I was up in the gallery for this performance, so I had a good view of the people who left during it: I don’t think the piece was actually that warmly received at all. One woman in the circle decided to walk out five minutes before the end: as my friend commented to me, how odd for someone to take thirty minutes to decide they couldn’t abide any more of a thirty-five minute piece.
I found the Lachenmann interesting, but don’t doubt that it suffered from the RAH’s acoustics. Strange that the Southbank Centre haven’t organised a performance of it before now.
Leo
11 years ago
P.S. The ‘extended applause’ was because Lachenmann himself took rather a while to thank lots of people on the stage and no doubt many people in the audience felt it would have been impolite to stop applauding while the composer was on the stage. As soon as he went off, everyone stopped.
Thanks Leo, very interesting to get your take from inside the hall. i’m sure you’re right about the acoustic – no doubt another example of a work that sounds better on radio, where the balance and subtleties can be heard especially well. Very strange that someone should walk out five minutes before the end, but then i’ve never really understood the practice of walking out anyway…
[…] on the heels of the large-scale work of Helmut Lachenmann’s a few days ago, tonight’s Proms première was even more ambitious, Thomas Adès‘ […]
kea
11 years ago
according to the score, the deutschlandlied is heard at bar 610 (the very beginning of the 5th section, about 25:30 into the arditti recording) but is probably clearest to make out starting about 0:50 into the galop where it floats above the texture (in very slow note values) in the extreme high register of the piano. the words are written underneath the piano and percussion parts in this section, which actually continues until the very end although the melody subsequently becomes undistinguishable due to being passed to the cymbals.
the way the deutschlandlied takes over the texture seems intended to be a parody of triumphant nationalistic endings (in the same way that a “dance suite” with all the notes taken out can be seen as parodying of a lot of prewar german music, eisler and weill and hindemith and etc), but the methodical fragmentation & deconstruction of everything suggests that something is being criticised—what, exactly, it’s very hard to tell, perhaps a particular cultural or artistic attitude of its time.
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I was up in the gallery for this performance, so I had a good view of the people who left during it: I don’t think the piece was actually that warmly received at all. One woman in the circle decided to walk out five minutes before the end: as my friend commented to me, how odd for someone to take thirty minutes to decide they couldn’t abide any more of a thirty-five minute piece.
I found the Lachenmann interesting, but don’t doubt that it suffered from the RAH’s acoustics. Strange that the Southbank Centre haven’t organised a performance of it before now.
P.S. The ‘extended applause’ was because Lachenmann himself took rather a while to thank lots of people on the stage and no doubt many people in the audience felt it would have been impolite to stop applauding while the composer was on the stage. As soon as he went off, everyone stopped.
Thanks Leo, very interesting to get your take from inside the hall. i’m sure you’re right about the acoustic – no doubt another example of a work that sounds better on radio, where the balance and subtleties can be heard especially well. Very strange that someone should walk out five minutes before the end, but then i’ve never really understood the practice of walking out anyway…
[…] on the heels of the large-scale work of Helmut Lachenmann’s a few days ago, tonight’s Proms première was even more ambitious, Thomas Adès‘ […]
according to the score, the deutschlandlied is heard at bar 610 (the very beginning of the 5th section, about 25:30 into the arditti recording) but is probably clearest to make out starting about 0:50 into the galop where it floats above the texture (in very slow note values) in the extreme high register of the piano. the words are written underneath the piano and percussion parts in this section, which actually continues until the very end although the melody subsequently becomes undistinguishable due to being passed to the cymbals.
the way the deutschlandlied takes over the texture seems intended to be a parody of triumphant nationalistic endings (in the same way that a “dance suite” with all the notes taken out can be seen as parodying of a lot of prewar german music, eisler and weill and hindemith and etc), but the methodical fragmentation & deconstruction of everything suggests that something is being criticised—what, exactly, it’s very hard to tell, perhaps a particular cultural or artistic attitude of its time.
So glad that Lachenmann got 67% of the popular vote! If only more voters were on the timbre side of the isle.