BBC Proms loses a star cellist
mainTruls Mork is out of tonight’s Liverpool Phil Prom.
He’s replaced by Alexei Stadler in the first Shostakovich concerto.
Not much time to rehearse.
UPDATE: From Sandra Roberts of the RLPO: I got the call at 9.35 and thanks to BA being ahead of schedule he landed at Heathrow at 1529 and was playing on stage by 1640. Genius and such a lovely guy – Alexey Stadler – remember that name!
I was there. Stadler did a very good DSCH Concerto and the audience gave him a big enough ovation to coax an encore from him (some Bach, I believe). A good show all round.
Yes, the (tediously predictable) Bach encore! Why do they do this, when it clashes so horribly with what’s gone before … in my hearing only Sol Gabetta amonst this year’s plethora of cellists has bucked the trend, with some delightful Vasks after her Elgar.
Stadler was indeed very good. A pity that there was no slip in the programme, no announcements and no posters, to indicate who he was, or even that there had been any replacement.
Stadler did an excellent job, though; and we should send our best wishes also to Truls Mork, for a speedy return to the platform.
I was there too, in the gallery and was surprose that Truls Mork had taken a rejuvenating elixir and had a hair transplant! No annoucement, as far as i know so nobody knew who’d stepped up and saved the show(stakovich). He gave a fine performance, possibly less dramatic or demented than Truls’ might have been, especially in the cadenza, but brilliant and energetic, fully backed by the orchestra.
On the subject of cellist’s encores: regretfully, i agree. They seem to feel obloge to subject the captive audience to a droning Bach sarabande which usually destroys the preceding atmosfere, magnificent tho it would be in correct context. I groan generally when concerto soloists of any sort play encores; frequently they have no idea how it ruins the wonderful noises ringing in your head and tonality clashes drive me mad. Cellists have some excuse for limited choice of repertoire, violinists less so, but even a wide choice, as for pianists, can upset the mood. Some time ago after the radiant F#major end of Skriabin’s concerto the unstylish soloist sat down and plonked out a Bach-Busoni chorale, slow and dim, in g-minor…Ugh! And Skriabin would have spun in his grave as he detested german classics, especially next to his own music. More recently, two pianists, after brilliant concertos chose to plonk Ravel’s Pavane, obviously a lovely piece but far too long and almost insulting to the orchestra, especially the horn, dying to play the much superior orchestral version.
This latter day craze for post-concerto encores is a plague!
But having spat my venom, i admit Stadter’s Bach was beautifuly played, Bravo!
Stadler’s DSCH concerto came over extremely powerfully on the radio, too. One trusts that this will be the first of many appearances by him at the Proms.