Almost a sneak preview

This isn't what Zimerman is playing tomorrow, Tuesday, when he's programmed the Bach Second Partita, Beethoven Op.111, Brahms Op.119 and Szymanowski Variations at the Royal Festival Hall. The extract below was filmed a while ago (we were all younger once), but same person, same pianist, same wonder. Also read Kenneth Woods's super tribute after the Manchester recital a couple of days ago.

Treat yourself here to the Chopin Barcarolle - and those of you in rushing up distance of London, see you tomorrow (pre-concert interview live on stage 6.15pm, concert 7.30pm).

Music matters today

I'm on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters today, in a panel discussion about music in fiction. Fellow panellists are Richard Coles and Philip Hensher, presenter is Petroc Trelawny, and Ian McEwan and Patrick Gale are quoted at some length. The programme begins at 12.15 but will also be available online at Listen Again for 7 days.

Tea for everyone

It seems that everyone needs extra tea today, so here is a good dose of it from Shostakovich. Love to all.

More about KZ...

...from my colleague Michael Church in today's Indy, previewing the recital tomorrow in Manchester. KZ will then be in Basingstoke on 25th before the RFH on 27th.

By the way, Michael says that our hero won't record, but our hero told me, when I interviewed him for Pianist magazine, that he's just agreed three more recordings, even though he wouldn't say what they were going to be. Take your pick.

MEANWHILE, back in the pit...a hairy moment during the first night of Glyndebourne's Eugene Onegin when Tom managed to lose his violin part for the new Matthias Pintscher piece (which the LPO is playing at the RFH next week) down a crack between the floorboards. Despite quips about how it might be the best place for it, he transformed himself into Superfiddler and crawled through a subterranean tunnel to retrieve it, causing his colleagues much hilarity as they tripped over his legs.

Weather forecast?

I used to have a theory that if it was cold and rainy for the first Glyndebourne dress rehearsal of the season, the rest of the summer would be heavenly. Yesterday at the Onegin dress, the weather was so horrid and miserable that we picnicked in the car with some soup. Bodes well? Hmm. Last year we did exactly the same thing, for Macbeth, and then it didn't stop raining for a year. Somehow I don't think I'll be getting Michael Fish's weather job at the Beeb.

Will write about Onegin in detail once it opens - for now all I can say is it's a total treat. Meanwhile mad props to Clive Davis at The Spectator and Brian Micklethwaite at Samizdata (a Libertarian blog - !?) for their kind comments and links, and to Gert for staying for the whole of Simon Boccanegra the other night and reporting that eventually Simone gave up and was overdubbed in his death scene by, er, Paolo the villain!

And hat off to Stephen Pollard who tells it like it is about the BBC's coverage of its own recent Young Musician of the Year competition. It was won by a 12-year-old trombonist called Peter Moore, and the reason I didn't write anything about it is that I didn't even know it was on, which seems rather to prove Stephen's point. Sue Tomes has similar words in The Guardian. More of that when I can control the rage-induced tremor in my hands.

There's something in the aria

Behind the scenes at Glyndebourne: my latest, from the Indy today. I'd envisaged it as the music journalism equivalent of Sex & the City, but we had to clean it up a bit. Enjoy!

If you've been directed here from The Queen's Hall...

... please scroll down to WHEN MOSTAR COMES TO SCOTLAND. The video clip in question, of Nigel Osborne's Differences in Demolitions, is there. NOT the one directly below this post, which is of the endearingly nightmarish Florence Foster Jenkins and has nothing to do with Bosnia!

Anyone requiring temporary serious relief from the Marx Brothers potential of all this should please read the fabulous and inspiring piece in today's Guardian by Daniel Barenboim. (Intriguingly, it reveals he nearly ended up being called Agassi instead. Just think, if he'd won Wimbledon...)

An affectionate tribute, sort of

Have a listen:



It was sounds faintly reminiscent of this that sent us scurrying ignominiously out of Covent Garden at half-time yesterday after getting the giggles in Simon Boccanegra. Second-rate Verdi isn't always my tasse de the, and it needs to be very well done to come off. We booked yonks ago when Nina Stemme was listed as Amelia; she dropped out a while back (perhaps she knew something we didn't?) and was replaced by two different ladies, alternating. Reviews were generally good (it's a nice traditional production, which is all most of them want), so we decided to go anyway. Word on the ground has it that No.1 cast Anja Harteros is sensational. We saw No.2.

I forget her name, but I hope she is OK. If she had flu or a Big Personal Crisis, someone else should have gone on, or they should at least have made an announcement. It wasn't just lousy, it was hilarious; and I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor girl when her big aria was greeted not by applause but by stunned, disbeliving silence.

Nor was the soprano - strained, squally, out of tune and unmusical as she was - the only problem. Lucio Gallo as Simone started off well, but by the interval he was sounding nearly as forced and unhappy as his leading lady. The best voice on stage was Ferruccio Furlanetto (Jacopo Fiesco) who was a stand-in himself. The tenor, one Mr Haddock, did his best under trying circumstances, but there was something fishy about the whole thing. The chorus was behind all the time. The orchestra, under John Eliot Gardiner, occasionally made some beautiful sounds - supple and persuasive strings, chocolatey clarinet, a good effort towards elan - but does that add up to good operatic accompanying? Was it a coincidence that everyone on stage (except Furlanetto) seemed to be forcing their voices? My resident fiddler, who has played this work many times, grunted uncomfortably: "Why are they playing so loudly? Why doesn't JEG take them down a few notches?" Probably, I suggested, in order to drown out the soprano.

There's a minimum standard you expect at the ROH and this wasn't it. Come back, Florence Foster Jenkins, all is forgiven.

Not sure whether to file under Conductor Does Wrong Repertoire, A Case of Mistaken Identity in the Casting Office or just These Things Happen, but we sloped away home for an early night.

Faure's birthday

Gabriel Faure was born on 12 May 1845, Pamiers, France. Here is a little birthday present: the great French violinist Christian Ferras, who died tragically by his own hand in 1982, performing the Berceuse. It's much more than just a lullaby. Merci pour tous, mon tres cher Monsieur Gabriel.

When Mostar comes to Scotland

If you're in Scotland, don't miss the Opera Circus tour this month of Differences in Demolitions, the chamber opera by Nigel Osborne and poet-librettist Goran Simic, which grew out of the soundworld of Bosnian sevdah. I went to see it in Mostar last year - see Independent feature here - and am thrilled that they're doing it again. Attending it in its spiritual home, Bosnia, was one of the most moving experiences I've ever had. The video below gives a very small taste of it.



Here are all the tour details:

Date/time: Wednesday 14 May 7.30pm
Venue: Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy
Box Office: 01592 583302
Tickets: £12/£10
www.attfife.org.uk

Date/time: Friday 16 May 8pm
Venue: macrobert, University of Stirling
Box Office: 01786 466666
Tickets: £10/£6
www.macrobert.org

Date/time: Tuesday 20 & Wednesday 21 May 7.30pm
Venue: Eden Court, Inverness
Box Office: 01463 234 234
Tickets: £12/£10, Under 18s £5
www.eden-court.co.uk

Date/time: Saturday 24 May 8pm
Venue: The Byre Theatre, St. Andrews
Box Office: 01334 475000
Tickets: £15/£12
www.byretheatre.com

Date/time: Tuesday 27 & Wednesday 28 May 8pm
Venue: Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Box Office: 0141 552 4267
Tickets: £10/£6
www.tron.co.uk

Date/time: Saturday 31 May 8pm
Venue: The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Box Office: 0131 668 2019
Tickets: £12/£10, Under 18s £5
www.thequeenshall.net
7pm Composer Nigel Osborne talks about his music
* reduced priced tickets for the music students of Napier College and the University of Edinburgh

Speaking of Bosnia, tomorrow violinist Ruth Waterman publishes a book about her experiences of working there with the Mostar Sinfonietta, bearing the quirky title When Swan Lake Comes to Sarajevo. Very much looking forward to reading it.

kurze pause...

I've had to cancel my talk in Stratford-on-Avon today because I've got tonsilitis. grrrr.

The good news is that the South Bank Show will be filming Tasmin's concert with Rox's new concerto plus the Barber concerto, as part of their programme about her coming up on BBCTV soon.

JDCMB back asap.

Oh no, not another one

Someone has found yet another Vivaldi opera lurking somewhere and finished it using bits of the others. Full story from the Indy here.

Vivaldi was an astonishing character with a hugely colourful life. But isn't there a limit to how many of these rattly, twiddly baroque things the market can take? After all, most of them feature either a one-name title (eg Tomasso, Soltino, etc) or a massively long one (Il trionfo del blogorissimo classicale di Madamina Duchene), arias da carping hell for leather for several hours trying to sound inventive on the reprise (my favourite carp is to be found in halaszle, Hungarian fish soup), not to mention recycled bits and bobs from other works, a harpsichord sounding as harpsichords do, a swarm of wasps where the violins ought to be and a reluctance to cut even one note leading to hellishly uncomfortable theatrical experiences as the reverential principles of Richard Wagner are applied willynilly to music that was actually designed as background entertainment to business meetings, illicit love affairs and the odd bit of orange throwing.

The degree course I took some while ago foisted 24 compulsory lectures on Italian Baroque Opera upon its unsuspecting first-years. I entered with a vague fondness for Monteverdi. I exited with a vague fondness for Monteverdi, too, but not before upsetting one of my teachers by finding a leitmotif in Poppea. Seriously. It's a figure of notes associated with Poppea's ambition.... (Well, whaddya expect? One has to stay sane somehow.)

ON A TOTALLY different tack, if you fancy a day or two in Shakespeare's own town, come to Stratford-on-Avon for Tasmin's Spring Sounds Festival, which is in full swing today, Sunday, and tomorrow, Monday. Tomorrow's concert by the Orchestra of the Swan features Tasmin in the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik's new violin concerto 'Spring in Japan' and Korngold's Suite from Much Ado About Nothing, and I shall be introducing it with a preamble called 'How Shakespeare Saved Korngold's Life'.

Cripes indeed

Headline on today's Independent says it all.

We woke up to find that London, effective capital of Europe, city of more than 7 million, a population of such diversity that every time you take the tube you hear at least four languages chattering around you, has elected a Tory magazine editor to be its new mayor. 'Boris', because he's an entertaining character, has previously got away with foot-in-mouth disease that would have slain any other politician - there was the time he had the whole of Liverpool baying for his blood, and several instances of racist crassness that I don't need to repeat here. But what worries us is that he's never really run anything except The Spectator, a right-wing political journal (it has some good scribblers, but editing it doesn't exactly equate to controlling London Underground).

Frankly, dear readers, if such magazine experience qualifies one to become mayor of London, then I shall have a go next time. I'm a native. I was born within the sound of Bow Bells. I've lived here all my life and I'd waited for, uh, however many decades it was for someone to improve our pathetic public transport before erstwhile mayor Ken got on with it. I'll be campaigning on the principles of scrapping the Olympics, music and dance experiences for every school every week, taxing the football clubs and giving the extra dosh to the arts, putting the congestion charge up up UP, and providing subsidised food for every cat in London.

Stratford today

If you're in the vicinity of Stratford-upon-Avon today, you might like to come along to a fun panel discussion in the literary festival in which I'll be one of four commentators talking about romantic fiction, along with Katie Fforde, Mark Barrowcliffe and Louise Allen. The Civic Hall, 6pm. Our shebang is called 'Reader, I Married Him'.
Later you can hear Jodi Picoult, at 8pm.

I'll be back there next Monday for the Spring Sounds Festival, doing a pre-concert talk about Korngold. (Reader, I didn't marry him, but I love him anyway.) More details of that very soon.

Tune in, Philadelphia!

And everyone else! Vlad conducts the Verdi Requiem tonight at 7pm on BBC Radio 3 and you can listen to it by going to this page and clicking on the iPlayer. The all-star cast includes Barbara Frittoli, Ildiko Komlosi, Massimo Giordano and Ferruccio Furlanetto and it is, of course, our own and Jurowski's own LPO. (Gloats.)

It was recorded live at the RFH the other night and I wasn't there (will spare you the story of why) but do read Neil Fisher's review in The Times where he - advises you to cancel your other plans and unplug the phone.

I thoroughly enjoyed a classic Vladathon of string-and-and-things music from the 1930s last week - Britten Frank Bridge Variations and Les Illuminations with the splendiferous Sally Matthews, the Shostakovich Piano Concerto no. 1 with new German piano star Martin Helmchen, who is about 25 but looks 12, and to cap it all the Bartok Music for String, Percussion and Celeste. Two and a half hours, stress levels soaring and a rush for beer in the Archduke Bar afterwards, but it was fabulous.

Return of the King

Krystian Zimerman - to us, King Krystian the Glorious - will be in the UK next month for three recitals: Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, on 23 May, The Anvil, Basingstoke, on 25 May and in Southbank Centre's International Piano Series at the RFH, London, on 27th. His programme remained under wraps for some while but has now been confirmed as:

Bach: Partita No.4 in D major, BWV 828
Beethoven: Sonata in C minor, Op.111
Brahms: Klavierstucke, Op.119
Szymanowski: Variations on a Polish Theme, Op.10

I've written a cover feature about KZ for the latest edition of PIANIST magazine, which is out now. The magazine, edited by superwoman-dynamo-journo-pianist Erica Worth, is heartily recommended for all pianophiles at all levels. Here is the feature: read about his friendship with Rubinstein, his passion for ice diving and why he won't be going to America again until the Iraq situation is sorted.

And, stop press: the latest news is that he will be doing a pre-concert talk here in London before the 27 May recital and I will be asking the questions. :-)

Happy birthday, Rox!

A wildly HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the one and only Roxanna Panufnik - ace composer, daughter and musical heir to the glorious Sir Andrzej, and today celebrating the big 4-0 with a season including no fewer than 11 premieres. Visit her site for the full story, a sample of her music and a roster of events to attend and enjoy.

Rox's musical language is at once accessible and highly personal; she excels in wit, tenderness and imaginative sonic textures, and while she's been best known for vocal settings such as her Westminster Mass and Beastly Tales which set poems by Vikram Seth, her Violin Concerto 'Abraham', written a couple of years ago for Dan Hope, and her extraordinary Harp Concerto, for Cathy Beynon, are among the pieces that have most got under my skin.

For starters, don't miss the premiere of Rox's 'Spring in Japan', the first part of a new Four Seasons violin concerto for Tasmin Little, in Stratford-upon-Avon on 5 May - I'll be doing a pre-concert talk which is actually about Korngold and Shakespeare, but will be flying the flag for the present day too! And much looking forward to the premiere at Westminster Cathedral on 3 June by The Sixteen and Harry Christophers of Rox's choral work Stay With Me, a setting of a prayer by Padre Pio with words adapted by, er, yours truly. Book soon, as tickets (free) are flying.

(...no, I haven't converted to Catholicism, but I did love bashing some universally relevant and moving lines into singable shape, courtesy of the Genesis Foundation, which commissioned three different composer/writer teams to tackle the same task. James MacMillan and Will Todd complete the compositional triumvirate. More of this in due course...)

A tad perturbed to see on tonight's news that Padre Pio's body has just been exhumed and put on display in Rome - apparently this is 'normal' practice with saints. Though there's some controversy as to whether or not he faked his stigmata. !?

Baritone behaving badly

Erwin Schrott, La Netrebko's hubby-to-be and father of imminent child, is about to be sued for breach of contract by one of London's finest musical philanthropists.

We were all (especially us girls) looking forward to el hunko's appearance in the Rosenblatt Recital Series on 11 June. The series brings the world's biggest singers (and some valuable debuts) to appear in recital in London, incl JDF which I missed cos I couldn't get in last year; but Mr S has decided, for reasons best known to himself, that he ain't gonna show - for the second time. Here is what Mr Rosenblatt has to say on the subject. Fasten your seatbelts.

"For our audience to be treated with such gross unprofessionalism and disrespect by Mr Schrott, on two occasions, is something that shouldn’t be tolerated.

“This is a regrettable situation, but for the reputation of my Series I cannot allow artists, with no lawful excuse, to renege on their contractual commitments.

"In the seven years I’ve been running our recital series I have been impressed time and again by the dedication of singers to their art and their public. Singers such as Mr Schrott give opera a bad name and a reputation for not caring for the people that pay to hear them sing.

“I am disgusted by Mr Schrott’s callous disregard to his contractual obligations. His behaviour is cowardly and I can only wonder if he has the guts to appear on a London concert platform as this is the second time he’s backed out of appearing here.”

Oof.

Living Library: borrow a person

This is the best idea I've seen in ages. You can borrow a person of a particular background, inclination, religion or whatever, someone whom you mightn't normally have the chance to meet and about whose exterior you might have certain preconceptions, for a half-hour exchange of views.

For the 1925 silent movie of Ben Hur chez LPO on Saturday, I was with a group of friends whose "ethnic origins" were Italian, English, Polish and Palestinian. All of us, for one reason or another, have washed up in London. And there we were, watching that unbelievable chariot race in which Judah Ben Hur, a prince of Judea, driving a team of horses for a Sheikh, races their Roman occupier adversary to the death - just 11 years before Jesse Owen's famous triumph at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. We had a good chat about all this and we think people should talk to each other at grass roots level. Twin the towns, bus people in, make the tea and please, please talk - and listen. A living library is a first and inspired step towards that. According to The Times, the next one will be at the Idea Store, London E1 on May 31. For more information contact anne.kilroy@living-library.org.

Enough idealism already for a Tuesday morning? There's a good reason, of which more in a sec. First, mad props to some Wonderful Women: a piano quiz c/o the excellent Miss Mussel - in the form of a very beautiful and rarely played work; mad props to carissima Opera Chic; and Tanita Tikaram, who's made this site her music blog link on her cool new website. And break-a-legs to our own Tazza, who'll be playing music from her Naked Violin Project in a live internet streaming from Edinburgh on her website at www.tasminlittle.org.uk on Thursday (24th), which will also be filmed for a programme that The South Bank Show is making about her! We hear she is also heading for an oil rig.

Finally: yes, there is a good reason. Today is the birthday (1916) of Yehudi Menuhin, musical idealist par excellence, not to mention one hell of an incredible violinist. Here he is in the opening of Bach's 'Erbarme dich...'.

Miklos Rozsa, I <3 <3 <3 u!

Thanks to WWM (Wonderful Web Master) for an alert to the fact that Miklos Rozsa, towering genius of Hollywood and much else, was born in Budapest 101 years ago today. Hear him out-Korngolding Korngold below in the opening titles of the 1959 Ben Hur.

Speaking of Ben Hur (and how's this for multitasking in one post), anyone who is in London and very on-the-ball should come to the RFH tomorrow night to see the original 1925 silent Ben Hur with Carl Davis's score - just as fabulous in a totally different way - played live by our own LPO. But hurry, because the Silver Screen Series is wildly popular and always sells out! The website is worth a visit as it's full of info, film clips and music to hear. Carl Davis gives a pre-concert talk at 6.15pm and the film kicks off at 7.30pm.

Back to Rozsa: for those of more purist bent, have a listen to Rozsa's concert music if you don't know it already: the Sinfonia Concertante and the Cello Concerto are full of thrills.

Meet Danielle de Niese - you will want to

Here she is: born to sing, the cosmopolitan crown-princess of opera who sent Glyndebourne up in flames when she took the role of Cleopatra there a couple of years back. She's back soon to be Poppea. My article about her is in today's Indy, but it had to be cut (mea culpa, it was too long - and more was requested on some topics, so less appeared on others), therefore I'm pasting the original below in its entirety. The story of her Glyndebourne audition, the inspiration of Dame Kiri and her insights into the character of Poppea should be worth a read. Indy website includes a clip of her as Cleo, so do take a look there too.



Danielle de Niese, a petite young woman with a big voice and an even bigger future, has an unusual problem with visa officials. “They look you up and down, and they’re like, ‘You’re an opera singer? You don’t look like an opera singer, you look like a pop star.’ And I’m like, ‘Thank you, but I am an opera singer! The stereotype is changing. This is 2008.’”

Anyone who thinks that a diva is a heavyweight in a winged helmet would be startled when confronted with de Niese, 29. She shot to fame here in 2005, singing Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne in David McVicar’s award-winning production: her exotic beauty and star-quality stage presence created shock-waves as she was instantly acclaimed as one of the sexiest sopranos ever to set foot to stage. Moreover, there’s a charisma that seems to emanate from her voice itself – a notably young but still extraordinarily powerful and bell-like soprano. Her debut CD of Handel arias is just out on Decca, and this summer she’s back at Glyndebourne to sing the title role in Monterverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.

But now there’s a twist to the Glyndebourne tale: de Niese’s name is being linked with that of Gus Christie, the chairman of the whole Glyndebourne family package, which functions in a way not dissimilar to royalty. The legend goes that when Gus’s grandfather, John Christie, fell in love with the young soprano Audrey Mildmay, he promised to build her an opera house at the family home in Sussex if she would marry him. She accepted; he kept his word, and Glyndebourne’s operatic activities duly began in 1934. The opera house is still very much a family matter; Gus took over after his father George’s retirement in 2000. But when Gus broke up in 2004 with his wife of 11 years, Imogen, who took their four young sons with her, the future of Glyndebourne was thought to hang in the balance, so vital is the Christies’ participation in the opera house’s relationship with its patrons and the media.

It looks an unlikely combination – a glamorous, streetwise Australian-American in the land of English country picnics and sheep peering over the ha-ha; yet on one level, the romance is potentially a little like Glyndebourne’s history repeating itself.

“We are together,” de Niese confirms, “and we’re having a wonderful time!” She met Gus for the first time at her audition in 2004. “And in 2005 I was working here, but we didn’t actually get together until two years later. It’s a very surprising but wonderful thing.” She’s eager to emphasise that business and private life stay separate – “All the roles I’ve been doing were planned by Glyndebourne’s casting team, who obviously didn’t know what was going to happen with me and Gus. But I think everyone is very tickled – they’re all very happy for us. So far, so great!” But she’s not about to become the hostess of Glyndebourne corporate sponsorship functions; she makes it clear that she’s lodging elsewhere throughout her stay this summer.

De Niese’s first glimpse of Glyndebourne seemed less auspicious. She’d missed a plane after being directed to the wrong terminal in Paris and, following a nightmare journey, arrived just twenty minutes before she was due to sing. “The receptionist said ‘Do you want to go the long way or the short way?’ I went for the short way, which I didn’t know was over the lawns. It was grey and wet, I was in high heels and holding my pants off the grass, looking at the sheep and thinking ‘Where am I?’ But the gods must have been with me that day…”

Her astonishing looks derive from a background as international as her career. “Both my parents were born in Sri Lanka,” she explains, “but they are Sri Lankan Burghers – people of mixed descent from the island’s colonial days.” Her father had Dutch roots and her mother’s family was partly Scottish; they both left Sri Lanka as teenagers and moved to Australia. Danielle was born in Melbourne, where she started classical voice lessons at the age of eight.

“My great heroine was Dame Kiri te Kanawa,” she says. “It wasn’t only that she’s an incredible artist, but also she’s from New Zealand and I was growing up in Australia; besides, she was of mixed background. And for me, being of mixed background, that was such an inspiration. I thought: she’s made it, so I can do something in this field and make an artistic statement as well.”

When she was ten, the family moved to Los Angeles, not least so that she could study at the Colburn School, which specialises in educating talented children. There she studied more than just classical music – jazz and tap-dancing were also on the agenda. “I was there often at evenings and weekends, and performing a lot – I made my recital debut when I was 12. But at the same time I was very much a normal kid. Though what is normal? I don’t know!”

She insists that she was never pushed beyond her capabilities and that her parents were endlessly supportive. “My dad’s in banking, my mum manages the American branch of a Swiss vitamin company; they’re really busy, but they still come to all my premieres.” She tried her hand at TV as a teenager: after she was featured on a programme called LA Kids, she was invited to present the show, did so for several years and won an Emmy. Then, at 18, she became the youngest singer ever accepted onto the Lindemann Young Artists Programme at the Metropolitan Opera, where she made her debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. “I wasn’t even of a legal age to have a glass of champagne afterwards!”

Her role in Glyndebourne’s new production of L’incoronazione di Poppea is, like Cleopatra, that of a powerful, sexy and self-aware woman embroiled with a Roman ruler: Poppea is the mistress of the emperor Nerone. Written in 1642, the work’s sophistication and psychological complexity hasn’t dimmed with the centuries. The story appears simple: Poppea and Nerone gradually do away with anyone who stands in the way of their love and their power, from their former spouses to the philosopher Seneca. They can come across as ruthless, power-crazed individuals; but at the end when the pair finally marry, Monteverdi presents one of the most beautiful love duets ever composed; we promptly forgive them everything.

So is Poppea is driven by love or by ambition? “For me, it’s both,” de Niese declares. “She happens to have fallen genuinely in love with someone who can help her ambition. She doesn’t only want power; she loves Nerone and cares about his interests. What’s so challenging is that it’s easy to go for the one-dimensional, superbitch character, cold and icy, or warm, seducing but manipulative and not fully engaged. But Monteverdi gave her some incredible music and therefore there’s a warmth, a sincerity to her that’s absolutely transparent. It’s much harder, yet much more natural, to go with that.

“She can be seen as a bad person. But bad people also fall in love, get married, have children and protect their interests. When Poppea betrays Seneca to Nerone, people think she wants to kill him so that he won’t get in her way; he doesn’t like her, so it wouldn’t be a bad thing for her if he died. But also he’s been undermining Nerone’s power – if someone is betraying you behind your back, of course you’re going to tell someone you love about that person. She’s completely justified in her own conscience. And how often does a woman fall in love with a man who says he’s trapped in a loveless marriage? It happens all the time. That’s what makes Poppea so relevant and timeless: it’s about human nature. I don’t think the audience should look at Poppea and judge her. It’s important to understand what makes her tick.”

There’s one danger with playing Cleopatra and Poppea in quick succession, plus a host of other Handel and Rameau heroines: de Niese could easily be landed with the label of Baroque Babe. “I won’t let myself be pigeon-holed,” she insists. Nor should she be – she’s sung Adele in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, amongst other roles, and she longs to sing Anne Truelove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. For her next album, she says, “I would like to do Mozart”.

Top dream role? “Massenet’s Manon. I was completely bitten by the bug for that role when I first saw it at the Met. But for now I’m looking at some Donizetti, which is a good way to broaden from the early and classical repertoire, just to take another step into bel canto.” Naturally her voice is still developing and changing. “I’m a puppy growing into my skin,” she admits. “But even if I am a puppy, I still have a lot to say as an artist, and I want to do that to the best of my ability.”

She’s nothing if not committed to her life in opera; it’s not as if temptation hasn’t come her way. When she moved to New York, offers arrived from the directors of soap operas as well as opera houses. “My manager said, ‘If you leave opera for three years and become a famous actress, then come back, you’ll still be younger than anyone else.’ And I just said, ‘Are you kidding? I can’t be off the stage for three years.’ I’ll die if I’m not on stage! The itch is stronger than me. And I’m glad. I hope it never dies.”

She needn’t worry. With her Covent Garden debut in Handel’s Acis and Galatea next season, another Cleopatra at Glyndebourne in 2009 and a dream coming true when she works with her heroine Dame Kiri te Kanawa later this summer, it doesn’t look as if de Niese will be off the stage at all for quite some time. As for her off-stage association with Glyndebourne, she wisely refuses to speculate on what the future may hold.


L’incoronazione di Poppea is at Glyndebourne from 18 May. Box office: 01273 815000

Masterclass with Andras

"Silence is the most beautiful thing in music..."

In case you were wondering,

...here's why the Sokolov situation is so deeply depressing. Just try this.

Sokolov makes a stand

Here in Britain we can scarcely help but recognise that we live in a society increasingly driven by surveillance, paranoia and infantilisation, but even so I was shocked to read in today's Indy this leading article about one of the world's most miraculous pianists, Grigory Sokolov, who is refusing to come and play here because he hasn't the time to deal with the latest spate of UK visa idiocy.

The issue is explained at greater length here.

In the article, a spokesperson says:

"Some artists just can't quite handle that sort of intrusion into their music. For someone like Sokolov, who languished behind the Iron Curtain for years and his career in the West started very late, having suffered at the hands of that regime, to find all this obstruction to playing in a country he's played in for 18 years is very distressing."

More uncomfortable news, too:

The visa regulations are soon due to change again to a points-based system, raising more concerns over the cost of entry to the UK for classical musicians, who are often poorly paid. Atholl Swainston-Harrison of the International Artist Managers' Association, said: "Our concern is that, in the classical music world, many acts are not well-paid. With the cost of a visa, it's not going to be worth coming to the UK." Iama is campaigning for visas to be extended from one year to two to cut costs.

It can take a great artist, rather than a politician, to speak up about unpalatable home truths. I will shortly post a link to my recent interview with Krystian Zimerman, just out in Pianist magazine, who utters some very strong words about why he doesn't intend to go to America for a while.

(Update: here is my article from International Piano about Sokolov, from Sept 06)

A big day at the Beeb

Such is the excellence of our national broadcaster's communicative power that it managed to schedule two of its biggest music-biz bashes for the very same day (yesterday). First, the waterborne BBC Music Magazine Awards went off with the usual splash on the Thames. There's a full list of winners here, and I can promise that there are some absolutely fantastic recordings to sample on it.

Among them: Mitsuko Uchida's Beethoven 'Hammerklavier' (which scooped Record of the Year too), Natalie Dessay and Emmanuelle Haim getting a Handel on Il trionfo del Tempo e Disinganno, tenor genius Mark Padmore in more Handel, the Jerusalem Quartet in Shostakovich, Martha Argerich in more Shostakovich, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites on DVD, and much more.

And don't forget to check out the runners-up. Voting between the final three can be a close thing, involving flying fur and chocolate biscuits in meltdown in the bowels of the Beeb's conference rooms (I remember well from last year), and very often the other two are just as deserving of a prize. For instance, this year's instrumental category shortlist also featured Steven Isserlis's stupendous Bach Cello Suites and JDCMB favourite Rachmaninov-player Rustem Hayroudinoff making total magic out of the Etudes-Tableaux.

Don't get me started on the issue of more deserving discs that, generally speaking, don't make shortlists, or longlists, because some critic somewhere might have preferred to give five stars to something second-rate yet English (I am not alleging that this took place this year, since I wasn't there, but it's something that does occur in the British music press from time to time). This line-up is a worthy list and I look forward to feasting on the ones I haven't yet heard.

Meanwhile, over at the Proms Launch in South Kensington, apparently there were scenes outside the Royal Albert Hall when Nigel Kennedy turned up to play his violin (watch him here, courtesy of, er, Hello Magazine). Yes, he will be back at the Proms at last (after 21 years), to perform the Elgar Concerto, conducted by Tod Handley. And after the rave reviews he got for his recent rendition of it in the RFH, I wanna be there.

We hear that Murray Perahia is also to perform in the series for the first time in something like 20 years (you wonder where he's been all this time...and then start thinking about all the other great musicians who have also not been there for 20 years...or ever...) and that Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will give two concerts. Vaughan Williams features in a big way to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, as does Messiaen for his centenary (on the organ), and Helene Grimaud, piano virtuoso and a stunning-looking lady well suited to the cameras, has made it to the last night. There's also to be a Dr Who Prom. Is this a step up from Michael Ball? I'll reserve judgment until the night. Oh, and there's a folky Prom involving a spot of Maypole dancing.

I didn't make the Proms launch party, because the absolute priority last night was listening to Tasmin Little and Piers Lane giving a terrific recital together at Cadogan Hall, that undersung star of London concert halls. Bravo, chaps - your Elgar Sonata had me succumbing to serious snuffles, and we won't forget the 'Banjo and Fiddle' encore in a hurry!

Mad props meanwhile to Blogged, which has rated this blog 8.6 on the Sviatoslav Richter scale; Classical Music Magazine, which sent its estimable Hornblower along to the Hungarian Dances launch and kindly put in a picture and report on the Diary page (featuring Solti the cat, naturally); Pliable on the Overgrown Path, who featured Korngold and some wonderful pictures of Bruges the other day; and some marvellous Hungarians doing interesting things in Budapest, of which more, I hope, soon.

weekending...

I'm off for a while, so recommend that you have some extra fun with the blogroll for a few days. And here is a truly astonishing voice to enjoy - from a slightly alternative sphere that isn't as different as you might think. Please welcome: Tanita Tikaram.

Meet Christine Rice

The rise and rise of Christine Rice is proving that she's one of the best mezzos about, and not just in Britain. Thoroughly enjoyed interviewing her for the Indy last week about her role as Ariadne in Birtwistle's brand-new opera The Minotaur, coming up at Covent Garden from 15 April. Article is out today. Hear her singing some Brahms via the link on this page.

Meanwhile I'm still reeling from the surprise of a lift to Lewes station from Glyndebourne yesterday courtesy of my next victim, whom you wouldn't expect to be the kind of lady who'd drive herself around Sussex, let alone to Waitrose, let alone let a journalist into her car. Watch this space.

