The composer conducts - badly?

In the summer of 1919 John Barbirolli was a member of the orchestra for Diaghilev's second post-war season of the Russian ballet ... His particular memory of this season, apart from the pleasure of playing in Stravinsky's Firebird and Petrushka, was of Diaghilev's insistence that Manuel de Falla should conduct his own ballet, Tricorne. Despite the composer's protestations that he was not competent to do it, Diaghilev almost dragged him to the pit at rehearsal. After a few bars they reached some cross-rhythms. Falla stopped beating so the orchestra stopped. 'No, no,' he cried, 'you go on.' He was totally unable to conduct the rhythms he had devised - from Barbirolli the authorised biography by Michael Kennedy.

No, my header photo is not Manuel de Falla; it's Michael Tippett conducting in St Louis in 1968. On March 2 I am playing a recording of Tippett conducting his Second Symphony on my Future Radio programme. Composers have rather a chequered history of conducting their own music, and Elgar, Stravinsky and Copland all received varying reviews for performances of their own works. In his autobiography Those Twentieth Century Blues Tippett confesses "But I don't have the real conductor's technical proficiency ... the main hazard I find is that I begin to listen to the playing as a composer and not as a conductor - which means I can lose my objective control of the performance: and I have to train myself not to go that way".

Tippett's Second Symphony is a notoriously difficult work to perform and the first performance in 1958 under Sir Adrian Boult actually broke down when the BBC Symphony Orchestra's string section lost its way in the complex first movement. But despite the difficulties and his own reservations about his conducting technique Tippett's own version, which was made with a somewhat more secure BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1993, has the Beethovenian energy that is manifestly lacking in Richard Hickox's later, and acclaimed, interpretation on Chandos. But, although Tippett's own recording is very fine, it wouldn't be my first choice; that accolade would go to Colin Davis' electrifying 1968 performance which still sounds fantastic on my Philips LP pressing. The timings of the two versions says it all, Tippett 36' 54", Davis 33' 29"

But judge for yourself how the composer conducts at 5.00pm Sunday March 2 UK time on Future Radio, with a transatlantic friendly repeat at 12.50am Monday March 3. The coupling with Tippett's Second Symphony is Arcangelo Corelli Concerto No 8 in G Minor 'Christmas Concerto'. Check the right-hand side-bar for the audio feed.

YouTube offers Tippett conducting The Midsummer Marriage, Stravinsky conducting The Firebird and best of all Elgar conducting the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Listen on Future Radio at 5.00pm every Sunday and 12.50am every Monday UK time in real time here (convert to local time zones here). Windows Media Player doesn't like the audio stream very much and takes ages to buffer. WinAmp or iTunes handle it best. Unfortunately the royalty license doesn't permit on-demand replay, so you have to listen in real time. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Dance is not an inferior art form

For too many people – especially musicians – dance is considered an inferior art form, less valuable than spoken theatre and less important than opera. However, to my mind it was one of the key areas of artistic innovation and audience growth in the twentieth century, and without Diaghilev (right) much of the innovation would not have happened.

The late and lamented John Drummond gives musicians food for thought as they search for new audiences in the 21st century. Taken from his autobiography Tainted by Experience (Faber, ISBN 0571200540). And I can only echo Drummond's thoughts on dance. My love of those 20th century masterpieces, Prokofiev's five piano concertos, was sparked by seeing a modern dance performance to the extraordinary First Concerto back in the 1970s at Sadler Wells. I cannot exactly remember the company, but am pretty sure it was Ballet Rambert. Which does prompt me to ask why we don't hear Prokofiev's wonderful piano concertos and violin concertos more often? Are they simply a victim of the current love affair with everything Shostakovich?

For the five Prokofiev piano concertos look no further than the bargain double CD with Vladimir Ashkenazy playing and André Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The recordings date from 1974 and 1975, and Previn was released from his exclusive EMI contract specially for the sessions as Ashkenazy wouldn't record them with anyone else. Decca house producer Ray Minshull was in charge, and the venue was the late and lamented Kingsway Hall. The First Concerto plays as I write and, sorry to be a bore, but they don't make CDs like that anymore. The Kingsway Hall had acoustics to die for, and was venue for many classic recordings including Britten's own interpretation of his War Requiem. The hall was last used for recording in 1984, and was demolished in 1998, to be replaced by a faceless international hotel.

Now read about an inspirational 21st century dance company.
Image credit - Portrait of Sergei Diaghilev by Valentin Serov (1904). Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk