LPO cup runneth over

I'd hoped to give a full report on the glittering party that followed the LPO's anniversary concert the other night: the fantastic big-band playing of its Renga Ensemble with Scott Stroman, the speech by arts minister Margaret Hodge, the dusky and charismatic figure of Vladimir Jurowski encircled by adoring fans, the champagne [sorry, Pliable! I've no intention of being at loggerheads with anyone; it takes all sorts, etc, and there's enough room on earth for Adorno, Cage, Rachmaninov and Moet & Chandon]...But we only caught about 10 minutes of it because we were backstage trying to force Tom's locker open. The key was bust and his wallet and sandwiches were on the wrong side of the door.

We also survived our first ride in a brand new RFH lift which took us to the top floor around 7pm and then didn't want to let us out. Again, all was well when it changed its electronic mind, but there was a worrying minute in which we thought there'd be an empty seat in the first violins.

Vladimir's account of the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances, however, was an event that would surely have made Sir Thomas Beecham proud of the orchestra he founded 75 years ago. Vladimir is a spiritual type, interested in zen, meditation etc, and perhaps this comes across in his conducting in the moments of stillness, the intense focus, the darkness gathering invisible momentum in the background, ready to erupt. The final 'dance' seemed an apocalyptic evocation of a collapsing world.

I'm not going to write about the Mozart and Beethoven because I can never get past the mental image of a Cornflakes packet being thumped when I hear those 'authentic' 'period' drums. But here's a full review from The Telegraph's Matthew Rye.

Happy Birthday, London Philharmonic!

Seventy-five years ago today, the London Philharmonic Orchestra gave its first concert. On the podium was its founder, Sir Thomas Beecham. Tonight at the Royal Festival Hall the LPO is performing a celebration concert for its big birthday, with its new principal conductor, Vladimir Jurowski (left), and it's a programme to adore:

Richard Bissell: Fanfare for a 75th anniversary
Mozart: 'Prague' Symphony
Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.4 with Maurizio Pollini
Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances

Richard Bissell, by the way, is the band's very fine First Horn. There's no need to introduce Pollini, but I'd like to say that he's one of the pianists I have most admired and respected all my life. An interview I did with him a few years ago left me with the impression that he's a mensch: a person of absolute integrity who lives and works according to strong ideals. No pretence, no fuss, no nonsense: simply the real thing.

Should be an evening to remember.

Here's a more recent interview with Pollini by Richard Morrison (The Times, 28th September). And to inspire, here's the maestro playing the second movement of the concerto, with Abbado conducting.

mad props

First to a blog called International Listings which has to do with luxury real estate. Its proprietor has kindly seen fit to include JDCMB among the top 100 blogs suitable for the super-rich, classifying it under 'Odds and Ends'. It's a culturally interesting phenomenon, this, but the promotion is appreciated.

Also to The Official Blog of the Grateful Web, which liked the Brahms picture, points to a number of interesting blogs of all types and recommends a search engine which I keep meaning to try out.

Next, the estimable Stephen Pollard at The Spectator, who has kindly included JDCMB on a very elite blogroll. Different politics, but shared interests!

And last, but by no means least, to the Sunday Times, which last week named Beloved Clara as its audio book of the week. I was basking in Baden-Baden and missed it on the day. Tres drole.

Raising a glass at the Gramophones

Spent Wednesday at the Gramophone Awards. Suffice it to say that the Dorchester is a splendid venue, the food was superb and the champagne flowed. More importantly, so did some very astute prizes.

I was particularly pleased to see the veteran record producer Christopher Raeburn being presented with a Special Achievement accolade. We miss people in the industry with his level of artistic judgment, musical idealism and integrity. Bravo.

Also thrilled that Jonas Kaufmann's CD of Strauss Lieder won its category, with some strong words from the relevant commentator about how fabulous this glorious tenor is.

