The BBC Proms seem to be getting more and more disappointing each year. Granted, I tend to focus on piano, and in particular ones which will be broadcast on TV… But they used to have way more greats. I used to get excited about the Proms.
Interesting -
Bronfman - Liszt 2 (I quite rate Bronfman, he can have an incredible sound at times)
Paul Lewis - Beethoven Emperor
Denis Kozhukhin - Shosty 2
Yuji - Prokofiev 3 - Been done over and over so many times before though.
Schiff - Bach WTC Book II - I have started to rate Schiff more over the past few years. A whole book of Back WTC is too much for me though. Nice to dip in and out of.
Not interested in -
Freddy Kempff - Perhaps Carnival of Animals hes playing? I dont like him much. Heard him do a terrible Pictures at an Exhibition in Birmingham. Basically twatted the piano for half an hour.
Angela Hewitt - Turangelila. Couldn’t think of a more unsuitable pianist for this piece other than perhaps Joanna MacGreggor. Heard Hewitt play the Liszt sonata live once and it was quite feeble. Don’t like her Bach either…
Benjamin Grosvenor in Rhapsody in Blue & Mozart K467 - I have little interest in hearing him play Rhapsody in Blue, and (I may get lynched for this), I dont really find Mozart that interesting… :S
Buniatishvali - Grieg Concerto… nothing more to say… (I always refer to her as punani (Punaniatishvali)) I really dont like anything I’ve ever heard from her at all.
We are only a tiny city in the UK, but the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic used to visit us about 10/11 times each season and bring some amazing artists with it (A highlight for me was Ashkenazy conducting Beethoven 9 - I will never forget that!).
However, they just did their last concert due to dwindling audiences. They have got less and less in recent years, but the ticket prices have gone up and up. It seems to be a catch 22. Have a low ticket price and don’t make enough money to be viable,or increase the price but put people off. I do believe the only increased the ticket prices out of necessity.
The lowest point of last year for me personally last year was when I bought a ticket to see Trpceski perform Prokofev 3rd Concerto, only to receive an email a few weeks before to be told that the concert was cancelled due to being double booked with Bongos Bingo! WTF…
I attended a Buniatishvili recital just as she emerged which I really enjoyed. She had a lot of personality and played with a good deal of excitement and daring - a fresh breath of air from the professionalised products you so often get otherwise nowadays from all but the top artists. That said, as I began to explore her I soon discovered that what I had heard that afternoon was just about all there was to her - both repertoirewise and interpretatively! - so I lost interest pretty quickly.
Schiff is the great colorist of our time and he’s done some remarkable things over the years which couldn’t have come from anyone else, but I’ve had a hard time warming up to his Bach. In general I find it too “prettified” and rose colored for my taste. The exception is the Goldberg Vars where I think the approach is spot on, and I did hear him do DWK Book I a few years ago which was very good.
Sort of agree with the others though. Yuja and Grosvenor are super talents, but in those works I’d also feel it a bit of a lost opportunity.
What are people’s take on Kozhukin incidentally? I’ve heard a lot of positive things about him, but I attended a Prok-2 with him last year and failed to see what the fuss was about. The concerto was serviceable, the encore rather stiff.
Yeah Kempf DID at least. I remember a recital with the Liszt TEs he did in the late 90s where he really went all in from the first note - I greatly appreciate that, but at the same time the net result of his playing always felt strangely thin and empty to my ears.
I don’t think I’d attend any of those Proms except for Schiff and even then only if I could get a good seat. Who’s playing for the last night?
I was just watching videos from it on YT last night and it’s funny to see how Elgar’s pomp and circumstance march and rule brittania manage to whip everyone into a patriotic frenzy. Even people from the Colonies are commenting about never wanting to be a republic (ugh).
If you were there you’d go. It’s 5quid after all.
I tend to listen to more orchestral stuff than anything else so there’s a few the sparked my interest…alas…
I’ve been mixed on Hewitt when I’ve heard her. Her Mozart concerti at Wigmore was almost amateurish, did not sound prepared at all. She did a Bach/beethoven recital here and I absolutely loved her encore Bach French Suite.
Her Messiaen preludes disc I recall as being quite good.
I was really impressed with Lortie’s Annees. Would like to hear him do the Pimp Wanderer, I don’t want to admit it but I almost like it better than the original.
Ic.
Maybe I’ll finally visit the UK this summer.
A girl I knew in music school is coming to Europe in July, so I might join up with her there.
I was supposed to see Hewitt in the Goldbergs a number of years ago but I had an audition to practise for so I ended up skipping it.
