I think The Duchess must have chosen this one. I don’t remember her being partial to a bit of Brahms, but she must have been. I am quite partial to Brahms too.
In truth I don’t remember this particular concert well. I was familiar with the Dvorak and Brahms pieces but not the Lutoslawski one. I’m not sure I am much the wiser having heard it.
This was our one visit to the Proms that season away from the clutches of The Duchess. I had fallen into the habit of treating her to one ort wo Proms each season, by that time. Janie and I occasionally also went to something of our own choosing.
On this occasion, I think the programme looked unusual and yet approachable. Alexander Lazarev conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. I wanted to hear Francesca da Rimini performed live and Janie had acquired a taste for countertenor singing. Plus some unusual pieces.
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka – Capriccio brillante (on the Jota Aragonesa)
Sergey Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor
Giya Kancheli – Symphony No. 3
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Francesca da Rimini
Alexander Glazunov – Raymonda, Op 57 No. 26 Grand pas espagnol Act 2- encore
Trad. – Eightsome (reel) – encore
What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing. Nothing went wrong. Although in truth, I don’t recall much about the lesser-known pieces and I cannot for the life of me work out where the countertenor fits in with this collection of pieces. Janie cemented her view that she didn’t like Prokofiev and that big symphony orchestra concerts were not really her favourite thing. Still, we both very much enjoyed our evening.
Here’s what the Glinka sounds like:
Here’s a good recording of the Prokofiev.
The Kancheli is strange yet certainly haunting:
I really enjoyed the Francesca da Rimini. Here is a more recent version of it from The Royal Festival Hall, but you’ll get the idea:
Dig this little bit of the Glazunov:
Fine composer, was Trad. Should have paired up with Anon – they could have been the Lennon and McCartney of the 11th to 19th centuries. Yet Janie insisted that the final encore was Trad’s “Tiresome Reel” rather than Eightsome Reel. I kinda see her point:
Geoffrey Norris in The Telegraph wrote very fondly of this Prom:
Rick Jones was less impressed in The Standard. I’m not quite sure what he means by an errrant electronic high-pitched note. Janie would argue that Prokofiev is meant to sound like that.
I’m not sure why we went so very little in 1996 – I’m guessing we might have been preoccupied with other things when the Proms programme came out.
I don’t think this concert would have been our first choice, but Pauline liked Debussy and was convinced that Janie simply needed to work at it to find a place in her heart for Prokofiev. We tried a few times over the years and it didn’t ever work.
Valery Gergiev, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, would certainly have been a draw.
Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)
My log note describes “Brucknergate” as follws:
It was meant to be a different programme, but Gunter changed it.
Well, I suppose Günter was a Bruckner specialist and I quite often booked to see him conduct Bruckner’s works anyway.
Mercifully, The Duchess (Janie’s mum, Pauline) seemed to accept the change with grace at that time. She possibly felt that the change meant that she had dodged a bullet in the matter of procuring interval drinks, as there was no interval given that it was a one piece concert. Pauline’s idea of a fair deal was for me or Janie to buy the tickets, the other of me or Janie to buy the dinner and she would buy the interval drinks…
…unless we were at The Questors Theatre, where she was a member, in which case she would do the theatre tickets, while Janie and I would procure the drinks and meal. (The Duchess received a few free guest tickets each year as part of her membership package, we later discovered.)
But I digress.
Strangely, I have found a recording of this very concert on YouTube, which I can share with you right here:
According to the accompanying verbiage, this concert turned out to be Günter Wand’s last stand…in the matter of conducting BBC Proms.
Rick Jones waxed lyrical about this concert in his trio of Standard Proms reviews:
Martin Kettle in The Guardian compared this Wand performance of Bruckner 8 with previous ones a little unfavourably while still praising the performance. A case of “the Kettle calling the Wand slack” or something like that:
In the end, I suppose I should be glad to have been there for this one. I had been following Günter Wand around the Proms for best part of a decade by then.
