0:00:02 > 0:00:04We've all dreamt of it, of going out there on the Royal Albert Hall
0:00:04 > 0:00:06stage and playing your favourite concerto.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09Just think of the joy, and the terror,
0:00:09 > 0:00:10of playing Rachmaninoff's
0:00:10 > 0:00:12Third Piano Concerto for the Prommers.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17That's just one of my musical Everests that's never,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20ever going to come true, but for a couple of tonight's performers
0:00:20 > 0:00:22that dream is their reality.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25James Ehnes is the soloist in William Walton's Violin Concerto,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29and we're also going to hear what's almost a mini-concerto for
0:00:29 > 0:00:32cor anglais and orchestra by Jean Sibelius.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34All that, and Thomas Sondergard conducts the
0:00:34 > 0:00:39BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Sibelius's elemental Fifth Symphony.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42But it's all about soloists facing their fears
0:00:42 > 0:00:44and the faces of thousands of Prommers
0:00:44 > 0:00:47on tonight's Masterworks at the Proms.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16So the first of tonight's soloists is
0:01:16 > 0:01:20James Ehnes and he and his Stradivarius met me
0:01:20 > 0:01:23earlier today before his rehearsal to talk about his long
0:01:23 > 0:01:25relationship with William Walton's Violin Concerto.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30It's a piece I fell in love with as a teenager.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33I had a recording of Heifetz playing it and I just thought,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36"This piece is the best." And I couldn't understand why
0:01:36 > 0:01:39it didn't seem to be more mainstream repertoire.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43- And then I learned it and it all became clear.- What's the reason?
0:01:43 > 0:01:45It's a very challenging piece.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Not just for the violinist but for the orchestra,
0:01:48 > 0:01:51for the conductor, it's really virtuosic for everybody.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53So how do your hands deal with it, then?
0:01:53 > 0:01:57I have to think about trying to play as beautifully as possible.
0:01:57 > 0:02:02And thinking of the lyrical lines and trying to consider that to a lot
0:02:02 > 0:02:05of people in the audience this is not going to be a piece that they know.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08So, it's a special opportunity for me
0:02:08 > 0:02:10to introduce something that means a lot to me.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Can you give us an example of that lyricism?
0:02:12 > 0:02:16Sure. The very first opening melody is just lush and beautiful.
0:02:16 > 0:02:17HE PLAYS OPENING MELODY
0:02:35 > 0:02:37- Magic.- It's great, isn't it?
0:02:37 > 0:02:42It's got a little bit of that almost Hollywood quality to it.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44There's something very atmospheric.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48The second movement, the presto scherzo, starts with
0:02:48 > 0:02:52a Tarantella because Walton was supposedly bitten by a tarantula.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56It's a funny thing with back stories of pieces.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59Because you can sort of make of it what you want.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03I don't think that an appreciation of the piece depends on that
0:03:03 > 0:03:08but definitely this alla Neapolitana, I guess,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11it played a role in the composition.
0:03:11 > 0:03:12And certainly has that feel.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14The opening of that second movement is just fun.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17HE PLAYS OPENING OF SECOND MOVEMENT
0:03:25 > 0:03:27Neat stuff. It's fun to play.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30How do you think it will speak to this audience, then?
0:03:30 > 0:03:33And do you have a sense that when you got to the end of a performance
0:03:33 > 0:03:37of this piece whether the audience is falling in love with it?
0:03:37 > 0:03:40I can never second guess the audience but I know
0:03:40 > 0:03:43when I first heard the piece I fell in love
0:03:43 > 0:03:46so I think if there are people out there like me and
0:03:46 > 0:03:50if I can play it well, then hopefully it will gain a few new fans.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52- James, thank you very much. - Thank you.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54APPLAUSE
0:04:26 > 0:04:28MUSIC: "Violin Concerto" by William Walton
0:15:21 > 0:15:23MUSIC STOPS
0:15:37 > 0:15:38INAUDIBLE
0:15:47 > 0:15:48MUSIC RESUMES
0:22:01 > 0:22:03MUSIC STOPS
0:22:22 > 0:22:23MUSIC RESUMES
0:35:02 > 0:35:04APPLAUSE
0:36:06 > 0:36:10It always amazes me. This is such a huge space the Royal Albert Hall.
0:36:10 > 0:36:124,500 to 5,000 people, how ever many there are here tonight,
0:36:12 > 0:36:16all focusing in on the smallest sound that you'll hear
0:36:16 > 0:36:17in the whole Proms season.
0:36:17 > 0:36:19James Ehnes solo violin playing
0:36:19 > 0:36:21Sir William Walton's Violin Concerto.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23Surely, that was the performance to make you fall in love with
0:36:23 > 0:36:25that piece if you weren't already.
0:36:25 > 0:36:28James was telling me about its Hollywood lyricism and there
0:36:28 > 0:36:30were moments of real soaring passion in that performance,
0:36:30 > 0:36:33but never ever a trace of sentimentality
0:36:33 > 0:36:35in James Ehnes's performance.
