Brian's 'Gothic' at the Proms 2011?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Great. Many thanks, Mark.

[John H White]

As one who was present at the world premier performance at Central Hall Westminster all those years ago, I'd also be grateful for a copy of your recording Mark please.

[eschiss1]

caught some of the pre-concert talk via iPlayer and will be tuning in in 5 minutes. unfortunately now lack recording facilities or would help. (apologies for posting here and not in forum 3.)

[Peter1953]

The Gothic is also broadcast in the Netherlands (Radio 4). I have forced myself to listen to this very long, strange, powerful, difficult, frightening and not seldom noisy cult symphony. What is its magic?
I think it's hardly possible to understand the intent of the composer if you haven't prepared yourself beforehand and read some informative articles. I'm interested in opinions of others who heard Brian's Gothic for the first time (thus without having any background information).

[Alan Howe]

Well, the Gothic was the greatest concert experience of my life. As Mark T said to me, you had to be there...

More, no doubt, anon!

[Mark Thomas]

I said "you had to be there" because I started from the position, obviously unlike most of the people in the sold out concert, of not being a lover of the Gothic. Of course I respected it, admired Brian's achievement and enjoyed parts of it, but knowing it only from the Marco Polo and Testament recordings I found it too long and rambling to get to grips with. Musically it is still, I think, something of a hotch potch; there's Mahler, Strauss, Brahms, Palestrina, even Gounod in the mix, as well as evocations of marching bands and, I thought, fairground rides - a rather Mahlerian mix in fact. But "you had to be there" last night to get the cumulative effect of the work when you have no option but to sit there for two hours as the vast canvas unfolds, to witness the sheer visual and aural scale of the Symphony, to see the literally 1000s of singers, the two brass and percussion bands almost halfway down the auditorium, to hear the offstage brass, the ethereal soprano, also offstage, floating over the hall, the spectacle (yes spectacle is the word) of an orchestra of 400 with four harps, two tubas, even five cymbals all making this truly majestic, almost frighteningly intense sound. But it wasn't spectacle without purpose, the work live had an emotional intensity and sincerity which has never come across for me in either of the recordings and I doubt ever will. You really did "have to be there". Which, luckily, I was.

[Alan Howe]

"All the most ambitious musical works in history are messy." Discuss...

[Mark Thomas]

I was guilty of some enthusiastic exaggeration: the choir number around 800 apparently and the orchestra over 200, so there were more than 1,000 performers. I don't think that it matters...

[Gareth Vaughan]

I listened to the broadcast on Radio 3 and I must say I thought it the best performance of the Gothic I have heard - of course, there haven't been many. Setting aside the Marco Polo CDs, of which enough has been said already about their virtues and shortcomings, I attended the Ole Schmidt performance at the RAH which must have been about 30 years ago and, as Mark says, the spectacle is amazing (that's the one and only time I have seen bass tuba mutes!). That performance was marred by occasional poor intonation from the choir in the unaccompanied sections - cruelly difficult as they are, one has to forgive the performers - BUT...  No such problems with Sunday night's performance. I recorded the Boult performance when that was broadcast (in mono) on Radio 3 on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Good though that is it lacks the amazing clarity of Brabbins. I found I was aware of contrapuntal lines I had never noticed before, and the whole piece seemed to hold together much better than previous showings had indicated was possible.  I doubt, however, that the BBC will release this fine performance on CD because of the cost of residual payments to the artistes, which is a pity.

[Alan Howe]

Without being at all expert in these matters, it was the sheer virtuosity of the performance that struck me. Maybe the mere existence of prior recordings gave Martyn Brabbins a head-start...

[Mark Thomas]

My recording is now available at the Downloads board.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Without being at all expert in these matters, it was the sheer virtuosity of the performance that struck me.

You're dead right there, Alan. Fantastic playing all round - and it's a really difficult score. Brian's writing for a lot of instruments is unidiomatic. Three HUGE cheers to the xylophone player who has that fiendishly difficult part in the scherzo.

[Mark Thomas]

As I wrote earlier, I'm not particularly a Brian aficionado, but the whole event struck me as historic; audience and performers alike seemed to be aware that they were participating in something which was important and which will be remembered. The radio continuity announcer caught it too - just listen to his closing remarks before handing back to the studio. The atmosphere was palpable and only intensified as the performance went on. Magical music making.

[Delicious Manager]

I thought it was splendid (despite the problems the Albert Hall's appalling acoustic created). All the more exasperating, then, that some dolt at the BBC thought that this event, important, hyped and lauded as it was, was still not worthy of televising and video recording. I'd like to know who made that decision.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I agree. It is very surprising indeed that the Beeb did not televise this event. I can't undersrand it.