Proms 2016: Magnus Lindberg – Two Episodes (World Première)

by 5:4

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Chris L

Hmmm…after two listens, I’m aware of several allusions to the start of the 9th Symphony’s 1st movement, and what sound like a couple to the first subject of the corresponding movement in the 5th; perhaps there are more to be uncovered during further listens…

…but, aw heck! I wasn’t going to ask, but find myself unable to resist a second opportunity: could you summarise in one sentence your chief objection(s) to Beethoven 9 itself? (I’m too ambivalent myself about those other two pet hates of yours, Carmina and Gorecki 3, to mind what you have to say about them.)

Chris L

True, suggestion (auto- or otherwise) may play a part; this is, after all, the same listener who once convinced himself he could hear an allusion to Perotin’s Viderunt Omnes about two minutes into Knussen 3…

Yup, I can see how one might apply those two adjectives to the Beethoven; the difference is (perhaps it’s the Elgar-lover in me? ;-)) that I’d consider said traits to be a good thing! After all, there’s unbalanced and hysterical and then there’s a certain Frenchman’s Op.14, completed just six years later (which, incidentally, I love a fair bit more than I do the Choral)…

thune

Lindberg showing a popular side seems to be causing some upset. But I like this one. It reads as a pan-homage love-letter to the Beethovenian/Romantic music tradition, which as never gone away. ‘Two episodes’ seems perfectly drawn for a festival/pickup/pops orchestra playing for a casual audience on a lovely summer evening.

I feel like this performance/interpretation misses dozens of opportunities in the first half to shape the drama and play above the time changes. The through-line gets lost more than once. The second half runs on rails and works well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SluRb3ACdFE
The promo video for Two Episodes reveals a slight bit more about the 9th ‘quotes’.

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