The 120th season began in grand style with Elgar, but the World Orchestra for Peace sounded a note of uncertainty
A faint cloud of dust rose up from the big bass drum as the fateful hammer blows were struck at the end of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. The composer sometimes called this work his "Tragic". It opens in bellicose mood and ends, 70 minutes later, after a minor-chord outburst of despair, falling away to silence. Usually in a live performance such as this, given by the World Orchestra for Peace conducted by Valery Gergiev there's an unspoken counting game to see how many seconds pass before that silence erupts in cheers.
At Prom 4, one of the most high-profile concerts of the 2014 BBC Proms season so far, the last note had barely sounded before the applause, warm but not ecstatic, began. The performance was convincing, the players, hand-picked from among the world's best. Was it the heat? Was it the conductor? The matter of Gergiev, who was back five days later with the London Symphony Orchestra, has become thorny. We must address the issue, but not yet.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 18 hours ago.
A faint cloud of dust rose up from the big bass drum as the fateful hammer blows were struck at the end of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. The composer sometimes called this work his "Tragic". It opens in bellicose mood and ends, 70 minutes later, after a minor-chord outburst of despair, falling away to silence. Usually in a live performance such as this, given by the World Orchestra for Peace conducted by Valery Gergiev there's an unspoken counting game to see how many seconds pass before that silence erupts in cheers.
At Prom 4, one of the most high-profile concerts of the 2014 BBC Proms season so far, the last note had barely sounded before the applause, warm but not ecstatic, began. The performance was convincing, the players, hand-picked from among the world's best. Was it the heat? Was it the conductor? The matter of Gergiev, who was back five days later with the London Symphony Orchestra, has become thorny. We must address the issue, but not yet.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 18 hours ago.