Tag: Royal Albert Hall

A Scouse Second Night Of The Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 22 July 1989

No doubt about it – Bobbie joined me for this one. She was keen to see the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the auspices of the great Czech conductor Libor Pešek. I was keen to see how he would deal with one of my favourite works, Smetana’s Má Vlast.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this concert.

We heard:

  • Benjamin Britten – Four Sea Interludes from ‘Peter Grimes’
  • Sergey Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
  • Bedrich Smetana – From Má Vlast:
    1. * No. 6 Blaník
    2. * No. 3 Šárka
    3. * No. 2 Vltava
    4. * No. 4 From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields
  • Bedrich Smetana – Skocná (Dance of the Comedians) from The Bartered Bride (encore)
  • Julius Fučík – Entry of the Gladiators (second encore)

Why Libor Pešek chose those Má Vlast four movements, and in that order, I couldn’t say. It was all wonderful to hear, in any case.

William Leece in the Liverpool Echo suggested that the Liverpool mob under Pesek brought The Royal Albert hall down:

Pesek Prom Leece EchoPesek Prom Leece Echo 24 Jul 1989, Mon Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, Merseyside, England) Newspapers.com

Strangely, although the national papers promoted this concert widely in advance, none chose to review it by the looks of it. Typical.

Here’s one of the sea interludes performed by the very outfit we saw:

Here’s Stephen Hough with the BBC Symphony from the first night of the Proms 2013 with the Rachmaninov Paganini:

Here’s Libor Pesek and The Royal Liverpool mob playing their four movements of Ma Vlast in Libor Prom order:

Alternatively, if you want to hear that recording in full in Smetana sequence, I have made it available on this playlist – click here. Do not be put off if you see a seemingly erased link – you can hear it whether or not you have a YouTube Music account – you just get adverts of you don’t.

In truth I couldn’t bring to mind Skocná – Dance of the Comedians, but James Levine & the Vienna lot brought it all back to me:

I’m really not at all sure that Entry of the Gladiators belonged with this concert, but that’s what they did. The piece was originally written as a serious piece of military marching music, although how anyone with that moustache composing that piece expected to be taken seriously, even back then, I cannot imagine.

On reflection, I think the use of that piece as a second encore was a mistake. When Libor Pesek suggested that they play a second encore, one of the scouse musicians loudly expressed his discontent with the traditional local expletive, but unfortunately Pesek thought the fellow said:

Oh, Fučík!

It was a great concert nonetheless.

My First Night At the Proms: Me, Jilly & Claudio, 1 September 1983

Claudio Abbado in 1982 (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Judging from the notes in my diary, I was spending most of my working days late August and early September in Kenton, doing stuff for Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises, about which I have written a little elsewhere on Ogblog and no doubt will write more in the fulness of time.

As luck would have it, I was asked to return to the office that Thursday afternoon for the rest of the week. Luck, because Jilly, whom I had arranged to meet that evening, got a sudden compulsion to leg it over to the Royal Albert Hall to see the prom that night, as Claudio Abbado was to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.

It’s Claudio Abbado. he’s the greatest. We’ve got to see him. We might never get another chance…

I was less sure than Jilly about this at the time. She was a budding music student of course, whereas I was still on the low foothills of appreciating classical music.

But I had heard of both pieces to be performed that night – here’s the BBC stub for that “show”:

  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, ‘Emperor’
  • Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique.

Indeed, I even owned a recording of the Fantastique.

I remember queuing for quite a long time. I don’t remember whether we enjoyed this concert from the arena or the gallery. My guess is that it was the gallery as I don’t think we could have got there early enough to get in to the arena, but perhaps in those days “after work arrival” was good enough for the arena.

Of course it was very good indeed. Of course Jilly was right – I can now always say that I saw Claudio Abbado conduct.

Feeling envious that you didn’t hear the concert? Wondering whether you remember what orchestras and soloists (Emmanuel Ax on the piano for the Emperor Concerto) sounded like live under Abbado?

Fret no more. A website named pastdaily.com uploaded the recording of this concert as a tribute when Abbado died in 2014. Embedded below.

Claudio Abbado Conducts The London Symphony – 1983 – Past Daily Mid-Week Concert/Tribute Edition

Thank you Jilly and thank you Past Daily.