0:36:35 > 0:36:39But we're going to hear music that would have been the overture
0:36:39 > 0:36:42to an opera by Sibelius on Finnish folk legend.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46His magnificently concise tome poem, The Swan of Tuonela.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49Now, it's based on the story of the hero Lemminkainen's
0:36:49 > 0:36:54journey to the Kingdom of Death, where he tries to kill the swan that
0:36:54 > 0:36:59is swimming on the black river. He fails and is instead killed himself.
0:36:59 > 0:37:03The sounds that this music makes are magical and mysterious,
0:37:03 > 0:37:05slow and strange.
0:37:05 > 0:37:08And they're also dependant upon another of tonight's soloists.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11This time from within the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14Cor anglais player Sarah-Jane Porsmoguer.
0:37:14 > 0:37:15It's haunting.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19The sound of the cor anglais is haunting and quite dark
0:37:19 > 0:37:24and there's nothing like it anywhere else in the orchestra, I don't think.
0:37:24 > 0:37:29Is it difficult, technically, for you to do? It's not very fast.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32This is very slow music so it's not showy virtuosity
0:37:32 > 0:37:36but what do you need to do as a player to pull this music off?
0:37:36 > 0:37:38Because it is such a slow piece
0:37:38 > 0:37:42if it's played too slowly it sounds like the swan is treading water,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45and he's got his foot stuck, and he's not going anywhere.
0:37:45 > 0:37:50Likewise, if it's just going too fast he doesn't sound menacing enough.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53So, yeah, the pulse has to be right.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56But then I find there has to be different intensities within the
0:37:56 > 0:37:59- music because of the story.- So, how do you think of it personally then?
0:37:59 > 0:38:01The drama of the piece?
0:38:01 > 0:38:07For me I see the first two entrances of the cor anglais as somebody
0:38:07 > 0:38:08viewing the island.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11And the strings are pictorial.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14They're showing us how the island feels
0:38:14 > 0:38:17and what it looks like with the black river.
0:38:17 > 0:38:22Then the third entry, I see that as the swan swooping in.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25"Here I am, I've got a story to tell you.
0:38:25 > 0:38:30"Be careful. You're not going to get away from here alive."
0:38:30 > 0:38:35And the next bit I see as the young man who's being killed
0:38:35 > 0:38:37and he's floating underwater.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40You know, the films where somebody's just floating?
0:38:40 > 0:38:44It's an undershot of the camera and the sun's shining down.
0:38:44 > 0:38:45That's how I see it.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48And then when we've got the pizzicato strings,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52I see that as the mother picking up the pieces of her son,
0:38:52 > 0:38:57and then my final entry I see as a sort of funeral march.
0:38:59 > 0:39:00APPLAUSE
0:39:26 > 0:39:29MUSIC: The Swan of Tuonela by Sibelius
0:49:04 > 0:49:05APPLAUSE
0:49:45 > 0:49:48Existential loneliness in just a few minutes.
0:49:48 > 0:49:53Of course, The Swan of Tuonela was made by Sarah-Jane Porsmoguer's
0:49:53 > 0:49:54cor anglais playing
0:49:54 > 0:49:57but also by the effect that Sibelius creates in the whole orchestra.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01There was chills of bass drum and the string lines that slide up
0:50:01 > 0:50:04from the double basses to the top of the first violins.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08For the final piece in tonight's programme, more Sibelius.
0:50:08 > 0:50:09His Fifth Symphony.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Now, the focus here isn't on individual players
0:50:11 > 0:50:15but rather on the whole ensemble of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17However, it's going to require something
0:50:17 > 0:50:19special from tonight's conductor, Thomas Sondergard.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22The thing about this piece is for any conductor
0:50:22 > 0:50:29attempting its three movements they must be a soloist of space and time,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32manipulating this music's gigantic energies and dimensions.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35And there are a couple stand out moments, challenges really,
0:50:35 > 0:50:37for the conductor to deal with.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40I want to find out how Thomas is going to negotiate
0:50:40 > 0:50:41the first movement.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45It's propelled by a huge, five minute long process of speeding up.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47So how's he going to do it?
0:50:47 > 0:50:51If you can imagine you blow on the water, you see the effect of it
0:50:51 > 0:50:55and you make sure that you don't stop the rings in the water.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58- The ripples, OK.- Yeah. If I can put it that way.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01Because it's not only me doing it.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04It must feel very natural for the musicians.
0:51:04 > 0:51:09For example, a little later where there's a trumpet solo here.
0:51:09 > 0:51:14Let's... D. Let's not have a naturando for these eight bars.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18- OK.- But it's a thing I realised after many years.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23Because, in a way, we agree that we all push a little bit forward.
0:51:23 > 0:51:28But some things lie natural in a way that, "Let me just play this
0:51:28 > 0:51:30"and then we'll go on again."
0:51:30 > 0:51:34Do you have to consciously, sort of, drive the players forward?
