Prom 31

src/content/post/2024-08-11-prom31/index.md

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+---
+title: "Prom 31: Mutter, Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra"
+description: ""
+publishDate: "2024-08-11"
+tags: ["bbc-proms"]
+---
+
+## Programme
+
+**19:30, 11 August 2024, Royal Albert Hall**
+
+Anne-Sophie Mutter violin<br />
+Daniel Barenboim conductor<br />
+West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
+
+- Brahms: Violin Concerto
+- Schubert: Symphony No. 9
+
+https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/egfcd4
+
+## My thoughts
+
+This was the first Prom in a while!
+I've been travelling to various places over the last two weeks for work, and although I had intended to go for Yunchan Lim's performance a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't in London at the time.
+
+First, a point about practicalities.
+I went in the morning to get a queue number, because I wanted to get a good spot in the Arena.
+But it turns out that you can also just buy tickets in-person, which seems to be a lot easier than doing it online where you get a random number and have to wait for your turn in a holding room (as long as the trip to the RAH isn't too hard, of course).
+The box office staff did tell me that it could make sense to get tickets in person for the Proms which were likely to be busy.
+
+Although I've not done it myself, the online queue system can be gamed quite a bit if you have multiple devices, because you can just get multiple numbers and pick whichever one is the lowest.
+I definitely heard people in the queue chatting about the exact same technique, so...
+
+Anyway.
+The Brahms concerto was lovely—it's a very beautiful piece, and played by a legendary violinist; I enjoyed it a lot.
+The orchestra accompaniment was a little messy at times in my opinion, but the second movement had some really beautiful oboe and flute solos.
+
+As a violinist myself (who has never attempted the Brahms concerto), I really liked the sound that Mutter generated for these semiquaver passages (mm. 170–173)—she used a lot of bow which is impressive for such fast notes with a lot of string crossings:
+
+![Brahms excerpt 1](./brahms1.png)
+
+Minor bits that I didn't entirely enjoy were the choice of some tempi—the orchestral introduction definitely started out rather slow.
+In my opinion, the risk of this is that it can start to sound heavy and lumbering: this is a Brahms thing (his first piano concerto has the same thing).
+And in the third movement, Mutter played the quaver–dotted crotchet rhythm much closer to two crotchets—so lingering on the bottom note (she did the same the first time this figure appears).
+I don't dislike it, but it is a little idiosyncratic and I think the top note got lost (because the orchestra comes in on that second beat of the bar).
+
+![Brahms excerpt 2](./brahms2.png)
+
+Her encore was the Sarabande from Bach's D minor partita.
+(... While I was typing up this blog, Copilot actually autocompleted the piece for me—I know it's a popular choice, but is it _that_ clichéd an encore?!)
+Anyway, it was beautifully played—her tone was very pure, I couldn't hear any scratchiness at all, and that was very impressive in such a huge hall (and the audience was so silent you could hear a pin drop).
+
+One interpretative choice I found interesting was the choice to play the bottom notes _very_ shortly.
+They are marked as quavers and so should (according to the score) be technically held for as long as the notes above them, but Mutter let go of the bottom string much earlier to the point where they sounded staccato.
+
+![Bach excerpt](./bach.png)
+
+I don't necessarily think it was good or bad, it just stood out to me!
+I went to listen to a few recordings and the closest I can find to it is Viktoria Mullova, but even she doesn't play them _that_ short.
+
+Okay, so that's all the violin playing.
+As for Schubert...?
+To be completely honest, I find this symphony boring.
+It goes on for a bit too long and musically I don't find it anywhere near as interesting as Brahms, so I found it a bit anticlimactic.
+(Maybe I just need to give it more of a chance?)
+Still, it's live music, so I can't really complain. :)
+
+What I did think was interesting was Barenboim.
+Last year he retired from his main conducting posts for health reasons, and some of that frailty was on display here: he sat down for the entire concert, and his movement on and off stage was very slow, often supported by Mutter in the first half.
+In fact, even for the Brahms he did not come back on stage after the piece ended; instead Mutter took the responsibility of picking out the oboist and flautist for applause, and then the orchestra.
+
+But as the concert passed, I almost feel as though he _gained_ some energy: he managed to make several trips on and off stage at the end of the concert, and although he still looked old, he didn't feel quite as frail as at the start.
+I don't want to make some trite comment about the 'power of music-making', but as a performer (many years ago) I think it's not unfair to say that there is a kind of joy and excitement in successfully pulling off a concert.
+
+As a final comment, Barenboim's son, Michael, was the concertmaster of the orchestra.
+And (although I'm _not_ the best judge of faces) I have to say he really looks like Barenboim when he was younger.