0:00:30 > 0:00:36The world's greatest orchestras, at the world's greatest classical music festival. The BBC Proms.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39For the first time this year on BBC Four, we're devoting
0:00:39 > 0:00:42every Thursday evening to the orchestras visiting
0:00:42 > 0:00:43the Royal Albert Hall from abroad,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46to enjoy their individual interpretations
0:00:46 > 0:00:48and their unique musical approaches.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53Every year, the BBC Proms showcases the very best orchestras
0:00:53 > 0:00:55and soloists from around the world,
0:00:55 > 0:00:59and over the eight weeks we'll be hearing eight of Europe's orchestras,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02all of which were formed during the 20th century.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Tonight, to start our mini-season within a season, an orchestra
0:01:06 > 0:01:08with a rich, fascinating history,
0:01:08 > 0:01:10the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14whose home is a picture postcard city in Bavaria in southern Germany.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17It will be performing one of the most popular,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19one of the most romantic symphonies -
0:01:19 > 0:01:20Gustav Mahler's Fifth.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
0:01:23 > 0:01:27was formed in 1946 in the aftermath of the Second World War.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Musicians from the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague,
0:01:30 > 0:01:34together with other German musicians who'd been forced to flee their homes,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36settled in the medieval city of Bamberg,
0:01:36 > 0:01:38which had survived the war unscathed.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42It was the first German orchestra to tour after the war,
0:01:42 > 0:01:44when it gave three concerts in France
0:01:44 > 0:01:47with a programme of Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49Since then, for the last seven decades, the orchestra has
0:01:49 > 0:01:53continued the German symphonic tradition both at home and abroad,
0:01:53 > 0:01:57and it's now considered Bavaria's cultural ambassador to the world.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01Appropriate, then, that it is the country's most travelled orchestra.
0:02:02 > 0:02:07Since 2000, the orchestra's musical director has been an Englishman, Jonathan Nott.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09Now, there is absolutely nothing unusual
0:02:09 > 0:02:11in British conductors working all over the world,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15but what is more unusual is that while Jonathan's musical education
0:02:15 > 0:02:18was at Cambridge and the Royal Northern College of Music,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20he built his career in Germany.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24He joined the traditional German career ladder known as the Kapellmeister system,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27a sort of musical civil service in which you work your way from
0:02:27 > 0:02:31job to job through a hierarchy of local opera houses and orchestras.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Well, earlier I talked to Jonathan about the sound
0:02:34 > 0:02:36of this orchestra we're going to hear tonight.
0:02:36 > 0:02:42I met this orchestra in 1999 for the first time, and was immediately
0:02:42 > 0:02:46impressed with the sort of sound that they were making, which I've
0:02:46 > 0:02:48described in many different ways -
0:02:48 > 0:02:50some of which I regret.
0:02:50 > 0:02:56But a German-sounding orchestra, usually all the sound world is
0:02:56 > 0:02:59created from the lower frequencies, so the string sound
0:02:59 > 0:03:02will come from the basses, so I'm constantly saying
0:03:02 > 0:03:05we'll let the basses lead if we have a crescendo in all the strings,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08you can't play any louder than the basses have just played.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12And then to try and choose a sound quality which is not so...
0:03:12 > 0:03:14You can choose whether you can make brilliant music
0:03:14 > 0:03:17or whether you can make dark, mahogany-sounding music.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20I personally like this mahogany-sounding music
0:03:20 > 0:03:25because in the repertoire that I ended up by doing, which is a lot of German romantic music,
0:03:25 > 0:03:31it enables you to express sort of nebulous things,
0:03:31 > 0:03:34it's sort of an inner cooking of sound,
0:03:34 > 0:03:38sort of a strata of rocks that gets pressed and it sort of glows,
0:03:38 > 0:03:42rather than diamonds, and, you know, razzamatazz.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45And I think that helps, to have a sort of...
0:03:45 > 0:03:50If you're trying to express something which is four shades white and one shade black,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54which is happening all the time in most of German repertoire, and certainly Mahler,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57then it gives you sort of an extra colour.
0:03:57 > 0:04:03And so I'm always finding that it's not the first trumpet that plays loudest, it's the third trumpet.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Everything's coming from root - I mean,
0:04:05 > 0:04:08the longest string in the orchestra's obviously the bass.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11That element of sitting into a sound,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14letting something grow from the earth upwards,
0:04:14 > 0:04:17is something that I've grown very much to love.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20So how is Mahler's Fifth Symphony going to sound
0:04:20 > 0:04:22played by you and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra?
