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Guest
Guest
I had expected my 50th birthday to be really stressful but in the end it was quite delightful ... an £80 bill from Yo Sushi underneath the RFH notwithstanding ...
Weds May 4 just happened to have Christine Brewer doing Richards Strauss's Four Last Songs at the RFH. The wife knows the 4LS is one of my all-time favourite works, so she booked it months in advance.
Being a dedicated chamber music and lieder nut, it's actually been quite a few years since I heard a full-sized band going for it. And it was something of a delight, opening with Wagner's Prelude to Act 1 of Meistersinger. (Jolly good potboiling stuff but hardly the main event though!).
I had been worried about Christine Brewer as the Strauss I have her singing (I don't have her 4LS but I do have some Strauss orchestral songs from an old BBC Magazine CD) is overly operatic and dramatic compared to my normal list of singers of these songs. Watching her wobble out wasn't encouraging - if she lived in Scotland I'd say she would have well eaten chips and deep fried mars bars to earn her a free Mobility car - but thankfully she was rather more restrained on the night than the Fat Lady image might suggest. No Schwartzkopf or Janowitz, but any missing vocal subtlety was more than made up by the wonderful LPO who were truly fantastic. Tears by Beim Schalfengen are almost obligatory for me, but them lasting through to Im Abendrot was unexpected. Truly wonderful performance by the orchestra and a decent one by Christine Brewer too. What a birthday! Somewhat made by the appearance of Christine Brewer at the next box to ours (home the the BBC announcer) practically as soon as the clapping stopped (her conversation with the R3 producers was admirably technical). I guess she can still do stairs then ...
Unexpected highlight of the night though was the Tchaikowsky 5th Symphony. I heard the SNO do this in my early 20s and knew it quite well from back then from some old CFP recording with the LSO, long forgotten in the interim as my tastes have changed somewhat since the early 80s.
The LPO did a magnificent job of it - a great, coherent, reading from Vladimir Jurowski. The wife and I, with a right hand box to ourselves, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (although it's the antithesis of our usual lieder, chamber music and baroque diet both at home and in London's concert halls).
Anyway, it was broadcast live on R3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010tz9j/Radio_3_Live_in_Concert_London_Philharmonic_Wagner_Tchaikovsky_Strauss/ so anyone who is keen can have another listen on iPlayer.
I guess 50 isn't so bad ....
Weds May 4 just happened to have Christine Brewer doing Richards Strauss's Four Last Songs at the RFH. The wife knows the 4LS is one of my all-time favourite works, so she booked it months in advance.
Being a dedicated chamber music and lieder nut, it's actually been quite a few years since I heard a full-sized band going for it. And it was something of a delight, opening with Wagner's Prelude to Act 1 of Meistersinger. (Jolly good potboiling stuff but hardly the main event though!).
I had been worried about Christine Brewer as the Strauss I have her singing (I don't have her 4LS but I do have some Strauss orchestral songs from an old BBC Magazine CD) is overly operatic and dramatic compared to my normal list of singers of these songs. Watching her wobble out wasn't encouraging - if she lived in Scotland I'd say she would have well eaten chips and deep fried mars bars to earn her a free Mobility car - but thankfully she was rather more restrained on the night than the Fat Lady image might suggest. No Schwartzkopf or Janowitz, but any missing vocal subtlety was more than made up by the wonderful LPO who were truly fantastic. Tears by Beim Schalfengen are almost obligatory for me, but them lasting through to Im Abendrot was unexpected. Truly wonderful performance by the orchestra and a decent one by Christine Brewer too. What a birthday! Somewhat made by the appearance of Christine Brewer at the next box to ours (home the the BBC announcer) practically as soon as the clapping stopped (her conversation with the R3 producers was admirably technical). I guess she can still do stairs then ...
Unexpected highlight of the night though was the Tchaikowsky 5th Symphony. I heard the SNO do this in my early 20s and knew it quite well from back then from some old CFP recording with the LSO, long forgotten in the interim as my tastes have changed somewhat since the early 80s.
The LPO did a magnificent job of it - a great, coherent, reading from Vladimir Jurowski. The wife and I, with a right hand box to ourselves, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it (although it's the antithesis of our usual lieder, chamber music and baroque diet both at home and in London's concert halls).
Anyway, it was broadcast live on R3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010tz9j/Radio_3_Live_in_Concert_London_Philharmonic_Wagner_Tchaikovsky_Strauss/ so anyone who is keen can have another listen on iPlayer.
I guess 50 isn't so bad ....
