Proms on Four: Friday Night at the Proms - BBC Philharmonic Orchestra BBC Proms

Music and love -

two elements in the human experience that probably make us

feel most alive.

Tonight at the Proms, we have two pieces by Rachmaninoff

and Nielsen that express the fullness of the human experience

in tumultuous fashion, with power and conviction.

Welcome to the first of BBC Four's Friday nights at the Proms,

an evening when we'll be able

to enjoy some popular classical favourites.

Later, we'll be hearing a work which dramatically sweeps us

into the natural world, Neilsen's Fourth Symphony.

But before that, we have Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto,

a piece that many associate profoundly with romantic love and desire...

..and there is the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, settling now on stage,

piano at the ready.

Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto is regularly cited as the world's favourite,

and its broad, sweeping melodies and rich, orchestral score

make it undeniably seductive.

To play the Rachmaninoff is a soloist who's making his Proms debut,

and this really is an exciting one.

The Japanese pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, is truly remarkable.

He came to international prominence when he won the prestigious

Van Cliburn competition in America in 2009 at the age of 20.

Even more remarkable, he has reached superstar status

as a classical pianist, despite being blind from birth.

It is an extraordinary story.

And we went to meet him when he was in rehearsal with the BBC Philharmonic in Salford.

My name is Nobuyuki Tsujii, I am a pianist.

HE PLAYS

-TRANSLATION:

-I do think that people who do play music,

they are all doing so because they all feel something special that they want to convey.

My parents have told me stories about me moving very rhythmically to music at eight months,

or playing the piano at the age of two and being able to recognise

different performers playing the same piece.

Although I don't like to boast about myself, maybe I was born with a certain amount of talent,

and that, combined with a lot of practice and effort, makes me the pianist that I am.

And the winner is...Nobuyuki Tsujii.

APPLAUSE

I entered as a challenge for myself so I couldn't quite believe that I was in the final.

And, of course, to have won it was an incredible experience.

There are countless moments where I cannot believe I am doing what I'm doing.

Winning the Van Cliburn, playing at Carnegie Hall,

playing the BBC Proms,

all of these things I never thought I would actually achieve,

so I am still incredulous at most things that I'm doing.

APPLAUSE

I played with BBC Philharmonic for the first time in December 2010,

which was followed by a tour of Japan in March 2011,

but this tour had to be terminated halfway through because of the earthquake.

We revisited Japan in April this year.

I'm very glad that they seem to enjoy playing with me

and I feel very privileged to have so many opportunities to play with the BBC Philharmonic.

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number Two - it's a very memorable piece for me, which I enjoy playing.

It's one of my favourite piano concertos.

I do focus and I guess I do get lost in the music, as the audience do.

I think it's important to sense that I have moved them and they have enjoyed my music.

It makes me very happy to play in front of such a big audience.

I do play very often in front of maybe 2,000, 3,000 capacity halls in Japan,

but it's very rare to play in front of such a large number of people,

as in Royal Albert Hall and it's an honour to play in front of them.

So I do hope that they will enjoy my performance and I'm looking forward to it very much myself.

You know, when we recorded that interview just three days before this Prom,

it was the first time conductor and soloist had met, and when they were playing together,

Nobuyuki follows the conductor's breathing to make sure they are in sync.

APPLAUSE

What a prospect for this evening, then,

Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii coming on stage now

with the chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Juanjo Mena,

to perform the Second Piano Concerto of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

APPLAUSE

Overwhelming applause for the remarkable Japanese pianist

Nobuyuki Tsujii, who played the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto Number Two

with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

and their Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena.

There is such great affection between this orchestra and Nobuyuki,

and it's been forged out of intense experience.

It was during the tour of Japan in 2011 that their visit was abandoned

because of the earthquake and tsunami, and in April this year

they all returned to Japan as a gesture of healing using the power of music.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

The sound of the emotion here, having played this remarkably emotion-brimming concerto...

..the audience here giving a welcome and a rapturous round of applause

for a truly amazing performance...

..and an amazing player.

And here he comes again accompanied by the Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

APPLAUSE

Nobuyuki Tsujii, the Japanese pianist, playing his encore there -

the beautiful showpiece La Campanella by Liszt.

And what a debut at the Proms. RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE

Just listen to it.

La Campanella is one of the set of studies Liszt wrote

that test the technical and musical limits of piano players.

