Van Cliburn competition delivers 'odd couple'

For the first time the Van Cliburn Competition has been won by three Asian candidates: two very young winners sharing the top prize and no 'crystal' (third) prize being awarded. One of the top two was a blind Japanese boy whom some have been calling the 'Susan Boyle' of the piano: Nobuyuki Tsujii, 20, who has been blind since birth. The other, Haocheng Zhang from China, turned 19 during the contest.

Here's a report from Michael Johnson from Facts & Arts, putting most of the situation into a nutshell and including the delicately-expressed information that some of the jurors appear to have voted for their own students, that the contest finished on a 'sour' note, that some felt there was a bias against Russian candidates and that the audience mobbed the Italian finalist Mariangela Vacatello and thought she'd been short-changed. [The Facts & Arts article also alleges that Tsujii is 'mentally handicapped' as well as blind, but as you'll see from the comments this detail is disputed and I am unable to confirm either way, though have found no other references to this condition as yet.]

I dread to think what the music business machine will decide to do with 'Nobu'.

See further updates above!

Yeats for a very sorry morning in Europe

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

LAKATOS!

I'm convinced that our Hungarian friend who took the Barbican by storm last night could play the socks, never mind the red leather trousers, off Znaider, Bell and Mutter combined. There's an image to get the imaginations working...

Sporting those trousers and a diamante-buckled belt, as if the trademark tache wasn't enough to let us know who he was, Roby Lakatos brought on his band, including some very young and phenomenally talented performers, just in front of the LSO. He played the first half unamplified, but what a massive sound he produces - vast and round and as rich as Hungarian venison stew with lashings of goose liver. (The pic is courtesy of the LSO, taken during the rehearsal - no trousers, at least not those ones...)

His cimbalom player, Jeno Lisztes, played his almost-namesake's Hungarian Rhapsody No.21 solo - the damn thing is hard enough when you use 10 fingers, but the cimbalom is rather like playing with two only, and with the notes in odd locations. The roof nearly blew off. One day I will have to share with you an account by Arthur Hartmann of the time Debussy tried to learn the cimbalom. It's priceless. Soon, I promise.

With the programme a mixed bag of lavish Gypsy virtuosity, a couple of solo spots for the orchestra (Strauss Zigeunerbaron Overture and Kodaly Dances of Galanta, well chosen and delicious), a few marvellous jazzy episodes rather a la Hot Club de Budapest, some unutterably incredible fiddle playing and a bit of commercial schlock (Fiddler on the Roof just didn't do it for me in this context, though I love the music), I anticipated an interesting mesh between the Hungarians and the LSO.

Much was more mush than mesh, though. The balance never worked when band & orchestra played together, even when Lakatos & co put on mics in the 2nd half, and I wonder if the very young conductor, Eva Ollikainen, could not perhaps have asked the orchestra to play a tad more quietly now and then. Most people I talked to were great LSO fans yet still wished the orchestra would just go home and give the floor to their guests, full stop.

But full marks of a different kind to the LSO's Maltese leader Carmine Lauri, whom Lakatos took centre stage to share the work that he dubbed, with extreme Hungarian charm, "CsardasMonti" as a duet. Dazzling stuff.

A lot of violinists in the audience were fanning themselves quite hard in the interval with their programmes. Can't blame them - it was a hot night for fiddlers. I hope my programme notes made sense...wrote them while really quite ill...and it is terrifying to walk into a hall and see the editor of Songlines reading your words (he is a Hungarian music expert, to put it mildly). Not sure, what became of the Leo Weiner Divertimento, which either didn't happen or didn't do so in remotely the way I'd anticipated. Suspect the latter.

With encore after encore, a third reprise of Hejre Kati ended the evening after a stunning, exhilarating and rather exhausting three hours. As one friend remarked, I think we all knew exactly what must have happened to Kati by then.

Lakatos is in town tonight!...

...with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican...and I've done their programme notes. Fun! :-) This also means that I finally get to see the guy play live, at long long last.

A bunch of friends are very excited about this too - how else do you get half the violinists of another orchestra to turn up to a concert on their night off? But I also have friends who dislike the commercial turn that Lakatos & co have taken. It depends how purist you want to be. I tend to think that sensational playing is sensational playing, and wonder how the orchestra will keep up with the guys in pieces like this: Cosma's music for Le grand blond (an otherwise forgettable thriller that happens to have a great score). Will report back tomorrow...

Sunny days...

