Bulletins

First, just to inform any orchestral players who took part in my Indy Panic this week that the article isn't coming out until Tuesday after all. Originally it looked like being today, but 'twas not to be.

Next, if you were thinking of coming to BELOVED CLARA in Islington on Sunday, please note that the actor will now be Malcolm Sinclair, not Charles Dance (who I believe had a film come in at the last minute). Malcolm has been our stalwart actor since the beginning, however, and it's wonderful that he's on board, so do please turn up if you can. Sunday 6th November, 5pm, St Peter's Church, De Beauvoir Road, London N1.

In tribute...

This article of mine is in the Independent today. I don't usually write about theatre (much as I'd love to), but this involves Arthur Miller's "Playing for Time", originally a television play and now being staged professionally in Britain for the first time. It's about the women's orchestra in Auschwitz and has been deeply controversial in the past. Still, it's vintage Miller, in quality only just behind Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. The trouble with basing a theatrical work (or a novel) on fact is that people connected with the events or characters in one way or another are bound to feel something is wrong, which was very much the case here.

The second leading role is that of Alma Rose, Mahler's niece and the daughter of Arnold Rose, the quartet leader. Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley's biography of her, "Alma Rose: Vienna to Auschwitz", paints her as a far more multi-dimensional person than Miller, perhaps, credits her with being. She was not only a tough, non-compromising musician, but a vulnerable woman whose men (especially her husband Vasa Prihoda, violin virtuoso) treated her less than well, and a woman of tremendous inner resources and immense moral fibre. As both a human being, a musician and someone whose surreal, appalling fate was simply unimaginable, she holds a vast fascination for me. I'm glad to have been able to write about this play, which presents deep emotional truths even if some of its facts are not accurate, and to pay tribute in some small way to this terrible story.

The German song I posted yesterday was one that Alma and her Auschwitz musicians performed frequently. I found it in Newman & Kirtley's book (published by Amadeus Press), which is amazing.

A song...

Sinig the following to the tune of Chopin's E major Etude, Op.10 No.3. Words by Ernst Marischka. I'll provide an explanation for this tomorrow. (Apologies for lack of umlauts - my browser and Blogger don't get along very well.)

In mir klingt ein Lied,
ein schones Lied,
und durch die Seele mir erinnern zieht.
Mein Herz war still.
Nun erklingen wieder zarte Tone,
ruft in mir alles auf.

Leben war fern,
Und Wunsche fremd.
Mein Herz! Wie ruhig warst Du lange Zeit.
Doch nun kam nah
All mein Gluck und mein Verlangen,
Tiefstes Sehnen, schlaflos Bangen.

Alles, alles lebt jetzt wieder auf.
Ich will doch nur
Frieden fur mein Herz,
Ruhe will ich nur,
nicht denken wieder (mehr)
An ein schones Lied.

New jobs?

As if Pieter Wispelwey doubling up as the British PM wasn't enough, a trip to the cinema last night revealed that Philippe Graffin may have a new job too, playing moody Jane Austen anti-heroes...unless Matthew Macfadyen has taken up the violin.............

The nice surprise I mentioned

After - how many?! oh no!! - decades of living in London and attending its various flawed concert halls, I had a huge surprise the other day. Tom's orchestra, the London Philharmonic, is (like its sister Philharmonia) currently homeless while the Royal Festival Hall undergoes its long-awaited refurbishment. So they're playing next door at the Queen Elizabeth Hall instead. Normally I loathe the QEH. It's a miserable concrete monstrosity and its gloomy interior induces little other than sleepy ennuie.....well, until now. What happened? They've opened up the platform so that it's far deeper than usual; they've put up some wooden acoustic stuff (looks a little like stacked up coffins) to the back and sides and - bingo! The band and Vassily Sinaisky started up some lovely Glinka and there was the sound we'd always wanted. Resonant. Warm. Clear. Close. Wallow-in-able. Glorious. Right there in our very own QEH. I was speechless.

Great concert too - another first was hearing Tchaikovsky's Third Symphony live in a concert hall. A work I've always loved from recordings but one that never normally gets played, except for the New York City Ballet performing Balanchine's 'Jewels'. Tchaikovsky in a good mood is such a rarity that it's surprising nobody makes the most of it when it happens, as it undoubtedly does here. The nickname 'Polish' makes me laugh, though, because - except for the Polonaise in the last movement - this music is so terrifically, unmistakeably Russian...

The evening was only marred a little by the Dvorak Cello Concerto, played passably - I use this word with reason, as you'll see in a mo - by the LPO's quasi-resident soloist, Pieter Wispelwey. He's a handsome Dutch fellow (peculiarly resembling a leading British politician) who is very good at Bach in period style. No reason, I guess, why he should have a grander concept of the Dvorak, given that his natural bent is clearly not for romanticism. But hear that famous recording of Slava playing his guts out, and one wonders why anything less would ever do. Playing aside, Wispelwey's facial expressions - ranging from apparent surprise to intense frustration to incipient apoplexy - conjured up for me startlingly marvellous images of Tony Blair in need of prunes.

UPDATE: SUNDAY MORNING - Here's Anna Picard's review of the concert from The Independent - she has less time than me for the QEH acoustics, and more for Wispelwey's playing, but her impression of his face is even more extreme than mine...!