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Proms
Jul 16, 2015 14:48:01 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2015 14:48:01 GMT -5
Join us!
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Proms
Jul 31, 2015 14:01:02 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 14:01:02 GMT -5
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Proms
Aug 11, 2015 8:31:54 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2015 8:31:54 GMT -5
Prom 19 was spellbinding! As for the rest, take your pick!
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Aug 11, 2015 23:21:59 GMT -5
Post by ahinton on Aug 11, 2015 23:21:59 GMT -5
Prom 19 was spellbinding! As for the rest, take your pick! Improbably, it was indeed so. I say improbably because the very idea of playing Bach's solo violin works in the aircraft hangar that is the Royal Albert Hall before an audience of thousands seemed to me to be more notable for its absurdity than for its enterprise, but the remarkable Alina Ibragimova somehow contrived to bring it off with the kind of aplomb that is entirely beyond all reasonable expectations in commanding performances that clearly riveted every audience member to the extent that I do not ever recall such silence and rapt attention at a Prom concert! An unquestionable superstar of the violin, Ibragimova presents and conducts herself in a manner quite unlike others to whom such an epithet might be attached; wholly unshowy and attention-seeking and determined to shun the kinds of ephemeral publicity that seems to have become the expected norm for today's female violinists in particular, she exudes generosity in her every note and her playing is always entirely at the service of the music and those to whom she is playing. My first experience of her was in an unlikely recording of the two Roslavets concertos and I have since heard her in a number of works including concertos by Szymanowski and Shostakovich and a disc of the complete Szymanowski violin and piano works. She is not yet 30, could be taken for 20 and yet plays with the maturity of someone in her 60s. An outstanding performer indeed!
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Proms
Sept 10, 2015 11:55:21 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2015 11:55:21 GMT -5
Not the only one, ahinton. When it was announced, the 2015 Proms' season did not seem particularly spectacular to kleines c, but it has been one of the best, at least in my opinion. Yo-Yo Ma was as remarkable as Alina Ibragimova, and if you are not at the Royal Albert Hall tonight, you can watch him on BBC Four (television). BBC Four - The Bach Recitals: Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Cello SuitesBetter still, join us live!
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Proms
Sept 10, 2015 18:41:07 GMT -5
Post by Gerard on Sept 10, 2015 18:41:07 GMT -5
Of course the absurdity of his name remains his greatest impediment. We wonder whether he will ever be prevailed upon to change it and relieve us all.
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Proms
Sept 11, 2015 8:18:11 GMT -5
Post by ahinton on Sept 11, 2015 8:18:11 GMT -5
Of course the absurdity of his name remains his greatest impediment. We wonder whether he will ever be prevailed upon to change it and relieve us all. Why so? And why should he be so prevailed upon and by whom? (not that he will be, of course, at this stage in his career)...
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Sept 13, 2015 4:29:22 GMT -5
Post by Gerard on Sept 13, 2015 4:29:22 GMT -5
Your "should" is a dangerous word Mr. H. We could I suppose call him Mr. Ma were we all that interested, but it is very short and he leads his life in a far away degenerate land of which we need know nothing.
"Join us" cries kc at the head of this thread, and I did yesterday, inadvertently, when I happened to switch on the wireless while motoring back with the shopping. They were transmitting the most appalling pseudo-music I have heard for years. There was no connection between any one bar and its neighbours and the whole production was an absurdity of the most trivial sort. Upon my return I looked it up and discovered it to have been a "tenth symphony" by the abominable ill-reputed creature Shotacowitch. It sent the audience into raptures - every last man of them a pseud I concluded. Why he bothered writing ten when each was worse than the one before I decline to wonder. Back to Brahms Chausson and Scryabine!
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Proms
Sept 13, 2015 11:07:30 GMT -5
Post by ahinton on Sept 13, 2015 11:07:30 GMT -5
Your "should" is a dangerous word Mr. H. For what reason and on what grounds? We could I suppose call him Mr. Ma were we all that interested I ask again for the umpteenth time, who is/are "we" here? - the membership of this forum? If so, on what grounds and with what and whose authority to you seek to act as mouthpiece for them all? And, for that matter, if you are not "all that interested", why raise the question in the first place? As to Yo Yo Ma's name, it is his name, so what's wrog with that? Yours happens to be Gerard (or at least your forum ID does) and it sounds identical to that of the great Catalan composer (although he spelt his with an "h" between the first "r" and the "a"; again, what's in a name? Monosyllabic as it is, it is no more "short" in sound that "Smith", Brown" or Jones", so what's wrong with such brevity? and he leads his life in a far away degenerate land of which we need know nothing. What on earth is that supposed to mean - if anything? - and who are you to determine that the once again unidentified "we" need know nothing of the country that Yo Yo Ma long since made his home? - moreover, who are you to describe it as "degenerate" and in what ways and compared to what in any case? "Join us" cries kc at the head of this thread, and I did yesterday, inadvertently, when I happened to switch on the wireless while motoring back with the shopping. They were transmitting the most appalling pseudo-music I have heard for years. There was no connection between any one bar and its neighbours and the whole production was an absurdity of the most trivial sort. Upon my return I looked it up and discovered it to have been a "tenth symphony" by the abominable ill-reputed creature Shotacowitch. It sent the audience into raptures - every last man of them a pseud I concluded. Why he bothered writing ten when each was worse than the one before I decline to wonder. Back to Brahms Chausson and Scryabine! I've never heard of "Shotacowich" and, as one who admits that he has never shot a cow in my life, I am perhaps peculiarly ill-qualifed to comment on this but, if the piece to which you were listening on the radio while driving back with your groceries is that which I imagine it to be - namely the tenth symphony of Dmitry Dmitryevich Shostakovich (apologies for inadequacies of transliterative spelling), then I could not disagree with you more. Brahms, Chausson and Skryabin are each undoubtedly wonderful composers - as is Shostakovich who has arguably gotten through to more hearts and minds in the world than any other composer whose entire life was spent during the 20th century. "Pseud"? Who are you to criticise audiences members' responses in this way? - and, perhaps more importantly, on what specific grounds do you seek to claim of this symphony that "there was no connection between any one bar and its neighbours" or tht "the whole production was an absurdity of the most trivial sort"? I will not say in response that I have never heard anything of greater pleonastic absurdity but, if indeed I have done, my memory of whatever it might have been eludes me; the tenth may not quite be Shostakovich's greatest symphony (that accolade surely belongs to the fourth), but it is nevertheless one of his most important and widely performed and appreciated works. Moreover, I question the source of your information that Shostakovich was a composer of ill repute; he certainly worked from time to time under a climate of fear spread by members of Soviet officialdon who were of unquestionable ill repute, but the fine reputation that Shostakovich himself enjoyed established itself when, before he reached the age of 20, his first symphony began to travel round the world like wildfire and has never abated since - that's now 90 years ago. Lastly, I have no idea what makes you wonder why he bothered to write ten symphonies when in fact he wrote 15 in total; OK, numbers 2 & 3 strike me as uncharacteristic aberrations and, as early youthful experiments, are rather a let-down after the sheer mastery and imagination of the first, number 12 (the only truly weak one of the entire cycle) sounds as though written to order in far too much of a hurry and number 14, written for Benjamin Britten, is less of a symphony per se than a song-cycle, but even those caveats still leave eleven!... OK - so you don't like the music of Shostakovich (as indeed you and your alter ego have each made wearisomely clear on numerous past occasions); there's no law against disparagement of his music, of course, but if your disapproval of it is as comprehensive as you appear to make out (i.e. there would seem to be no exceptions to your deprecation among his 140-odd opus-numbered works), there is a simple solution - don't listen to it, especially on the car radio while driving back with the groceries, since we none of us would want you to run the risk of having an accident! No longer listening to Shostakovich would at least provide you with less excuse for writing about his music in the pleonastic ways that you do.
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