Tír Na HiFi

RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra 2011-2012 Season

LOVE AND WAR
Friday 25 May, 8pm
at the National Concert Hall

TCHAIKOVSKY Swan Lake (excerpts) [20']
DEIRDRE GRIBBIN The Binding of the Years [c. 25'] (RTÉ commission: world première)
JANÁCEK Sinfonietta [25']
TCHAIKOVSKY 1812 Overture, Op. 49 [16']

Finghin Collins piano
Alan Buribayev conductor

Just back from this concert which with one exception was excellent! Nice to see thirteen extra brass in the Choir Balcony for the Janácek, with plenty more brass on the fully loaded stage. And as if that weren't sonic spectacular enough, we then had the 1812 Overture, which was more than adequately blood-stirring! I really must get one of those really vulgar records with real cannon: suggestions, anyone?

A very enjoyable conclusion to the symphony orchestra season.

Ciaran wrote:the 1812 Overture, which was more than adequately blood-stirring! I really must get one of those really vulgar records with real cannon: suggestions, anyone?

This one has the right picture at least, and Amazon reviews suggest it might be what I'm after!

I'd love to know how they do that live....

I have a Wile E Coyote, as conductor picture in my head!!

Ciaran wrote:This one has the right picture at least, and Amazon reviews suggest it might be what I'm after!

I believe it is what you're after... I used to own it... until I shoved it on ebay, but the real deal is this:



can you get any more lurid, tasteless and erm... cheap??

Thanks Jared, I had considered that one! Why did you sell the Järvi?

Jared wrote:

I would definitely second that one Ciaran; it would definitely suit your setup where you can tern the volume up a bit!!

jaybee wrote:I'd love to know how they do that live....

From Wikipedia:

Instrumentation

The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra that consists of the following:
Brass Band(Note 1) (finale only)
Woodwinds: a piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, an English horn, 2 clarinets in B-Flat and 2 bassoons
Brass: 4 horns in F, 2 cornets in B♭, 2 trumpets in E-Flat, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass) and a tuba
Percussion: timpani, a bass drum, a snare drum, cymbals, a tambourine, a triangle, a carillon (Note 2) and a cannon (Note 3)
Strings: first and second violins, violas, violoncellos and double basses

Notes:
1. "Open" instrumentation consisting of "any extra brass instruments" available. In some indoor performances, the part may be played on an organ. Military bands or Marching bands also play this part. [In the concert hall last night, the extra brass in the Choir Balcony left after the Janácek: it seems a pity not to have employed them for the finale of the 1812 as well, though it was pretty overwhelming anyway!]
2. Sometimes substituted with tubular bells or recordings of carillons.
3. In the sections in which cannon shots are played, the actual cannons are sometimes replaced by recorded cannons or played on a piece of staging, usually with a large wooden mallet or sledge hammer. The bass drum and tam-tam are also regularly used in indoor performances.

Performance practice

Logistics

The logistics of safety and precision in placement of the shots require either well-drilled military crews using modern cannons, or the use of sixteen pieces of muzzle-loading artillery, since any reloading schemes to attain the sixteen shots or even a semblance of them in the two minute time span involved makes safety and precision impossible with 1800s artillery. Time lag alone precludes implementation of cues for the shots for 1812-era field pieces.

Did Tchaikovsky ever hear the piece as written?

Musicologists questioned across the last third of a century have given no indication that the composer ever heard the Overture performed in authentic accordance with the 1880 plan. It is reported that he asked permission to perform the piece as planned in Berlin, but was denied it. Performances he conducted on U.S. and European tours were apparently done with simulated or at best inexact shots, if with shots at all, a custom universal until recent years.
Antal Doráti and Erich Kunzel are the first conductors to have encouraged exact fidelity of the shots to the written score in live performances, beginning in New York and Connecticut as part of Dorati's recording, and Kunzel in Cincinnati in 1967 with assistance from J. Paul Barnett, of South Bend, Indiana. Of recorded versions of these performances, Dorati's recording for Mercury Records is the more faithful performance. Dorati uses an actual carillon called for in the score and the bells are rung about as close to a zvon then known. The art of zvon ringing was almost lost due to the Russian Revolution, when many of the bells were destroyed. The Dorati recording also uses actual period French cannon from the 1812 period, which belonged to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

[In the NCH last night the bass drum substituted for the cannon and tubular bells for the carillon. Maybe I should reconsider the Dorati, it's not vulgar, it's a period reconstruction, more faithful than anything the composer himself ever managed!]

jaybee wrote:I have a Wile E Coyote, as conductor picture in my head!!

If Wile E Coyote were the conductor, Roadrunner would be on the cannon and hit him every time!

Wasn't tidied a famous Telarc recording that used to cause cartridges to jump and required the judicious balancing of a coin to keep the stylus in the groove.

I'd forgotten that. The famous "digital cannons":



(by which they meant digitally recorded very loud real cannons!)

"WARNING! Lower levels are recommended for initial playback until a safe level can be determined for your equipment"

One of the first digital recordings, which made Telarc's reputation. I heard an interview with the Telarc engineers (who were also the owners) on Radio 3 once. It was put to them that their LPs were even betted than their CDs and they thought that was hilarious, because they were recording digitally and the CD was effectively the master tape for the LP, so there absolutely couldn't have been anything on the LP that wasn't on the CD, and with less processing on the way!

It's now available on SACD with newly recorded bells and cannon, in surround and with the LFE channel used for height!