0:04:22 > 0:04:25Well, what's lovely about this particular repertoire
0:04:25 > 0:04:28is that we as a unit, as a conductor and an orchestra,
0:04:28 > 0:04:32have grown together through this repertoire over many years now,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35and I think the nice part of that is you get more and more daring in
0:04:35 > 0:04:38what you want to say. And these pieces are never...
0:04:38 > 0:04:42seem to me each time I look at it, I find something that I wasn't expecting before,
0:04:42 > 0:04:46which means there's always something new to say, which means there's always more surprises.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50So we always have a big fight about exactly what we're going to say in the Adagietto,
0:04:50 > 0:04:56but I hope that that will be the most plastic music-making
0:04:56 > 0:04:59that you could possibly imagine - it's neither slow nor fast, it just happens.
0:04:59 > 0:05:04And then I hope that the last movement, which is always a slight problem because it's a happy ending
0:05:04 > 0:05:07and not many people like happy endings in Mahler symphonies,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11you have this fantastic Wunderhorn song, and then all the material from the fourth movement.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14So I hope that we won't make it just simply razzmatazz, that there's
0:05:14 > 0:05:20going to be some element of...teasing and, a love element in there,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23and you're coming from the deepest darkness of a Trauermarsch.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26But it needs to be Viennese, it needs to have this schmaltz,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30it needs to sort of be suave and sophisticated, and in fact,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34I'm sure that the scherzo, for example, has to have, it's like the scherzo of the Ninth,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38you have a Landler, a sort of peasant dance at the beginning,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42and then the second idea is a waltz, which is a very high society, sophisticated...
0:05:42 > 0:05:47So he plays with those two elements of dance.
0:05:47 > 0:05:53I try very hard to make them speak, bar by bar by bar,
0:05:53 > 0:06:00and yet my job is somehow to find one arch over these five movements.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02So I hope you should be able to
0:06:02 > 0:06:04find a symphony that we all know really very well,
0:06:04 > 0:06:10but it still should be crazy and daring
0:06:10 > 0:06:13and incredibly sad and incredibly happy,
0:06:13 > 0:06:18and, you know, a whole world in one hour 15 minutes, you know?
0:06:18 > 0:06:22And Jonathan will shortly be taking to the stage
0:06:22 > 0:06:25to join his orchestra, to conduct Mahler's epic Fifth Symphony.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28It was composed over the summers of 1901 and 1902,
0:06:28 > 0:06:30and it's in five movements.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34It's perhaps best known, though, for its fourth movement, the much-loved
0:06:34 > 0:06:37and beautifully lyrical Adagietto,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40written as a love letter by Mahler to his young wife Alma,
0:06:40 > 0:06:43and later made famous in the film Death In Venice.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51APPLAUSE
0:06:53 > 0:06:54And here comes Jonathan Nott,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58to conduct the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's Fifth.
1:17:47 > 1:17:49APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
1:18:01 > 1:18:04Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
1:18:04 > 1:18:10The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, so joyfully conducted by Jonathan Nott.
1:18:12 > 1:18:16What a performance - that achingly beautiful Adagietto,
1:18:16 > 1:18:19then that freewheeling final movement.
1:18:19 > 1:18:21Jonathan leaving the stage there
1:18:21 > 1:18:24to this extraordinary response in the Royal Albert Hall.
1:18:24 > 1:18:26He looked a little dishevelled, didn't he?
1:18:26 > 1:18:30I'm not surprised, the amount of passion he put into that performance.
1:18:30 > 1:18:34He seemed to love and live every note. What an expressive man.
1:18:34 > 1:18:39And that emotion obviously translated to the audience
1:18:39 > 1:18:42and to every player on the stage, as well.
1:18:48 > 1:18:51Well, that is all for tonight
1:18:51 > 1:18:55but there's information about all the music, all the performers, on the BBC Proms website,
1:18:55 > 1:19:00and don't forget you can hear every Prom live on BBC Radio 3.
1:19:00 > 1:19:05I hope you have enjoyed this evening as much as we all have here, it's been pretty emotional.
1:19:05 > 1:19:10Do join us again tomorrow at 7:30 on BBC Four, Samira Ahmed will be here
1:19:10 > 1:19:13to introduce a performance of Rachmaninov's haunting
1:19:13 > 1:19:15Second Piano Concerto, so don't miss that.
1:19:15 > 1:19:18I'll be back next Thursday with a Prom by our next
1:19:18 > 1:19:22Orchestra of the World, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra from Rome
1:19:22 > 1:19:24conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano.
1:19:24 > 1:19:28So, with all that to look forward to - from me, Katie Derham
1:19:28 > 1:19:32and all of us here at the Royal Albert Hall, goodnight.
1:19:32 > 1:19:35Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd