Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : Anoushka Shankar with Gold Panda, Manu Delago, Jules Buckley and Britten Sinfonia

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : Anoushka Shankar, Gold Panda and others

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 September

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : Anoushka Shankar with Gold Panda,
Manu Delago, Jules Buckley and Britten Sinfonia

Looking forward to it 👏👏👏

— Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) September 4, 2020

Anoushka Shankar’s sitar awaits @ShankarAnoushka We’re live @bbcproms @BBCRadio3 @BBCSounds at 7.30. pic.twitter.com/0myQYfh5pi

— Ian Skelly (@Ianskellyradio3) September 4, 2020

As ready as #UCFF will ever be, here is :https://t.co/5See5ncfL9https://t.co/WwavWFRWZ3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

Also very useful to have a guide to the instruments, because typical familiarity is as the audience applauding 'the tuning' in The Concert for Bangladesh (George Harrison's collaboration with Ravi Shankar**).

** Anoushka Shankar's father (who is also the father of @NorahJones).

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

A lively opening introduced us, with full vividity, to the sounds and the sound-production in we are hearing (including percussion from Manu Delago and Gold Panda's live electronics)

->

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

And there's the element of seeing and hearing the finger-picking that's alongside Gold Panda's threaded interweaving of gentle or insistent riffs, looping unrealities, and almost pitchless sonic whirls : just now, setting down a ground bass for voice, with sitar as response.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

But now, after that Concerto of themes [full title to be noted later], ‘Wandering Around’ by and from @manudelagomusic, with @BrittenSinfonia's first participation in, at least, the aural texture - they were assuredly in the space, and active witnesses to the other performers.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

Jules Buckley* told us how he notated a largely oral / aural tradition in which @BrittenSinfonia are now playing with @ShankarAnoushka so that they could follow a score :

* Also excellently to be heard, at present, in stand-in mode (for Clemmie) on @BBCRadio3's Classical Fix.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

At first, it takes that approach, at any rate, but we have reached another moment of calm, of sustained sound, just as - by long bowing and the effect of multiple players - a string-orchestra can lengthen a note into one continuity - as might ercussive riffs and / or electronics.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

No matter, because it is in that variation in pace, tempo and timbre that all music lives and dies, and it must assuredly be Sinfonia leader @ThomasGouldVLN's instinct for playing off and with Shankar that helps inform one's ear, opening out to what's at The 2020 Proms right now.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

Except that, with apologies to her, it was Jacqui Shave who was leading @BrittenSinfonia to-night ! ;) https://t.co/prWjLFiDRP

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

No one thing, but all the same ensemble, the same participation in a whole that is and grows because of its parts :

An orchestra, a city, a string quartet, a choir, a football-tea, its crowd - that togetherness in separation - has been here with @ShankarAnoushka in Land of Gold,

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 4, 2020

Thank you for all your lovely comments about tonight’s @bbcproms concert. If you missed it, you can catch it on @BBCiPlayer or @BBCSounds now. @bbcproms @ShankarAnoushka @julesbuckley @manudelagomusic pic.twitter.com/RKmaWpVUn4

— Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) September 4, 2020

Such a beautiful way back to live music-making for ⁦@BrittenSinfonia⁩ ⁦@bbcproms⁩ tonight. Serene and sparkling collaborations with ⁦@ShankarAnoushka⁩ ⁦@julesbuckley⁩ and ⁦@manudelagomusic⁩ The hang, sitar and strings is a magical combination... pic.twitter.com/2rfxMxctGW

— Meurig Bowen (@MeurigB) September 4, 2020

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : London Sinfonietta in 'A programme of pulses'

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : London Sinfonietta in 'A programme of pulses'

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 September

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms : London Sinfonietta in 'A programme of pulses'

We're still buzzing from last night's performance! Thank you to everyone that tuned in!

If you missed it you can still watch it on @BBCiPlayer 👉https://t.co/S4RseaVyb7

Set your alarms for a special archive broadcast of our 2000 Prom with Jessye Norman at 7pm on Sunday! ⏰

— London Sinfonietta (@Ldn_Sinfonietta) September 2, 2020

Prom programme-notes* are here ! :https://t.co/hijs3dErC3

I'd rather have heard a segue from the texturally engaging featured reed-sounds of the Philip Glass to Julia Wolfe's high-energy toccata crescendo, but @Ldn_Sinfonietta players need peer-applause !

