Peter Viney's Blog

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

Smetana, Korngold, Dvořák

Poole Lighthouse
Wednesday 18 January 2023
19.30

Jac van Steen Conductor
Kristóf Baráti Violin 

PROGRAMME
Smetana The Bartered Bride: Overture and Dances, 
Korngold Violin Concerto, 
Dvořák Symphony No.9 ‘From the New World’

After the last BSO, we said, ‘What are we missing every week?’ and booked two more. For classical ignoramuses like us, The New World appeals. I even remember hearing it at school and our music teacher waxing lyrical about it. Then any film music fan is into Korngold. Do not expect erudition!

The theme is Coming to America which fits The New World, and Korngold made his name writing film scores in Hollywood after1934, starting with an old favourite, the Max Reinhardt A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that’s the one with James Cagney as Bottom, Mickey Rooney as Puck and Olivia de Haviland as Hermia to Dick Powell’s Lysander.

The link is that they’re all three Czech composers. I can’t see any American connection to Smetana, nor to The Bartered Bride, but OK, two out of three isn’t bad.

We chose our seats badly- Row D and wondered why Row C was empty, and A and B had only a few people. That far forward on the flat, you can really only see the strings.The rest looked full.

Last time, the stage was festooned with microphones for Live Streaming though not tonight. I was surprised not to see a simple two mic stereo set up suspended. Surely you’d record everything for reference? Maybe it was hidden. Also after a chatty Triumphal Elgar, Dutch conductor Jac van Steen never said a word, nor did the soloist Kristóf Baráti. Mind you, both looked the part.

I always listen while writing reviews of concerts. This one is frustrating. I don’t have recordings of the Smetana or the Korngold, though The New World is on CD and LP.

No problem, I thought. When I first bought a CD player, discs were limited in availability. I used to buy Classic CD – the magazine with music which had cover CDs and I attempted to educate myself by reading and listning. All I need to do is look through the cupboard where they’re stored. A mere eighty CDs or so. Eighty very dusty CDs. Ah, I found an extract of the Korngold. Issue CD69. I hurried to the CD player. The case was empty. Somewhere one of the faulty CD players we took to the dump must have had it in there. The magazine compilers didn’t seem fond of Smetana either. I sped read the covers but didn’t find it.

Smetana The Bartered Bride: Overture and Dances

As we said in the interval, what an uplifting, cheeering and vivacious piece of music for a cold January evening. Definitely one to lift the spirits of anyone. The original opera was 1866. Thank you, Wiki … in saying that I’m reminded of a classmate’s astonishment that I came in the top few in Music in our class. As he pointed out he had all his piano grades and played violin too, but came lower than me. I explained that was because our music exams were aimed at kids who were good at history … composer dates, dates of compositions, locations … and I could do that. So, yes, it was 1866, by Smetana (1824 – 1884).

Korngold Violin Concerto

It wasn’t familiar though the sweeping romantic themes do remind of lush film music, not surprisingly. Korngold wrote it in 1945,. determined to go back to composing for orchestras rather than film. He did however lift bits from three or four of his films for snatches of melody. Korngold is considered the most important in bringing classical orchestration to films. The Prince and The Pauper is one of the themes, and it’s on Previn Conducts Korngold, which I do have. The feel is instantly familiar, and it plays as I type. The BSO should consider his Sea Hawk Main Theme for one of the concerts in the park along with the John Williams.

The solo violinist Kristóf Baráti is Hungarian and plays a 1703 Stradivarius (I do like dates) the ‘Lady Harmsworth’ and this is a piece he has recorded in the past. We got a solo violin encore too. It sounded fabulous, though I have read before that in blind tests, experts often fail to detect which violin is a Stradivarius. It’s on loan to him, and is probably worth millions. It is a sign of his stature that it was loaned. I like it. Instruments should be played and heard, not put in glass cases.

Dvořák The New World

This piece contains the theme to the Hovis advert, voted the most popular advert ever on British TV ever, and filmed by Ridley Scott, no less. It was sent up by Ronnie Barker, struggling up the steep Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, Dorset where it was originally filmed, extremely slowly, and ends ‘Grandad always said it was a bloody long way to get a loaf of bread.’ It’s the Second Movement, Largo.

A favourite instrumental of mine is Garth’s Largo by Garth Hudson LINKED (He plays all the instruments). It comes from the 1998 Americana classic album, Largo. It was assembled by Rick Chertoff and Roby Hyman, and written by Eric Bazilian and David Forman and they said ‘loosely inspired by The New World Symphony’. It should have been a massive success but was hampered by having no name except LARGO which served as title and band name. Artists included Cyndi Lauper, Taj Mahal, Levon Helm, Joan Osborne, and The Chieftains, who reprised the Largo theme.

Here’s something that happens at classical concerts. I had listened to The New World a couple of times in the few days before. Familiarity enhances enjoyment. The first was Kirill Kondrashin with the Vienna Philharmonic (1980, Decca) and the second by James Loughran with the London Philharmonic (1989). Loughran’s Largo is a full two minutes longer than Kondrashin’s. Both are fully digital recordings. I much prefer the Loughran. The day afterwards, I listened to the 1961 LP by Giulini. I know that earlier EMI stereo LPs are prized by classical collectors, so checked it. Nothing struck me as special, but the somewhat non-PC sleeve notes are weird in trying to trace the connection to African-American and Native-American music (those are not the words the notes use). They quote the composer as saying it is “Genuine Bohemian Music” then the sleeve note suggests that the music was influenced by Hiawatha, which Dvořák had tried to put music to, and Swing Low Sweet Chariot (which the sleeve note writer hears in Largo). It claims the Hiawatha effort was re-used. I have no idea.

Even on a good system, played loud, they don’t begin to compete with being in a hall with a live orchestra. With rock music, live performances may be more vigorous, louder with longer solos, and charisma, but when you listen back they just miss the recorded version. Yet, classical, at least to me, always sounds far better live. It was outstandingly so with The New World. Maybe Jac van Steen just conducted better, maybe the BSO is better. I don’t know. I’m an ignoramus as I said at the start.