Speaking of tenors, who should turn up but Juan Diego Phwoarez! Montserrat Caballe was to be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, but apparently her taxi was involved in an accident on the way to the airport. She's unhurt, but missed the plane. JDF, as her colleague and friend, accepted it very graciously on her behalf. He also accepted a prize for one of his own recordings, too: the rarely heard Rossini opera Matilde di Shabran. (Last night he gave a concert in the Rosenblatt Recital series. I couldn't get in. Nobody could.)

Brahms did well. There was a prize for the German Requiem from the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Simon Rattle, with soloists Dorothea Roschmann and Thomas Quasthoff, and for Nelson Freire's recording of the two piano concertos, which happily scooped Record of the Year. A true artist, Freire: a musician of honesty, finesse and intelligence through and through.

Julia Fischer, the wonderful young German violinist, was Artist of the Year, voted for by millions of listeners to some 15 radio stations around the world. Young Artist of the Year was Vassily Petrenko, the youthful Russian who's currently making the kind of waves at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic that would please a surfing champion.

But the show was rather stolen by the Instrumental Award: Steven Isserlis's Bach Cello Suites. Steven was on tour, so he sent a friend to pick up the prize. The friend was none other than ace comedian Barry Humphries. And it didn't take him long to have the entire ballroom in stitches with jokes such as one about how a friend mixed up the words 'falsetto' and 'fellatio'. That word must have been a first for the Gramophone Awards...

There are many more prizes and you can read the full list here.

UPDATE, 6.07pm: The Overgrown Path appears to think we should all have stayed home to improve our souls by reading Adorno instead. He is right to imply that contemporary music did not have a major presence in the selection. One award was presented for a CD of music written in the past decade - it went to Julian Anderson - but only one. I would love to see the huge variety of contemporary music being encouraged and celebrated with more prominence at such events. We should perhaps note that the full title of these awards is The Classic FM Gramophone Awards.

Been here...

Baden-Baden, where I plucked up the courage to join Tom & the orchestra for a Tristan-dash (check in Heathrow 7.30am, plane delayed 1.5 hours - though not, this time, due to a cat in the hold, just the usual London airspace nonsense; arrive Frankfurt 12.45pm, leave Frankfurt by coach 1.20pm, hold-up on the autobahn, arrive B-B 3.30pm, scheduled start of opera 4pm, actual start of opera necessarily 4.15pm, finish playing 10.15pm, much beer 10.30pm).

Mad, perhaps, but wonderful as well: it was worth every minute of the extra stress. Glorious performances of Lehnhoff's breathtaking blue-light-of-nirvana production from Glyndebourne; Nina Stemme and Katerina Karneus resplendent as Isolde and Brangaene, Robert Gambrill as Tristan, Bo Skovhus as Kurwenal. The excuse for exporting Glyndebourne wholesale (I think this was the first time they've done so) was the Herbstfestival in B-B's marvellous Festspielhaus - once the station at which Brahms, Turgenev et al would have arrived in the town. The all-star line-up meant that on the first morning we met the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at breakfast in the hotel, and on the second the Vienna Philharmonic, which caused much interest in the LPO because they turned up to the dining room mostly in jackets.

We stayed on between nos.3 and 4 (Thursday to Sunday) and went sightseeing. There's something magic about Baden-Baden, which is utterly unspoiled, surrounded by hills that are lathered in rich, varied woodland; the air is pure, the Friedrichsbad allures with promises of steam rooms and massages, and you can walk half an hour to Lichtental to see Brahms's flat, along the Lichtentalerallee which is dotted with 200-year-old weeping elm trees that would have been sizeable 50-year-olds when Brahms, Clara Schumann, Turgenev and Viardot walked here in the 1860s. Just a pity about the food...too many sausages...

Above, top to bottom: the Turgenev bust in the park; Brahms himself (frei aber froh? Really, Johannes? Look at those eyes...); Brahms's house; and the house that Turgenev built (which bears a cruel plaque saying 'Villa Turgenev, kein zutritt') next to Pauline Viardot's, which has been knocked down and replaced with apartments.

Why no statue of Pauline?

But the day after coming back, I went to Paris to investigate what Cecilia Bartoli is doing with Pauline's legendary big sister, Maria Malibran.