...from my colleague Michael Church in today's Indy, previewing the recital tomorrow in Manchester. KZ will then be in Basingstoke on 25th before the RFH on 27th.
By the way, Michael says that our hero won't record, but our hero told me, when I interviewed him for Pianist magazine, that he's just agreed three more recordings, even though he wouldn't say what they were going to be. Take your pick.
MEANWHILE, back in the pit...a hairy moment during the first night of Glyndebourne's Eugene Onegin when Tom managed to lose his violin part for the new Matthias Pintscher piece (which the LPO is playing at the RFH next week) down a crack between the floorboards. Despite quips about how it might be the best place for it, he transformed himself into Superfiddler and crawled through a subterranean tunnel to retrieve it, causing his colleagues much hilarity as they tripped over his legs.
6 comments:
Did you catch L'incoronazione di Poppea?
No, not yet. Might get there later in the run, but no guarantees. I would like to hear it and explore whether that leitmotif really does exist...
I'm baffled: why would your husband have the part to a piece he's not playing for another week with him at Glyndebourne? To study it since it's a new-ish piece?
I love Matthias Pintscher's music; the piece the LPO is doing, Towards Osiris, is wonderful, too bad the rest of the concert is Schumann and *shudder* Brahms *shudder* I can't stand that kind of programming: sneak the contemporary piece that doesn't sound like warmed-over Strauss in to a typical 19th century-oriented program.
Dearie dearie dear. This may come as news, but Musicians Do Practise Sometimes and especially pieces they've never set eyes on before. They also have to collect the music they need from the orchestral librarian, or sometimes from one another depending on the logistical tricks of the librarian being in south London and the orchestra being in East Sussex. It's really quite simple.
HH, go and have a nice cup of tea, you sound like you need one!
KZ is in my pantheon of contemporary pianists, the more significantly because that pantheon is a touch on the small side. The first paragraph of Church's article makes me wonder if KZ is synaesthetic, which would explain much. What he has to say about emotion and dynamics then and now is hugely intriguing but a bit difficult to grasp as described in the article (though the essence of clarity compared with whatever HH is getting at re Tom and his sheet music). I must hope there will somewhere appear a fuller account of his theory about this. The idea of replacing an entire keyboard in the middle of a recital rather boggles, but perhaps it's easier than I think it is.
Not long ago, a key on my piano (a beautiful and rather new Bechstein, btw) decided it was going to part temporary company with its damper. I asked the piano tuner to have a dekko at it, which she did quite happily. This involved slotting out the action (=keyboard et al), popping it onto the lounge floor and having a good twiddle about there. The process of removing the action from the body of the piano took about 50 seconds; ditto for replacing it. If KZ does this regularly, and I reckon he does, nobody should have to miss their last train home because of extra minutes added to the concert.
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