John Metcalf's Endless Song, played there by Ivan Ilic, who is taking the stage at the Wigmore Hall for the first time tomorrow evening. If that isn't relaxing music for a sunny Sunday, I don't know what is. On the other hand, Ivan has a double who tends to turn up winning Wimbledon, so perhaps this is how he winds down before the contest begins.

Tomorrow Roger, um, Ivan, who is American/Serbian living in France, turns his attention to some thornier material, among it Brahms's transcription for left hand alone of the Bach Chaconne, the Chopin Polonaise-Fantaisie, some Debussy Preludes and a bunch of Godowsky's transcriptions of Chopin Etudes (but hey, if you've got it, flaunt it...). You might have caught him on R3's In Tune the other day.

Oh, and he sent me some chocolate from Bordeaux. And not just any old chocolate. This is Lindt, entitled 'A la pointe du Fleur de Sel' - honest, guv, it's choc laced with teeny flecks of sea salt. It is unbelievable. So much so that I am thinking of starting a chocolate blog, in case anybody invents anything even more unbelievable.

Cliburn blog - blimey...

The fur is flying in Fort Worth!

At least, a glance at the heated comments on the Van Cliburn Piano Competition blog shows that people still care about musical standards, musicality and unfair judgments... I haven't been following the contest this time, but am still surprised not only to hear that Lukas Vondracek was knocked out, but that he'd bothered to enter the thing at all. I love the bit in the comments where he suddenly pops up and tells one of the commentators that before she starts judging them all online he'd like to hear her play.

By the way, if any of you read one of my colleagues in the Indy blogs writing "in praise of piano competitions" in which he said that the stories you hear about the nasties are "mainly apocryphal" - no, they aren't. We just aren't allowed to print the bloody truth.

When Erich met Felix

It's Korngold's birthday, and here's an absolute gem of Korngoldiana. This one is Felixiana too - A Dream Comes True, the promotional trailer for Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream from 1936. Chronicling the making of what was then the most expensive film ever created in Hollywood - but careful not to include any of the actual Shakespeare in case it put off the audiences - it contains the only known film of Korngold playing the piano, lashings of Mendelssohn, rare footage of Max Reinhardt himself and the glittering of all the stars at the premiere...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EWK!

Felixcitations co-prod...

I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of the documentary on Mendelssohn that is to be the culmination of the series The Birth of British Music on BBC2 on Saturday. I've written about it on my Mendelssohn blog, and you can read the post here. Whether or not Mendelssohn really has anything whatsoever to do with British music, it's a darned good film, great fun and beautifully made, and there are no sporrans in sight, not even in Scotland.

I have just been informed by BBC Blogomaster that one of my fellow composer anniversary bloggers is planning to set off round Scotland dressed as Mendelssohn sometime in June and wants to swop composer blogs for a couple of weeks. As I am bored witless by his usual chap and have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject, and besides am planning to be soaking up a little Provencal sun at the time, I've offered him instead a simple carte blanche to guest-post on Felixcitatons. Poor dear fellow. I reckon that writing about early music for that long is liable to drive anybody a little bit bananas.

RIP Nicholas Maw

Speaking of British music, one of the best contemporary British composers has just died: Nicholas Maw, whose legacy includes the gargantuan Odyssey and the flawed yet written-from-the-heart opera Sophie's Choice. Here is a fine tribute from Tom Service in The Guardian.

Solti stars in Falstaff

The first Glyndebourne dress rehearsal of the season, it's Falstaff, and there are cats. Fuzzy ones, but they move. The dominant cat in Act I sits curled up on the bar, and lifts its head when Falstaff tickles its ears. Then gently washes its paws and puts its nose under its tail. Later, it gives someone a sharp nip - very authentic. And it's ginger and white, so it must be Solti! Is it computer-controlled? Or a glove puppet with well-concealed handler? I hasten to add, though, that kitty's presence is not gratuitous - Boito's Shakespeare-derived text carries more than a few feline images, and the cats are ever-present, watching and waiting...

It's bad luck (or something) to review dress rehearsals, so I'll say further only that the production, by Richard Jones, is set in the Forties, last year's Hansel and Gretel are now Meg and Nanetta, Vlad is conducting, the string sections in the pit have been significantly rearranged, the opera is the most f***ing incredible thing Verdi ever wrote in all his long life, and I loved every second of it.

And here's what it's like being an orchestral spouse on such an occasion.

2.30pm Arrive Glyndebourne from train, wheeling erratic new fold-up picnic table. Pitch camp in reasonably sheltered red-brick spot on the terraces because rain is forecast, despite bright sunshine. Tom has a cold and I have dregs of pleurisy, so we must be careful.

3pm Kaffee und kuche in the sun and the wind; walk round lake, marvelling at marvels. Glyndebourne is still there! Glyndebourne is real once again!

4.30pm show begins. From my seat I can see left side of stage. All significant action seems to happen on right, except for ginger cat. Everything sounds and looks wonderful, however, there's bonus of Solti lookalike, and I am amazed all over again that even after hanging out here every summer since 1997, I can still be entranced, absorbed and thrilled by whole damn thing.

6pm-ish Dinner interval. Tell Tom about cat. He's incredulous. Is it perchance really Solti, moonlighting?! We bolt down thermos of soup, supermarket felafel, Greek salad and vaguely nasty ready-canned version of Pimms (me, not Tom, who's got to concentrate) at fold-out table, wrapped in coats and scarves. 10 minutes later everything is gone. Wander to lawns and discover it's significantly warmer down there in the beautiful sunshine with views of green hills, lambikins in the field and a giant, incongruous horse's head sculpture on the grass beyond the ha-ha.

7.20pm We try to investigate train times for going home. There's an 8.50pm train and a 9.50. Nobody seems sure whether there is also a 9.20. Tom instructs me to run for it at the end so we can get early train.

7.30pm I look at cast list and wonder why I'd thought Christopher Purves was a Blue Peter presenter. I must have been iller than I realised.

7.40-ish Second half. Tip-off about a spare seat bang in middle of front row of stalls has sent me scurrying for it. Brilliant spot, but getting out fast at end will be difficult. Frantic gesturing from back of first violin section as Tom sees me and indicates relaxation, no need to run, there's a 9.20 train and we'll get that one. When orchestra begins, I am so close to the sound that I nearly hit the ceiling.

8.30ish conclusion. Shouts, cheers, laughter, delight. I'm high as a kite, but the pain in my side is back, I'm coughing & could use a pain-killer and some sleep.

8.35 I saunter to stage door. The staff minibus is about to leave and we could get on it. Nah, let's relax and get 9.20 train.

8.37 Minibus vanishes over hill. Then news arrives that 9.20 train is fictional and we must get the 9.50. Oh, say other violinists, never mind, let's go to the pub. We hit Glyndebourne staff pub. Halfway through drinks, announcement blares out that last transport for Lewes will leave front of house in 5 mins. We scarper. At front of house, bus is full. House manager assures us there'll be an extra minibus. Spats about whose fault it was that we missed train/came out of pub too early/thought there was a 9.20 train/thought there wouldn't be another bus.

9.15 Arrive Lewes station in minibus. 35 mins til train. Oh, say other violinists, never mind, let's go to the pub. We hit Lewes's Royal Oak pub. Alcohol and crisps flow. Group includes 2 French, a Bulgarian and a Hungarian. Everyone wants to know why a ha-ha is called a ha-ha. The two of us who are English have no idea. Three quarters through drinks, we realise train goes in 5 minutes and scarper.

9.50 Train arrives. Violinists unwrap Polish beer, cheap wine and some very smelly cheese. I keel quietly over in the corner, but these chaps are just getting going and it's only the first night of the season, and not even that because it's a dress rehearsal. Is this what Tom does all summer while I'm innocently scribbling away in my study?!?

11.30pm Arrive home to miaowing Solti, who says it wasn't him on stage, honest, guv, but he wants extra food prontissimo per favore, grazie molto. Wonder how cat has learned Italian.

Midnight. COLLAPSE.

UPDATE: And to get you in the mood, here's the absolutely unbelievably astonishing fugal finale, from Covent Garden starring Bryn Terfel et al:

Two things to brighten a grey Saturday

First, mad props to Sequenza 21 for a virtuoso tweet feat: IF ALMA MAHLER HAD TWITTERED... If I had an aisle, I'd be rolling in it.

Next, slightly more sober but no less delightful, one for both the Dead Violinists Society and the Hungarian Fix Club: Szigeti plays Hubay's 'The Zephyr', recorded *96 years ago* in 1913, when Szigeti would have been 21 years old. The YouTube poster has included some excellent info about both Hubay and Szigeti, too.

Classical Brits...

Everyone has been reporting on the Classical Brits, but I was at home, coughing, so I refer you to Opera Chic, who has some cool pics of JONAS KAUFMANN (I really AM jealous) as well as Katherine Jenkins holding a fan (no, not that kind of fan - the fluttery, Carmeny kind), Lang Lang with Herbie Hancock (or Herbie Hancock with Lang Lang, depending), Darcy Bussell with KJ (ditto - Darcy is the willowy one) and more, her award for Best Hair going to...Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Hmm.