Of course Pauline (The Duchess of Castlebar & Janie’s mum) knew all about the big Norwegians. She’d have done all of that before, but, as we were suggesting it, yes, she would join us at this Prom.
Latvian maestro Mariss Jansons conducting The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in the following programme:
Magnar Åm – Study on a Norwegian Hymn
Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2 in D major
Were we excited? Were we excited!
I loved a bit of Also Sprach back then. Here is a video of Mariss conducting the Concertgebouworkest in that very piece:
Even more, I loved that Sibelius Symphony No 2. Still do. Here is Mariss conducting the Big Norwegians from Oslo in the first movement of that amazing symphony:
Bliss.
Adrian Jack in the Independent also thought the Sibelius was bliss.
Janie’s first encounter with Günter, was this. Possibly Pauline’s too, although she “will have done all that” with Janie’s father decades earlier, no doubt.
Günter Wand had a close working relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Proms for a long time.
Our first Prom together. BBC Prom I’m talking about. And when I say, “together”, that wasn’t just me and Janie – oh no – we also had her mother, Pauline, in tow.
In truth Janie wasn’t too keen on the idea of a “classical concert”, whereas Pauline was a keen music listener.
Still, Janie professed to liking Brandenberg Concertos, so this concert, entirely comprising J S Bach works, including three of the Brandenbergs, seemed a suitable entry point. This, despite my reservations about the Royal Albert Hall as a venue for baroque period music.
Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom. The Hanover Band with some cracking soloists: Anthony Robson, Benjamin Hudson, Catherine Latham, Robert Farley, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Rachel Brown, directed by Anthony Halstead.
This is what we heard:
Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major
Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1060 (version for oboe & violin)
Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D major, BWV 1050
Here is a later recording of The Hanover Band doing Brandenberg 5:
Meirion Bowen in the Guardian rated this Prom highly, while concurring with my view about the unsuitability of baroque music scaled authentically in the Albert Hall:
One of the great mysteries of my diaries and logs. Normally I would leave a clue as to who accompanied me. This time, there are no clues. Did I book this one as a single ticket – so keen to see Simon Rattle and the CBSO I decided to go it alone? My electronic financial records don’t go back far enough for me to be able to tell.
OK, let’s round up the usual suspects. Jilly. Annalisa. Bobbie. (Were it anyone other than one of those three, I’m sure there would be clues in my diary/logs).
I had written the following NewsRevue piece, destined to be a hit, the day before this concert and would have been full of it that evening, if accompanied:
Roberto Gerhard – Don Quixote (complete ballet: 2nd version)
Leos Janáček – Glagolitic Mass
Here is a more recent Simon Rattle with the Berlin (rather than Birmingham) lot, doing a short extract from the Gerhard…
…and a short extract from the Glagolithic Mass:
If you want to see what Simon Rattle looked like in Birmingham in the 1990s, the following is his farewell gig there from 1998, with the CBSO & CBSO Chorus:
Edward Greenfield in the Guardian loved this concert:
Annalisa was due to join me at this concert, but had to pull out at the last minute for some reason. The reason is not captured in my log. It was a Sunday, so I expect it was a health reason rather than a work reason.
Anyway, I hobbled to the Albert Hall alone for this Prom. I think it was the first time I had been to the Proms alone and possibly was the only time I have done so to date (the date of writing this being late 2024).
I say hobbled, because the cursory “traction” approach to my multiple prolapse was obviously not working and I was still in a great deal of pain with my back after my injury in June that year. Indeed, I associate my evening alone at the Proms with Anton & Günter as the point at which I resolved that I would have to try something else, but that I was determined to try something other than major surgery before possibly submitting to that as a last resort.
This was a one piece concert:
Anton Bruckner – Symphony No 5 in B Flat Major, performed by the maestro Günter Wand conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
I suspect that Bruckner 5 is a good number for contemplative thought – it is certainly long enough. I do remember finding this performance especially moving and being really taken with it.
It was filmed and the film has been released on DVD – here is an extract:
If you look very carefully you might spot me sitting in the stalls on my tod.
Tadaaki Jones Standard 01 Sep 1997, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
