite bit of the Hall to where I was standing for the concert).  So I stayed for the first encore and then dashed out and round and listened to the second through the doors into the stalls from Door 6, accompanied by the sound of catering staff chatting loudly in the corridor 

It was clear that at least one encore was planned as the running time was shown in the programme as 7:00-8:55, followed by listings of individual piece-lengths that only took it up to 8:35 or thereabouts (though the main body of the concert did in fact run up to 8:50, and the BBC broadcast was scheduled to go on even longer).

It was nice to meet you, HtoHe - hope to catch you at Cadogan Hall on Saturday.

Fear not, HtoHe, both encores were broadcast (I'm assuming there wasn't a third). Thinking more about this concert, the Bartok (the second encore) was very refreshing and, to my ears, generated more excitement than anything in the rest of the programme.

When I was a student, the opening to Also Sprach was quite popular because of the 2001 film and because it was used in TV programmes covering flights to the moon. So I knew one or two people who had bought the whole work on an LP and they all said that, much as they loved the opening, the rest was boring. I used to argue with them and try to get them to give it another try but now I wonder whether they had a point. I wouldn't use the word boring, but the way Strauss tries to develop that opening C-G-C motif leads to some rather trite stuff. (Ducks, cover, tin helmet, me coat... please take it as read.)

Yes, I remember feeling that too when in that situation (05). But, now you know what to expect, listen to it again and you might find it a lot more satisfactory (I certainly did).