Rather a fallow blog-week for me, I fear. Here are a few things that have been happening...
Tom has been on tour - Ljubljana, three places in Germany beginning with F and, to end, Basel. The major excitement seems to have been some official list that was circulated to the orchestra inadvertently revealing everybody's normally well-concealed middle names and dates of birth. Plus lots of snow, beautiful European shoebox concert halls and excellent audiences, Tom says, and stunning performances by their soloist, Christian Tetzlaff, who makes a more beautiful sound on his inexpensive modern fiddle than most others do on Strads. It ain't what you've got, it's what you do with it.
I went to hear Piotr Anderszewski at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Wednesday. Completely sold out, and not an easy programme at all - the first half was the Bach French Overture and the Szymanowski Metopes (Chopin took up the second half). Glorious playing, especially the Poles; most of all, the Chopin B minor Sonata. Once again, anyone who insists that audiences are declining should really have been there; they should also note that Grigory Sokolov's next recital, which is not until 15 APRIL, is ALREADY sold out. Which is no less than this absolutely unbelievable artist deserves. I'm glad he's gaining the prestige that is his due.
Meanwhile I am staring at my computer screen with increasing terror at the idea of what I soon have to do with it...
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Insomnia
I can't sleep. I've had quite a large dose of whisky and still can't sleep, mainly because my brain is overloaded. Also, it's snowing here - most uncharacteristic for London in these days of global warming - and I'm wondering how I'll get to the library tomorrow to look for the books I need for my next Indy feature. For those of you beyond these sunny shores, all we need here is an inch of snow and the entire infrastructure of the country grinds to a halt. "The wrong kind of snow" has gone down in history as ye late lamented British Rail's excuse for everything packing up at the slightest excuse...
A few scattered snow showers earlier this evening didn't stop me getting to the Wigmore Hall to hear Gidon Kremer, who was playing there for the first time in 21 years. Not only a fantastic chance to catch him in an acoustic that flatters his sound - I've only experienced him before in the RFH and the Verbier tent - but also a marvellous, apparently eclectic but well-planned programme that would actually have worked nearly as well in Ronnie Scott's. Lots of exciting contemporary & near-contemporary stuff based around the influence, in one way or another, of Bach. With Kremer was the Russian percussionist Andrei Pushkarev, who blended wonderfully with Kremer's intelligence and driven conviction, but nearly stole the show with his own fabulous, jazzy transcriptions for vibraphone of some of Bach's 2-part inventions. I was on the edge of my seat all the way through. And I think Piazzolla is TOP.
Kremer seems to perform as he does not because he's a violinist, but because he's a thirsty, questing, creative musician in every sense. So many violinists seem to be hung up on purely violinistic questions: wonderful sound, great technique, etc, which on this instrument are so complex that they risk becoming an end in themselves. Kremer goes way beyond that. Some of us loved his Bach Chaconne - completely unbaroquey, completely Kremer, completely convincing (apart from some odd upbow retakes that puzzled me a bit). Others didn't. Why is it that some concert-goers hear a so-called baroque fiddler play this thing with a curved bow and no vibrato and instantly think that anything different from that has nothing to do with Bach?!? (I was, as you can see, eavesdropping on the row behind...) That's the amazing thing about Bach, as Pushkarev proved on his vibraphone: this music can take any number of arrangements, updating, adaptation etc etc and still emerge as strong and vital and marvellous as it was the day it was written.
No wonder I can't sleep.
Images are haunting me too of snowflakes on Oxford Street - the only thing that can turn that place into something magical - and poems on the underground and half-glimpsed parallel universes and eleventh dimensions that, I understand, may exist, but then again may not.
A few scattered snow showers earlier this evening didn't stop me getting to the Wigmore Hall to hear Gidon Kremer, who was playing there for the first time in 21 years. Not only a fantastic chance to catch him in an acoustic that flatters his sound - I've only experienced him before in the RFH and the Verbier tent - but also a marvellous, apparently eclectic but well-planned programme that would actually have worked nearly as well in Ronnie Scott's. Lots of exciting contemporary & near-contemporary stuff based around the influence, in one way or another, of Bach. With Kremer was the Russian percussionist Andrei Pushkarev, who blended wonderfully with Kremer's intelligence and driven conviction, but nearly stole the show with his own fabulous, jazzy transcriptions for vibraphone of some of Bach's 2-part inventions. I was on the edge of my seat all the way through. And I think Piazzolla is TOP.
Kremer seems to perform as he does not because he's a violinist, but because he's a thirsty, questing, creative musician in every sense. So many violinists seem to be hung up on purely violinistic questions: wonderful sound, great technique, etc, which on this instrument are so complex that they risk becoming an end in themselves. Kremer goes way beyond that. Some of us loved his Bach Chaconne - completely unbaroquey, completely Kremer, completely convincing (apart from some odd upbow retakes that puzzled me a bit). Others didn't. Why is it that some concert-goers hear a so-called baroque fiddler play this thing with a curved bow and no vibrato and instantly think that anything different from that has nothing to do with Bach?!? (I was, as you can see, eavesdropping on the row behind...) That's the amazing thing about Bach, as Pushkarev proved on his vibraphone: this music can take any number of arrangements, updating, adaptation etc etc and still emerge as strong and vital and marvellous as it was the day it was written.
No wonder I can't sleep.
Images are haunting me too of snowflakes on Oxford Street - the only thing that can turn that place into something magical - and poems on the underground and half-glimpsed parallel universes and eleventh dimensions that, I understand, may exist, but then again may not.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Celebrations...
We DID have a nice evening yesterday... Started off at the cashmere sweater shop, where I plumped for the purple in the end. Then on to the Savoy for a glass of champagne followed by dinner at the Savoy Grill. Beautiful food; the most elegant surroundings with plenty of space; and superlative service, all just perfect for the occasion. I regret to say I became quite emotional from time to time, since I've been dreaming of this evening - buying my cashmere sweater and celebrating the imminent publication of my first novel - for 20 years or more. Tom handled it all very well, bless him.
I do have to stop daydreaming and do some serious writing now...life goes on and so do the music magazines!
I do have to stop daydreaming and do some serious writing now...life goes on and so do the music magazines!
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Underdog schmunderdog
Big thanks to Tim for a link to the Atlanta remarks/quotes about yrs truly's blog. I guess I was a technotwit after all...
I do have to take exception, though, to the journalist's description of Tom's orchestra, the London Philharmonic, as the 'underdog' among the top 5 London orchestras. Everyone gets the names confused now and then, but the LPO is really in pretty good shape (one sole section currently lets it down with depressing regularity, but I'm not really allowed to write about that...suffice it to say that it ain't the violins!). No, the real underdog is actually the Royal Philharmonic - which is absolutely tragic.
This once great orchestra, founded by Sir Thomas Beecham, gave the first Royal Festival Hall concerts I ever went to. I'll never forget, aged 12, sitting in the RFH listening to them playing Strauss's Don Juan and feeling the socks flying from my feet as the trombones glistened and the bows scrubbed...I remember thinking, 'I want to be part of this...' - little suspecting that, instead, I'd someday marry someone who was! But today the RPO has been left out in the cold in terms of government funding. The LSO gets the lion's share, and its home in the Barbican in the City of London enables it to have around double the cash of any of the others. No wonder it sounds good. The LPO and Philharmonia share a residency at the RFH and get decentish government money at the next level down. They both sound jolly good too. The BBCSO is a law unto itself, as ever: sometimes it sounds great, sometimes it doesn't, but it's not often to blame for the latter as its raison d'etre is its often weird and taxing programming. But the RPO, not having a high-profile residency (though it does have a new Chelsea base at Cadogan Hall now), gets such paltry funding that it has to resort to many of the most miserable kinds of orchestral gigs to make ends meet. It sounds and feels seriously demoralised. A pal of mine played a concerto with them out of town a year or so ago - I went along, and sitting in a draughty, miserable hall in which I was the youngest person by 40 years, listening to a draughty, miserable orchestra, was really sad, especially when I remembered how they had sounded all those years ago. It's not that they don't try - they certainly do - and I have the greatest respect for the way they soldier on. But I think they are trapped in a vicious circle and I don't know how they can get out of it.
The LPO is off on tour to Germany, Switzerland and Ljubljana next week, with Paavo Berglund conducting and soloists including cellist Pieter Wispelwey and violinist Christian Tetzlaff. They'll have to wrap up warm because it's -11 degrees in some of these places. Tom & I tried to check the forecasts for Ljubljana on the internet last night. After trying to spell it three times, we had to give up and try 'Slovenia' instead.
I do have to take exception, though, to the journalist's description of Tom's orchestra, the London Philharmonic, as the 'underdog' among the top 5 London orchestras. Everyone gets the names confused now and then, but the LPO is really in pretty good shape (one sole section currently lets it down with depressing regularity, but I'm not really allowed to write about that...suffice it to say that it ain't the violins!). No, the real underdog is actually the Royal Philharmonic - which is absolutely tragic.
This once great orchestra, founded by Sir Thomas Beecham, gave the first Royal Festival Hall concerts I ever went to. I'll never forget, aged 12, sitting in the RFH listening to them playing Strauss's Don Juan and feeling the socks flying from my feet as the trombones glistened and the bows scrubbed...I remember thinking, 'I want to be part of this...' - little suspecting that, instead, I'd someday marry someone who was! But today the RPO has been left out in the cold in terms of government funding. The LSO gets the lion's share, and its home in the Barbican in the City of London enables it to have around double the cash of any of the others. No wonder it sounds good. The LPO and Philharmonia share a residency at the RFH and get decentish government money at the next level down. They both sound jolly good too. The BBCSO is a law unto itself, as ever: sometimes it sounds great, sometimes it doesn't, but it's not often to blame for the latter as its raison d'etre is its often weird and taxing programming. But the RPO, not having a high-profile residency (though it does have a new Chelsea base at Cadogan Hall now), gets such paltry funding that it has to resort to many of the most miserable kinds of orchestral gigs to make ends meet. It sounds and feels seriously demoralised. A pal of mine played a concerto with them out of town a year or so ago - I went along, and sitting in a draughty, miserable hall in which I was the youngest person by 40 years, listening to a draughty, miserable orchestra, was really sad, especially when I remembered how they had sounded all those years ago. It's not that they don't try - they certainly do - and I have the greatest respect for the way they soldier on. But I think they are trapped in a vicious circle and I don't know how they can get out of it.
The LPO is off on tour to Germany, Switzerland and Ljubljana next week, with Paavo Berglund conducting and soloists including cellist Pieter Wispelwey and violinist Christian Tetzlaff. They'll have to wrap up warm because it's -11 degrees in some of these places. Tom & I tried to check the forecasts for Ljubljana on the internet last night. After trying to spell it three times, we had to give up and try 'Slovenia' instead.
British technotwit
Thanks to Scott and Nancy, both of whom mentioned in Comments that I got written up (or my Blog did) in the Atlanta Constitution Journal. Scott was surprised that I hadn't remarked on it. Well, guess why...can I log on to the Atlanta Constitution Journal? No, I cannot! OK, I'm the British technotwit of the year, if not the millennium. But for once, it may not be my fault.
The website demands that you register, and when you're doing so it wants to know your phone number and your home state & zip code. British phone numbers have the wrong number of numbers, it seems, and the 'home state' is required but only gives you a list of American ones to choose from! Therefore nobody outside the happy USA can ever read this newspaper! Since many of you guys are American, and I've adored the place every time I've been there (with the possible exception of Fort Worth), I'll keep my blogmouth shut about Bush, protectionism, isolationism et al. Suffice it to say that if anyone could possibly E-mail me the article, copied & pasted in to a message, I'd be most grateful!
Smugness still reigns supreme over here...today we are having our celebration dinner and I am also going to do something that I have been promising myself for a couple of decades. I decided, when I was about 18, that when my first novel got accepted, I would buy myself a cashmere sweater - and would not have one until then. And I never have. So we are going to a cashmere sweater shop before dinner. The big decision: black or violet?
The website demands that you register, and when you're doing so it wants to know your phone number and your home state & zip code. British phone numbers have the wrong number of numbers, it seems, and the 'home state' is required but only gives you a list of American ones to choose from! Therefore nobody outside the happy USA can ever read this newspaper! Since many of you guys are American, and I've adored the place every time I've been there (with the possible exception of Fort Worth), I'll keep my blogmouth shut about Bush, protectionism, isolationism et al. Suffice it to say that if anyone could possibly E-mail me the article, copied & pasted in to a message, I'd be most grateful!
Smugness still reigns supreme over here...today we are having our celebration dinner and I am also going to do something that I have been promising myself for a couple of decades. I decided, when I was about 18, that when my first novel got accepted, I would buy myself a cashmere sweater - and would not have one until then. And I never have. So we are going to a cashmere sweater shop before dinner. The big decision: black or violet?
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