Observing Pauline Viardot

Last week I had a call from The Observer to ask me to stand in for their absent critics Fiona Maddocks and Stephen Pritchard, which was both a surprise and an honour.

It looked like a quiet patch at first - just too early for the premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence - but closer examination revealed two concerts that couldn't have been more 'up my street' if they'd tried. One was the shooting-star French soprano Sabine Devieilhe at the Wigmore lunchtime concert in a programme based around the salons of Pauline Viardot, who happens to be a long-standing obsession of mine. The other was billed as a TED Talk with music: Cambridge history professor Sir Christopher Clark joined Brett Dean and the City of London Sinfonia for an evening of Beethovenian exploration at the shiny new QEH. Due to circumstances beyond my control, it was my first trip there since the hall reopened - and gosh, it's good! (And it really does smell like a shoe shop.)

Here's the review.  You can hear Devieilhe's Wigmore recital on the iPlayer, here.

And here's one of my favourite Pauline Viardot songs, Die Sterne, sung in French by Isabel Pfefferkorn with cellist Romana Kaiser and pianist Anna Reichert. I think Viardot's songs are the equal of any in her salon, and a good bit better than some. Devieilhe sang the best-known number, Hai Luli, and one of the Chopin mazurka adaptations, Aime-moi - the latter is a bit of a masterclass in why it's best to write words first and music afterwards - but there's a wealth of fantastic music sitting there, waiting to be explored.

When Life Does Things

Taking a short break. I'll be back as soon as possible.

Nutcracking open

Alexandra Dariescu's virtual-reality piano recital ballet marvel The Nutcracker and I is off on a world tour soon, taking in China, Romania, Belgium, Germany, Austria (four performances in Vienna's Konzerthaus), Sweden, Australia and the UK (including, among others, the London Piano Festival and the Ryedale Festival). Above, the Trepak, with Alex at the piano and ballerina Amy Drew meeting some rather special friends. Full tour dates here.

Last year Alex decided to record a CD of the complete music - some of the arrangements have been specially commissioned for the project - with a souvenir booklet, targeted at the young audience she hopes will be attracted to experience a piano recital for the first time. But you can't put virtual reality into audio or print...so she needed a text version of the story. I was more than thrilled when she asked me to oblige. The script, recorded by Blue Peter presenter Lindsey Russell, has been very cleverly woven into the music (it works even better than I'd imagined) and the CD was released yesterday on the Signum label. You can get hold of it here.

(If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy my other, somewhat longer piece of Tchaikovskian magical realism, Meeting Odette...https://unbound.com/books/meeting-odette/).

Tomorrow...

...I'm off to Glasgow to give a pre-concert talk about Chopin for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Concert Hall. Curtain-raiser for a gorgeous programme bookended by Smetana and Dvorák, and in the middle David Kadouch is the soloist for Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2. Matthias Pintscher conducts. I'll be telling the story of the young Chopin, the significance in his life and output of his 'Second' Piano Concerto (inverted commas used for a good reason there) and the various elements that went into forming his style then, and which would stay with him for the rest of his life. The talk starts at 6.45pm and the concert is at 7.30pm, broadcast live on Radio 3. More details here. It is actually, embarrassingly, more years than I'd care to admit since I last went to Scotland at all, and I'm looking forward to revisiting this vibrant metropolis, if all too briefly.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch to address the Wigmore Hall

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

It's rare for any concert in hall in London, except the eclectic Southbank Centre, to present anything with overtly political overtones. So all credit to John Gilhooly at the Wigmore. Watching the cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, 92 and a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, address the Bundestag in Berlin a few months ago, he decided she must give the address to London as well, in English - from the stage of his hall. She will speak about her own experiences and the importance of learning from one of the darkest moments of human history.

The event, on 8 July at 3pm, will also feature her son Raphael Wallfisch (cello) and John York (piano) in music Bloch, Ravel and Korngold. It will be live streamed on the Wigmore Hall website.

Gilhooly says:

“After I saw Anita Lasker-Wallfisch's address to the Bundestag, I felt it had to be heard in London, so I invited her to give the address in English at Wigmore Hall. As a non-Jewish leader working in the arts, I feel it’s necessary to give a public platform wherever possible to highlight the dangers of anti-Semitism, and I am puzzled as to why other non-Jewish voices have yet to speak out. After all, the Jewish diaspora has done so much for this country, in the arts, sciences, politics, medicine and not least philanthropy. Anita’s words are so important to hear, as history has shown, time and again, that where anti-Semitism, racism and extreme views are on the rise, dark times are usually never far behind. Combined with powerful and appropriate music, this very special event is presented as a timely lesson for all generations and creeds.”

Having heard her speak several times before, including an interview I did with her on stage at the ROH Linbury Studio, I can promise you that you need to hear this, and be there if you possibly can.

Booking here.