* Track-listing...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 1, 2020

Harder, perhaps, than the preceding works, because both neon (by @tansydavies) and Edmund Finnis' in situ (to follow) are relatively looser than those more explicit pulsations, they are harder to assimilate at first blush, and so will blossom more clearly with further hearings...

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 1, 2020

With this CD (somewhere !) chez Apsley, it will be interesting to compare the live version with that known from the recording ! pic.twitter.com/Jzd6YBdU5G

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 1, 2020

Not bravura per se, but an able and welcome demonstration of how it need not be electric guitar*** whose sound-production is bent and moulded in the actual playing.

*** Which we also associate with Reich, because, for example, of Electric Counterpoint or Electric Guitar Phase.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 1, 2020

A resonance of two occupied places in one that once were, and then those fell who could not get away when both fell, and those who saw and mourned and witnessed those who had fallen (some here, in the work, via tape) - resonating with this place, emptied by death, filled by music

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 1, 2020

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The LSO under Simon Rattle

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

30 August

Live-Tweeting from The 2020 Proms - The London Symphony Orchestra
under Sir Simon Rattle on 30 August 2020

After Venetian brass*, which might well have resounded in San Marco as it did to-day, such a glorious moment when the string-sound of the Elgar broke through :

All credit to @londonsymphony players and @BBCRadio3 crew for such clarity !

* #UCFF guesses - the Tweets don't say.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 30, 2020

Gorgeously inventive programming to suit times of trial and trouble, with Beethoven's Op. 27 and György Kurtág's Op. 27 response :

The setting of #mitsukouchida's performance, in time and space, and the lay-out of the players around her, vividly described by @Ianskellyradio3 !

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 30, 2020

I will be rattling my keys in the Kurtág tonight ⁦⁦@bbcproms⁩ ⁦@londonsymphony⁩ pic.twitter.com/DVFxHhlYaV

— Thomas Adès (@Thomas_ades) August 30, 2020

Known via Sir Adrian Boult's recordings (and before energetic recentish champions such as @ClareCollege alumnus @andrewmanze), even he didn't achieve the third-movement pianississimo in this symphony for which Ralph Vaughan Williams is heard thanking Boult at the end of No. 6 (?)

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 30, 2020

The Passacaglia's structure brings us out of the preceding movements' blessed, healing enchantments, seeming to rise in joyous, untriumphal harmony, but to a held-off close*.

* RVW feigns several, and then, via sinuous knotting and unknotting, brings it all back to serene rest.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 30, 2020

Such a treat to hear Vaughan Williams’ beautiful Symphony No 5 performed LIVE @bbcproms and on @BBCRadio3 by the wonderful @londonsymphony. First proper orchestra I saw live as a kid and I’ve never forgotten it. Things are looking up!

— Emma Bloxham (@emmablox1) August 30, 2020

Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No 5 is a shaft of sunshine in a gloom-filled year. Thank you @bbcproms @SirSimonRattle @londonsymphony

— George Poles (@GeorgePoles) August 30, 2020

Loved "Dawn" - thank you so much @londonsymphony @bbcproms @RoyalAlbertHall @SirSimonRattle @Thomas_ades - in fact, loved the whole concert !

— Paul Davies (@pd1946) August 31, 2020

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 (in E Minor) - given The Proms 'treatment'

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

26 July

This was played last night, in the Prom's first half, for the first time there.

I have no idea why. (Or why applause was needed after every movement*.)

I am now less resentful of what Mahler did to orchestrate Schubert's String Quartet No. 14, Death and The Maiden, because it still sounded like Schubert:

This orchestration, the work of George Szell, had little identifiable connection with the original, and used brass, amongst its textures. Perhaps the composer's intentions in writing a quartet, which we were repeatedly told contained a motif at the end that represented his blindness (or was it, after all, deafness?), were as dispensable as good employee relations in Ohio.

If you had asked me what I was listening to (without the benefit of whoever's wisdom it was beforehand, or to schedule), I would have had no idea, although I like this string quartet. All grist to the orchestral mill, I s'pose.

End-notes
* Unless it was shocked, grieving applause in embarrassment by those who knew the original.

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