Those virtuosic leaps back and forth across the keyboard

were something of a speciality of Liszt's.

It is considered one of the most difficult pieces

ever written for the piano and do you know what? Not for Nobuyuki.

He says he honestly doesn't find them hard at all.

Because, he says, the piano, for him, is just an extension of his body.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well, after that excitement and brimming emotion, we have

a fabulous and life-enhancing symphony.

In fact, that is both the subject matter and the effect of the music.

Carl Nielsen, the Danish composer, wanted to write a symphony

that somehow encompassed the craving for life that exists in nature.

Neilsen's Fourth Symphony is called the Inextinguishable.

It's a symphony in four movements, but played without a break,

and it sweeps us forward in a seemingly nonstop flow of musical ideas.

Carl Neilsen wrote that he wanted to express the life force

or inextinguishable forces that exist in the natural world.

The piece was written during the First World War,

and there is a brutal acknowledgement in the last movement

of the terrible conflict that was playing out over Europe.

Two sets of timpani thrash wildly against each other

and against the orchestra's attempts at normality.

It's a tremendously exciting piece to listen to

and the members of the BBC Philharmonic actually love playing it.

It is great writing for the viola, you know,

there's lots of rich and luscious writing, it's great to play.

This one demands

an enormous amount of stamina.

There is an incredible amount

of very, very loud playing,

and as you progress through the symphony, you can

feel the lactic acid build up in your right arm.

It is quite a feat of endurance, even though

it is not that long a symphony by modern terms.

From the...a baby's first breath

to their dying gasp on the deathbed,

life is breath,

and the woodwind represents, I think, for him,

not just in this piece but throughout his writing,

the sigh and the breath of life.

That's what we can offer...the orchestral texture, in this sense,

and I think that is why he gives a prominence to this section

in this symphony.

In this fourth symphony, the last movement, Neilsen, it's...

he writes a very famous part.

It is where, almost I suppose, we're engaged

in a sort of battle, and it's a face-off.

Musically, it's very clever how he does it.

I'll play one theme or motif

and the other player will play the same theme or motif,

but slightly displaced rhythmically, so it's quite unnerving, quite unsettling,

so it is a real battle, it's a real angst - we're, in musical terms,

fighting each other all the way through it.

It was written in 1916, right in the middle of the first World War

and Nielsen was watching the world tear itself apart.

He had, on the one hand,

the fact that there was this dreadful fear

that the world was going to end, and on the other hand,

the inextinguishable part of the symphony, which is that life, in the end, does win.

And so we are trying to present these conflicting emotions to the public,

so you have terrifying battle scenes

as evidenced by the two timpani, and extraordinarily beautiful melodies,

which we're privileged enough to play.

It is the inextinguishable force of life,

so whether it's having been through

the harsh, cold Scandinavian winters and then the rebirth of nature and life in the spring,

or the atrocities and horrors of the First World War,

but still, after that, there was a rebirth of life.

APPLAUSE

So here now is Juanjo Mena, Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra,

with their leader, Yuri Torchinsky,

in Symphony Number Four by Carl Neilsen, the Inextinguishable.

APPLAUSE

The Symphony Number Four by Carl Neilsen.

"If the whole world was destroyed, nature would, once again, begin to beget new life.

"These inextinguishable forces are what I have tried to represent."

The words of the composer himself.

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with their Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena,

at the end of that completely absorbing symphony.

It's music that grips you with its energy, and that battle at the end there with the two sets of timpani,

awe-inspiring.

It's a piece that expresses so much about what it means to be a human being -

struggle and resolution, convention and freedom and unity with the world around us.

Conductor Juanjo Mena is returning to the Proms with the BBC Philharmonic in a couple of weeks

to conduct a concert that includes a performance of Ravel's Bolero

with a Spanish dance troupe. Do join me for that.

It's on Friday 2nd August here on BBC Four,

and all the Proms can be heard live, of course, on BBC Radio 3.

That brings to an end the first Friday night at the Proms here on BBC Four.

At this time next week, Clemency Burton-Hill will be here

to welcome the National Youth Orchestra of the USA,

conducted by Valery Gergiev.

This coming Sunday, Tom Service will start his exploration of 20th-century classics,

with Stravinsky's revolutionary Rite of Spring.

That's on Sunday at 7.30,

but for now, from the Royal Albert Hall, good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd