"Klinghoffer" looms

Later this month ENO's new production of The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams's opera about a Palestinian hijacking at sea that took place in 1985, will bring this extremely controversial work to a full staging in the capital for the first time. It's taken 20 years for any opera house in London to dare to produce what's probably Adams's most important opera to date. Here are my thoughts on the matter from today's Independent, as well as chats with librettist Alice Goodman, conductor Baldur Bronnimann - who has worked in both Israel and the West Bank - and ENO's artistic director John Berry. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/fear-and-loathing-in-london-the-death-of-klinghoffer-is-staged-in-the-capital-for-the-first-time-6671388.html

What the Dickens?

Yesterday was Charles Dickens's 200th birthday. At last the UK has seen fit to celebrate one of its own great writers - normally it has to be sports, royalty or pop culture over here - and there's been some great material to read in various papers, plus talks and essays by Dickens's latest and possibly best biographer, Claire Tomalin - such as this, in which she wonders what he'd have made of 21st-century London.

But what about the music? Why isn't there more music inspired by the works of Dickens? Oliver!, of course, is one of the most popular of all British musicals, which shows it can work [PS - glad to say that my old school friend's youngest son is about to take on the title role in the West End!] - and this year's other big anniversary boy, Claude Debussy, wrote a completely enchanting prelude entitled 'Hommage a S. Pickwick Esq.' Here's Pollini playing it:



Now, there are a few Dickens-based operas kicking around, with varying degrees of obscurity. But why aren't there more?

I suspect many and varied reasons for this. First of all, to create a good opera you have to strip a story down to its bare bones and use as few words as possible - not least because it takes such a long time to sing them. Dickens is all about words. And all about complexity, with layer upon layer of character and cause and effect. It would be difficult to leave things out because sometimes even the smallest incident can prove a vital cog in the whole great wheel of Dickensian fortune - much as it can in life. Next, Dickens is frequently satirical - and opera is not often very big on satire, unless it is Gilbert & Sullivan or Offenbach, in which case it's dismissed as "light". Thirdly, and very crucially, Dickens is true to life in the sense that his finest characters are multifaceted and well-rounded: he does create some of the best literary villains of all time, but even then you can see why they are as they are, where they come from, what has shaped the attitudes that turns them into villains.

Still, none of this is a reason not to try. There is still time for the Great Dickens Opera

My fantasy Dickens opera would be A Tale of Two Cities by Poulenc. (No doubt Solticat's would be A Tale of Two Kitties by Milhaud...) What's yours?

Music writing masterclass: Bernard Levin and the Wexford lemon juice

You want to learn how to write beautifully, with erudition and elegance, about a performance you have attended? This little number by the great Bernard Levin has gone down in history as perhaps the best - and the funniest - ever to hit the page. Admittedly, he had an exceptional subject on this occasion. You can find it in the Levin collection Conducted Tour (1982, Sceptre) and I reproduce it here as a gratis advertisement, in the hope that you will buy the book if you like it (it's out of print, but still findable second-hand. Come on, Sceptre - reprint, please!)

Fasten your seatbelts.

On a memorable performance of Spontini's La Vestale, by Bernard Levin

1979 was The Year of the Missing Lemon Juice. The Theatre Royal in Wexford holds 440; it was completely full that night, so there are, allowing for a few who have already died (it is not true, though it might well have been, that some died of laughter at the time), hardly more than four hundred people who now share, to the end of their lives, an experience from which the rest of the world, now and for ever, is excluded. When the last of us dies, the experience will die with us, for although it is already enshrined in legend, no one who was not an eye witness will ever really understand what we felt. Certainly I am aware that these words cannot convey more than the facts, and the facts, as so often and most particularly in this case, are only part, and a small part, too, of the whole truth. But I must try...

The set for Act I of the opera consisted of a platform laid over the stage, raised about a foot at the back and sloping evenly to the footlights. This was meant to represent the interior of the Temple where burned the sacred flame, and had therefore to look like marble; the designer had achieved a convincing alternative by covering the raised stage in Formica. But the Formica was slippery; to avoid the risk of a performer taking a tumble, designer and stage manager had between them discovered that an ample sprinkling of lemon juice would make the surface sufficiently sticky to provide a secure foothold. The story now forks; down one road, there lies the belief that the member of the stage staff whose duty it was to sprinkle the lifesaving liquid, and who had done so without fail at rehearsal and at the earlier performances (this was the last one of the Festival), had simply forgotten. Down the other branch in the road is a much more attractive rumour: that the theatre charlady, inspecting the premises in the afternoon, had seen to her horror and indignation that the stage was covered in the remains of some spilt liquid, and, inspired by professional pride, had thereupon set to and given it a good scrub and polish all over. The roads now join again, for apart from the superior charm of the second version, it makes no difference what the explanation was. What matters is what happened.

What happened began to happen very early. The hero of the opera strides on to the stage immediately after the curtain has gone up. The hero strode; and instantly fell flat on his back. There was a murmur of sympathy and concern from the audience for his embarrassment and for the possibility that he might have been hurt; it was the last such sound that was to be heard that night, and it was very soon to be replaced by sounds of a very different nature.

The hero got to his feet, with considerable difficulty, and, having slid some way down the stage in falling, proceeded to stride up-stage to where he should have been in the first place; he had, of course, gone on singing throughout, for the music had not stopped. Striding up-stage, however, was plainly more difficult than he had reckoned on, for every time he took a step and tried to follow it with another, the foot with which he had taken the first proceeded to slide down-stage again, swiftly followed by its companion; he may not have known it, but he was giving a perfect demonstration of what is called marcher sur place, a graceful manoeuvre normally used in mime, and seen at its best in the work of Marcel Marceau.

Finding progress uphill difficult, indeed impossible, the hero wisely decided to abandon the attempt and stay where he was, singing bravely on, no doubt calculating that, since the stage was brightly lit, the next character to enter would notice him and adjust his own movements accordingly. So it proved, in a sense at least, for the next character to enter was the hero's trusted friend and confidant, who, seeing his hero further down-stage than he was supposed to be, loyally decided to join him there. Truth to tell, he had little choice, for from the moment he had stepped on to the stage he had begun to slide downhill, arms semaphoring, like Scrooge's clerk on the way home to his Christmas dinner. His downhill progress was arrested by his fetching up against his friend with a thud; this, as it happened, was not altogether inappropriate, as the opera called for them to embrace in friendly greeting at that point. It did not, however, call for them, locked in each other's arms and propelled by the impetus of the friend's descent, to careen helplessly further down-stage with the evident intention of going straight into the orchestra pit with vocal accompaniment - for the hero's aria had, on the arrival of his companion, been transformed into a duet.

On the brink of ultimate disaster they managed to arrest their joint progress to destruction and, working their way along the edge of the stage like mountaineers seeking a route round an unbridgeable crevasse, most gallantly began, with infinite pain and by a form of progress most aptly described in the title of Lenin's famous pamphlet, Four Steps Forward, Three Steps Back, to climb up the terrible hill. It speedily became clear that this hazardous ascent was not being made simply from a desire to retain dramatic credibility; it had a much more practical object. The only structure breaking the otherwise all too smooth surface of the stage was a marble pillar, a yard or so high, on which there burned the sacred flame of the rite. This pillar was embedded firmly in the stage, and it had obviously occurred to both mountaineers at once that if they could only reach it it would provide a secure base for their subsequent operations, since if they held on to it for dear life they would at any rate be safe from any further danger of sliding downhill and/or breaking their necks. It was soon borne in upon them that they had undertaken a labour of truly Sisyphean proportions, and would have been most heartily pardoned by the audience if they had abandoned the librettist's words at this point, and fitted to the music instead the old moral verse: The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night.

By this time the audience - all 440 of us - were in a state of such abandon with laughter that several of us felt that if this were to continue a moment longer we would be in danger of doing ourselves a serious internal mischief, little did we know that the fun was just beginning, for shortly after Mallory and Irvine reached their longed-for goal, the chorus entered, and instantly flung themselves en masse into a very freely choreographed version of Les Patineurs, albeit to the wrong music. The heroine herself, the priestess Giulia, with a survival instinct strong enough to suggest that she would be the one to get close to should any reader of these lines happen to be shipwrecked along with the Wexford opera company, skated into the wings and kicked her shoes off and then, finding on her return that this had hardly improved matters, skated back to the wings and removed her tights as well.

Now, however, the singing never having stopped for a moment, the chorus had come to the same conclusion as had the hero and his friend, namely that holding on to the holy pillar was the only way to remain upright and more or less immobile. The trouble with this conclusion was that there was only one such pillar on the stage, and it was a small one; as the cast crowded round it, it seemed that there would be some very unseemly brawling among those seeking a hand-hold, a foothold, even a bare finger-hold, on this tiny island of security in the terrible sea of impermanence. By an instinctive understanding of the principles of co-operation, however, they decided the matter without bloodshed; those nearest the pillar clutched it, those next nearest clutched the clutchers, those farther away still clutched those, and so on until, in a kind of daisy- chain that snaked across the stage, everybody was accommodated.

The condition of the audience was now one of fully extended hysteria, which was having the most extraordinary effect - itself intensifying the audience's condition - on the orchestra. At Wexford, the orchestra pit runs under the stage; only a single row of players - those at the edge of the pit nearest the audience, together, of course, with the conductor -could see what was happening on the stage. The rest realized that something out of the ordinary was going on up there, and would have been singularly dull of wit if they had not, for many members of the audience were now slumped on the floor weeping helplessly in the agony of their mirth, and although the orchestra at Wexford cannot see the stage, it can certainly see the auditorium.

Theologians tell us that the delights of the next world are eternal. Perhaps; but what is certain is that all earthly ones, alas, are temporary, and duly, after giving us a glimpse of the more enduring joy of Heaven that must have strengthened the devout in their faith and caused instant conversion among many of the unbelievers, the entertainment came to an end when the first act of the opera did so, amid such cheering as I had never before heard in an opera house, and can never hope to hear again. In the interval before Act II, a member of the production staff walked back and forth across the stage, sprinkling it with the precious nectar, and we knew that our happiness was at an end. But he who, after such happiness, would have demanded more, would be greedy indeed, and most of us were content to know that, for one crowded half-hour, we on honeydew had fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise.

Bernard Levin

Friday Historical: Rubinstein meets an old friend...

A real "look what turned up on Youtube" moment: this wonderful footage, from 1966, shows Arthur Rubinstein visiting the Steinway factory in Hamburg to test out his favourite piano after it has been repaired. He plays extracts of Szymanowski, some Chopin Etudes and Ballades, Ravel Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, and the Schubert B flat Sonata, among other things. The swathes of fascinating interview material include a story about the manuscript of the Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu, which he found inside the album of the Baroness d'Este after buying it at an auction - Rubinstein was a passionate collector...

The film, about 27 mins long, is in German, but if you want subtitles you can find them by clicking the 'cc' box in the video box's bottom menu bar.

Violin birthdays for astrological doubters?

Happy Heifetz's Birthday! Happy Kreisler's Birthday, too! What chance that the two greatest violinists of the 20th century shared a birthday? But that's life, so let's celebrate.

Here is some amazing film of Heifetz: at home, practising, playing ping-pong and - good heavens, smiling?



And now Kreisler...a radio broadcast from his 80th birthday with congratulations spoken by his colleagues, including Mischa Elman, Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein and many more, followed by an interview with Kreisler himself (in two parts).

Robert Maycock

We are all devastated to hear of the death last week in a car crash of the arts journalist Robert Maycock, a treasured colleague and former editor of Classical Music Magazine. A great supporter of contemporary and world music, he worked for The Independent for many years and was also the biographer of Philip Glass. He was 63. More information from Classical Music Magazine, here. 

Gold stars for this silver rose

If you only do one thing in London over the next few weeks, make it this: go and see Der Rosenkavalier at ENO.

The opening night on Saturday...where to start? The dream-team cast? OK, Amanda Roocroft is The Marschallin for the first time - not that you would guess for a moment she had not been born singing this music. Roocroft is one of the finest actresses in British opera right now - look at her awards for all that Janacek. She can effortlessly evoke the charming, open-hearted aristocrat on the one hand, and, lurking just beneath the surface, a self-destructive woman whose fear of losing her beloved young lover leads her to chase him away; act I's conclusion leaves her cradling a cushion in despair. Sarah Connolly is everyone's perfect Octavian: glowing, dashing, her voice as silvery as her armour (and those of us who follow her updates on Facebook were extra-pleased to see her as she'd been stuck on a motionless train with points failure for half the afternoon).



But perhaps most stunning of all was the debut of Sophie Bevan as Sophie (above, pic by Clive Barda). A star is born? You can't argue with the goose-bumps: you can't always explain them, but you know them when they happen. The moment Sophie opened her mouth, it was clear that she is no common-or-garden girl soprano, but one with potential to reach some very special places indeed. At no point while she sang did one have to glance at the surtitles; every word was clear as the proverbial bell, and every twist of character projected with relish. The voice - pure, flexible, snowy and effortlessly voluminous when required - never faltered; and the magical moments following the presentation of the rose as Sophie and Octavian fall in love made us all fall in love too. The audience went mad for her. I can't wait to hear what she does next.

Nor can you argue with John Tomlinson as the odious Ochs. Some of us feel that the opera contains too much Ochs and too little outrage over his ghastliness (the programme notes said that Strauss makes us like Ochs, but actually no, he doesn't) - but 'John Tom' is so convincing that what one remembers is a) the 18th-century setting would have condemned him to the guillotine had Strauss and Hofmannsthal not shifted the action to Vienna instead of Paris, and b) the world premiere, in 1911, took place only six years before the Russian revolution. Rosenkavalier as social commentary for its own time and maybe for ours too... Meanwhile, so involved was the singer with his role that in the scene with the attorney he turned physically scarlet with anger.

David McVicar's direction of a production as opulently golden as its music is typically astute and detailed - probing, questioning and poetic. For instance, why doesn't Octavian dressed as Mariandel slip out of the boudoir to escape Ochs's attentions? Because the mystery doors in the wall are so mysterious that he can't work out how to get them open. And the last gesture of Octavian towards the departing Marie-Therese before turning back to Sophie sparks an idea that we may not have seen the last of that affair after all...while young Mohamed the page boy has a crush of his own to pursue after curtain-down.

Down t'pit, Ed Gardner was working a magic of his own. This was a shimmering, generous, expansive Rosenkavalier - running to 4 hrs 10 mins, it was 25 mins longer than the theatre's estimate - but not a second of it was excessive. The music had room to breathe, grow and smoulder. Super violin solos from leader Janice Graham and some very lovely woodwind playing.

I have only two complaints. First of all, fine though the diction of the singers was, this opera's entire musical world is so bound up with flow of the German language that in English it just sounds all wrong. That's nobody's fault. I imagine the translation could have been more inspiring, but perhaps it would be a losing battle in any case. The other issue is that the set scarcely changes from scene to scene - without differentiation between the Marschallin's olde-worlde palace and the Faninal's new-build house, half the matter of class distinction, which is such an overriding theme, can't help but be somewhat submerged. Still, sets cost money; and, quite honestly, this cast could have performed in concert alone and still convinced us every step of the way.

Runs to 27 February. I wanna go again!

Photos here: http://www.flickr.com//photos/eno-baylis/sets/72157629055732903/show/

Friday Historical for Mozart's Birthday, plus some news

First of all, I'm delighted to announce that I have "a new gig", contributing to The Spectator Arts Blog. My first piece is out today and it's a look at six of the best young opera singers I've come across in the last year or so. First up is Sophie Bevan, who will be singing her namesake in Der Rosenkavalier for ENO from Saturday. And five more budding superstars... Read it here.

And it's Mozart's birthday, and it's Friday, so here is some Friday Historical Mozart: the first movement of the Concerto for Three Pianos, with Sir Georg Solti (conducting and playing), Daniel Barenboim and Andras Schiff, and the English Chamber Orchestra. Happy 256th birthday to our darling Wolferl!

PAAVO BERGLUND, April 14 1929 - January 25 2012

Sad news today that the Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund has died at the age of 82. I heard him many times and will long remember his strange, elf-like figure presiding over intense and alert Tchaikovsky and especially revelatory accounts of Sibelius symphonies.

Below is his official biography. And [UPDATE] an obituary from The Telegraph here.

Paavo Berglund has over a long time been associated with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in his native Finland. He has been Principal Conductor of the Stockholm Philharmonic (1987 - 1991) and of the Royal Orchestra in Copenhagen (1993 - 1996). 
 
In England where he was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra from 1972 - 1979 he works closely with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and toured Europe with the BBC Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra. 
 
He conducted many of Europeans most renowned orchestras including Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre National de France. He closely works with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; with the latter he performed all symphonies of Sibelius at the Helsinki Festival. 
 
In North America he worked with the Minnesota, Baltimore and St. Louis Orchestras, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra Washington and Cleveland Orchestra. 
 
Paavo Berglund repeatedly recorded the complete Sibelius symphonies: for EMI with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and a third time with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for Finlandia/Warner Bros. With the Royal Danish Orchestra he recorded all symphonies of Nielsen for BMG/RCA Victor Red Seal and, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and the Overture “1812” for BMG/Classic FM. 
 
Among the many honours his recordings received is a "Grammy" award nomination for his EMI world premiere recording of Sibelius' Kullervo symphony; the recording of the Nielsen symphonies was awarded the "Diapason d'Or". His distinguished discography also includes works of Shostakovich, Smetana and Dvorák. 
 

UPDATE: The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's PR has sent through this tribute from the players:

“Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is sad to hear of the loss of its Conductor Emeritus Paavo Berglund, its Principal Conductor from 1972-1979.  Berglund’s performances and recordings of Sibelius with the BSO are legendary and his death was announced as the Orchestra played Sibelius Symphony No.5   with Kirill Karabits, who himself worked with Paavo in Budapest. The music parts used by the Orchestra are the ones used by Paavo himself, and the Orchestra dedicated its concert last night in Cheltenham, and its concert tonight at Portsmouth Guildhall (27 January 2012), to his memory.
"Roger Preston, Co Principal Cello, who worked with Paavo on many occasions, said ‘Anyone who played with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Kerimäki Church, Finland, as part of the BSO’s 1981 tour will tell that it was a truly unforgettable experience.  On this tour we played all the Sibelius Symphonies, with Paavo on spectacular form. Many of Paavo’s comments, criticisms and demands are as fresh in my mind as though it were only yesterday. He remains, for me, one of the best, if not the best conductor that I have ever played for, and I am so grateful to have caught the latter days of Paavo’s extraordinarily fruitful relationship with the BSO.’”

Sergei Polunin jumps ship

And just as we were wondering if men in ballet are upwardly mobile... the Royal Ballet puts out a statement saying that Sergei Polunin has resigned with immediate effect. I interviewed him in the autumn for The Independent and sensed he was champing at the bit, so I'm not wholly surprised - though hadn't expected him to jump ship quite this soon, given the prominence the company was according him. Well, he's off. No reasons have been stated for his resignation, thus far (and I hope it's nothing to do with the tattoos).

The news is causing quite some shock in the dance-loving Twitterverse, and the words "with immediate effect" are startling and somewhat dramatic. He is, of course, in that programme at Sadler's Wells, as I reported this morning, and speculation is rife as to where he will go from here. A number of performances will have to be recast, including a worldwide cinema relay of Romeo and Juliet scheduled for March.

Here's the statement from Monica Mason just issued by the ROH:

This has obviously come as a huge shock, Sergei is a wonderful dancer and I have enjoyed watching him tremendously, both on stage and in the studio, over the past few years.  I wish him every success in the future.

Marvellous men?

They're upwardly mobile, this lot. Get down to Sadler's Wells from Friday and see some seriously amazing dancers - Men in Motion, starring Ivan Putrov (who's put the evening together), Sergei Polunin and balletic friends from the Bolshoi, the Mariinsky, ENB and more. My article about the show is in today's Independent. 


I also have a little e-interview with Ivan Putrov himself...

JD: Do you think that male dancers are starting to eclipse female ones when it comes to international stardom? If so, why might that be happening?

IP: The word "Eclipse" sounds very much utopian. I wouldn't say eclipse, the male and female are always present and it is down to personality not gender how a dancer is perceived by the audiences and the media. I believe in the last century the man has gained a different status in the Ballet Theatre- equal to the female. We can say that Nijinsky is the first superstar 'celebrity' male dancer in our late post romantic world of dance. Because of that 'novelty' at the time, it has attracted more attention and so it might seem at first that the male was going to eclipse the female.


JD: It seems to me that the range of emotional expression that choreographers explore with male dancers has vastly increased over the past two or three decades. Do you agree? If so, how would you account for it? 


IP: JJ Noverre comes to my mind. He has talked in his time not only of the state of the dance theatre at that time and before, but he could foresee what is to come. He said that dance will catch her sister arts in a dramatic development. That's what is happening. He knew. But what's next?!


JD: How did you choose the ballets for this programme? Were you perhaps seeking to reflect that range of possibility, as well as a century of choreography for men?


IP: I dreamt of them.

Debussy's bustin' out all over

Here we go...it's the Debussy anniversary! A grand 150 years since the birth of (almost) everyone's favourite French composer, a figure without whom the entire face of 20th-century music would have been utterly different. I've written two relevant pieces which are both out today.

First, here's my interview with Michael Tilson Thomas from this week's JC. The American conductor is presiding over the LSO's Debussy series which starts next week. His family background is truly fascinating, though: the American Yiddish theatre proved a rich and radical field for artistic development of many kinds, including his.

And here, from The Independent, is an interview with the lovely Noriko Ogawa, who is doing a Debussy festival in Manchester with the BBC Philharmonic, opening tonight. The influence of Japanese culture - 'Japanoiserie', at any rate - on Debussy was vital; and in return, his music has made a major impact on the Japanese composers of today. The piece has been somewhat chopped, though, so below is the director's cut. Plus a video interview with Noriko from Cardiff, recorded last summer.

NORIKO OGAWA & REFLECTIONS ON DEBUSSY

Jessica Duchen

In 1862 Claude Debussy was born in Paris: the biggest musical celebrations of 2012 will mark his 150^th anniversary. ‘Reflections on Debussy’, a major new festival based at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, promises to be one of the most unusual takes on this seminal French composer and his legacy. It unites past and present, Europe and Asia, and a pianist and orchestra who, having been caught up in Japan’s devastating earthquake, are lucky to be here at all.

On 11 March 2011 the Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa was waiting for a train in Tokyo when the platform began to shake under her feet. At the same moment, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, on tour in Japan, was travelling in a bus, which was crossing a bridge. Miraculously, they all escaped unscathed. Now they are working together, exploring the links between Debussy and Japanese culture.

The links are more serendipitous than one might imagine. “It was in the year of Debussy’s birth, 1862, that a group of 30-40 Japanese diplomats came to Europe for the first time,” Ogawa points out. “They would have been wearing full traditional regalia, complete with swords, and they must have looked incredibly exotic to the populations of Paris and London.” In those days, Japan was still “closed”, mysterious to the outside world, more distant even than India and China. And as the century progressed, a vogue for Japanese culture swept through France, carrying Debussy with it.

Ogawa suggests that Debussy had a natural affinity with deep underlying qualities in Japanese art, especially the ukiyo-e “Floating World” woodblock prints by artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. They likewise made a profound impact on western artists of successive generations – first Manet and Monet, later Gauguin, Lautrec and Matisse.

“Japanese art then used a very deformed perspective,” Ogawa points out. “Artists picked out the aspects they wanted to emphasise. For instance, if a man is looking furious in one Floating World picture, his face is much bigger than the rest of his body – just to reinforce the sense that he is angry.” It is not a vast step from there to the fantastical perspectives of Symbolism, a movement absorbed in subjective, dreamlike and suggestive atmospheres rather than literal images. Debussy associated himself with this artistic movement more than any other.

The cover picture on the first printed copies of his orchestral work La Mer – effectively a kind of sea symphony – is Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanegawa. “It brings out the strength of the sea, exaggerating this rather than being perfect like a photograph,” says Ogawa. “That deliberate deformation of perspective creates a stronger impression. Debussy does this, too, in his music. He broke all the rules!”

Other pieces by Debussy seem to share the formality, restraint and concision of Japanese art. 

“You need a strong sense of control on the keyboard to play Debussy,” says Ogawa. “You can’t be overemotional or drown yourself in it; you have to be objective and keep searching for the right quality and beauty of sound. It’s the opposite of Brahms and Beethoven’s rock-solid Germanic music. After the incredibly emotional Romantic era, Debussy opens the window to let the fresh air in.” 

The most Japanese of his works, she suggests, is ‘Poissons d’or’, the final piano piece from Images, Book II – directly inspired by exquisitely wrought images on a Japanese lacquer cabinet depicting koi carp.

Debussy’s fondness for Japanese culture was first sparked at the Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris in 1889; there, too, he encountered the music of the Indonesian gamelan, which also made a deep impression on him. He never travelled to the Far East, but his entire personality predisposed him to the absorption of influences rich and strange. Debussy, whom some considered Bohemian and non-conformist and whose personal life encompassed some very public scandals, was sensitive to a remarkable degree. His unceasingly enquiring mind allowed him to draw on innumerable sources for his music: everything was fair game, from the poems of Baudelaire to the novels of Dickens, from the drawings of Arthur Rackham to circus performances by acrobats. Perhaps his affinity for Japanese art was innate, or perhaps there was even more to it: “It’s almost as if he was able to tune in to its wavelength, like a radio,” says Ogawa.

Highlights she has devised for ‘Reflections on Debussy’ include a traditional Japanese tea ceremony before she performs the composer’s Etudes for piano, and a flower ceremony before the Préludes; and the series also features works by the late Toru Takemitsu and a younger Japanese composer, Yoshihiro Kanno, who were both profoundly influenced by Debussy’s musical language.

Ogawa has commissioned a set of three piano pieces from Kanno, each of which involves a different traditional Japanese percussion instrument. For instance, A Particle of Water employs Myochin Hibashi chopsticks: these are manufactured by a craftsman from the 54^th generation of a family that once made swords for Samurai warriors and are constructed from the same metal as those legendary weapons. Ogawa couldn’t resist adding Chopsticks itself to the programme, though.  

Joking aside, though, the festival is part of her post-earthquake therapy. Born and brought up in Japan, she thought she was used to earthquakes, but this one was different: “The horizontal movement told us that this was something much stronger,” she recalls. “It went on for 90 seconds, which is really long. After that the electricity went off, everything shut down and in the north of the country the tsunami arrived very quickly. People there lost everything – homes, businesses, livelihoods – in just half an hour.”

Dazed, confused, and convinced that Japan was facing apocalypse, she lost interest in playing the piano until she decided to go to America and give a fundraising concert to help the victims. So far, she has raised more than £21,000 for the British Red Cross’s aid to Japan; and additionally she has organised the design of some greeting cards – involving black cats, pianos and Debussy, who used to frequent a club named Le Chat Noir – which she sells at her concerts to benefit the Japan Society.

“There are still aftershocks even now,” she says. “But I don’t want to talk about disastrous things too much, because people are trying to be positive. I’d just like to offer something that people will enjoy, feeling at the same time they’re doing something to help.”

The intuitive Debussy could well have approved.

Reflections on Debussy begins on 20 January at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Box Office: 0161 907 9000