0:51:34 > 0:51:37They're watching very closely. They sure are.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40Because it's not going to happen in the same place all the time.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43It could be in those chromatic places.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46HE SINGS NOTES
0:51:46 > 0:51:49That then connects with what happens in the third movement.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52Again, you've got this moment. Pocotino stretto.
0:51:52 > 0:51:54At the very end of the symphony, it's getting faster,
0:51:54 > 0:51:58but the process is a kind of gigantic slowing down, actually.
0:51:58 > 0:52:05It is as if you get towards these white nature scenery,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08where you've not really noticed where you walk.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12You just take it all in and suddenly you come to this steep cliff
0:52:12 > 0:52:14and the music just stops.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19And you realise through those six chords at the end that if I've just
0:52:19 > 0:52:24- stepped a little further forward, that would be it.- You'd fall off.
0:52:24 > 0:52:25Yeah.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28You take the music so much in at the end of the symphony,
0:52:28 > 0:52:31so that you forget where you are.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33In these six chords, then,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37here's the first three of them and here's the last three,
0:52:37 > 0:52:41your job is to make sure the music doesn't go off the cliff
0:52:41 > 0:52:42so how do you control that?
0:52:42 > 0:52:45Because, after all, you're not controlling sound here,
0:52:45 > 0:52:47you're controlling silence, in a way.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51I must have the courage, not necessarily to count
0:52:51 > 0:52:56the beats in between, but to definitely have the calmness
0:52:56 > 0:53:02to believe that the pause can be wide, it can be long.
0:53:02 > 0:53:04If we want to come back to the picture I had before,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07it's not that I use it when I conduct, necessarily.
0:53:07 > 0:53:11There must be a reflection of what happened if I just took another step.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15And it's a very original idea of Sibelius, I think.
0:53:15 > 0:53:19Because it's easy that it could have come over to a very romantic ending.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23But the danger is these are randomly spaced.
0:53:23 > 0:53:26There's this chord and then five beats. Then there's six beats.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28There's a kind of random thing.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31The obvious thing to do would be to go one, two, three, four.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34You're not going to be moving through this.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37- How do you physically control that? - It's inside.
0:53:37 > 0:53:45It's not outside. I must believe that they all think the same way I do.
0:53:45 > 0:53:47This is where it's really important,
0:53:47 > 0:53:50that the conductor and the orchestra thinks the same way.
0:54:00 > 0:54:02MUSIC: "Fifth Symphony" by Sibelius
1:06:50 > 1:06:51MUSIC STOPS
1:07:21 > 1:07:22MUSIC RESUMES
1:16:17 > 1:16:18MUSIC STOPS
1:16:33 > 1:16:34MUSIC RESUMES
1:25:50 > 1:25:51APPLAUSE
1:26:48 > 1:26:55- It stopped.- Yeah. It didn't fall off the cliff. You're still intact?
1:26:55 > 1:26:57- Not quite.- Fantastic.
1:26:57 > 1:26:59- Did you like the end?- Absolutely.
1:26:59 > 1:27:01No, physically but again you're holding everything.
1:27:01 > 1:27:04It's the thing where you feel the thing moving
1:27:04 > 1:27:05and yet it's still at the same time.
1:27:05 > 1:27:07The question I want it ask is
1:27:07 > 1:27:09if you're at the edge of the cliff, what do you see?
1:27:09 > 1:27:11What is the view where we are?
1:27:11 > 1:27:13Because you feel it's such a cosmic thing as a listener.
1:27:15 > 1:27:17It's hard to describe because it's not so much...
1:27:20 > 1:27:23- I don't think so much in pictures when I'm there.- Sure.
1:27:23 > 1:27:27To describe it to you when we met earlier is a different thing
1:27:27 > 1:27:31but when you're there it's the context of the notes
1:27:31 > 1:27:35and not least this is why we love doing what we're doing.
1:27:35 > 1:27:39It's the atmosphere in the hall that you somehow...
1:27:41 > 1:27:44..extend. Is that what you call it?
1:27:44 > 1:27:48It's as if it has no fundament but the atmosphere is up there.
1:27:48 > 1:27:50It's amazing.
1:27:50 > 1:27:53- Thank you.- Thank you.- Thank you. - All the best.- Thank you.
1:27:56 > 1:28:00It's a wonderful thing that because think about the idea of what
1:28:00 > 1:28:04a conductor does as a sort of manipulation of space and time.
1:28:04 > 1:28:08In a way, at the end of that symphony, all of those things
1:28:08 > 1:28:11come together. It's like a kind of musical black hole.
1:28:11 > 1:28:13Sibelius had this thing where he contains so much energy
1:28:13 > 1:28:15and yet it's compressed down.
1:28:15 > 1:28:18So you feel in that final chord that actually the whole
1:28:18 > 1:28:20experience of this symphony,
1:28:20 > 1:28:24the half hour before was squashed down into that singularity.
1:28:26 > 1:28:31It's... Yeah... This is music as a kind of real physical experience.
1:28:31 > 1:28:33The stuff of the universe, maybe.