Please come to our HUNGARIAN DANCES concert

Tuesday 17 June 2008, 7 for 7.30pm

HUNGARIAN DANCES
THE CONCERT OF THE NOVEL

Philippe Graffin (violin)
Claire Désert (piano), Jessica Duchen (author)

Queen’s Gate Terrace Concerts, 49 Queen’s Gate Terrace
South Kensington, London SW7 5PN


We're delighted to announce that Philippe Graffin is planning to record a fascinating programme of Hungarian and Hungarian-influenced music to complement my novel Hungarian Dances. This very special fundraising concert to back the project will be held in the beautiful music salon of 49 Queen's Gate Terrace. It's a one-off opportunity to hear him and Claire Désert perform music that will feature in the recording, and I will be reading extracts from the book.

The programme includes works by Bartók, Brahms, Dohnányi and Ravel.

Tickets are £40, to include wine and Hungarian canapés, payable in advance by cheque or PayPal. Early booking recommended, as places are strictly limited.

To book, please email me.

Download a PDF flyer here.

(Philippe Graffin photo: Benjamin Ealovega)

Mind the Bach

It's been a week of things not working terribly well - from my internet connection to the Victoria Line and beyond - and I managed to miss the fact that my article about music in the London Underground ran in yesterday's Independent. Here it is. It is basically a fun way to suggest Schumann's Blumenstuck as suitable listening when, due to signal failure, you are bloomin' stuck.

Happy birthday, JSB

It's Bach's birthday. Have a listen to how Brahms and Schumann's close friend Jozsef Joachim played his music. This rendering of the G minor's first movement was recorded 104 years ago. (Fascinating line-up of comments on Youtube here.)

A talk in Hampstead

The Hampstead Authors' Society has very kindly invited me to give a talk on the afternoon of 12 April. I've written an article about the creative processes (or whatever they are) behind Hungarian Dances et al which is now up on their website. The afternoon includes tea, cake and a walk on Hampstead Heath - also the possibility of a visit, later, to the Hampstead Observatory if the sky is clear.

Anyone in the Westminster area this month should take a look at photographer and writer Zsuzsanna Ardo's exhibition How long is the journey? Zsuzsanna, the founder of the Hampstead Authors' Society, was born in Hungary and has been back there to capture images of Roma communities with her sympathetic, humane and inspiring eye and camera. The exhibition is at the European Commission, 8 Storey's Gate, Westminster, until 28 March.

More about Hungary & Hungarianness here.

Up the Amazon without a paddle

The trouble with the mighty Amazon.co.uk is that you can't phone 'em up and tell them that they've put your book in the wrong category. [update: unless you are clever enough to find the corner of the haystack in which that particular needle, the phone number, is concealed; seems like I'm not.]

If you check the Hungarian Dances page, you see the following:

Popular in this category:
#38 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Performing Arts > Dance > Folk

Yes, they have put it not under FICTION but under FOLK DANCE. So if nobody knows it exists then it's no wonder. I've plastered it all over everything I can plaster it all over, it had a lovely plug in the Indy with my piece on I Capture the Castle, it has its own website (under construction but coming soon) and Andras Schiff has given me the loveliest quote to quote (and I have successfully added it to the Amazon page). But if some twerp puts it on the wrong virtual shelf, none of this is going to be the slightest bit of use. And now it's Easter. People who have proper jobs get Easter holidays, which means that however hard I yell, there'll be nobody to yell to until the schools go back.

You, dear readers, would find it easily because you'd know what you were looking for. But we have to reach fiction readers who would enjoy it if they knew about it. They won't know if they're online shoppers because it won't appear in their Amazonian suggestions and promotions because one person, somewhere, assumed that it's about which foot to put where in the Csardas.

I could give them some ideas for that.

Happy Easter.

Horny tales from the pit...

If only Gerard Hoffnung had been with us at the ballet the other night. My pal and I were having a girly night out treating ourselves to the Royal Ballet's gorgeous production of The Sleeping Beauty, starring Tamara Rojo. We were in seventh heaven, a.k.a. the amphitheatre at Covent Garden, finishing the interval after the hundred-year sleep and waiting for Prince Florimund - who bore an astonishing resemblance to Mr Darcy - to appear in the middle of the 18th century and wake up the rock-toed daughter of King Florestan The Fourteenth with a good snog. But he has to go hunting first, and the hunting horns are the first thing Tchaikovsky gives us in Act II. The lights are down, the conductor Valeriy Ovsyanikov is ready on the podium, and...

...silence. Followed by a few gentle rustles. Nobody seemed quite sure what was happening.

Then came the tell-tale shuffles at the back of the pit as the missing players slunk on. Dear reader, unless I am very much mistaken, it was the horn section!

We were sitting too high up to see their faces clearly, but I reckon Hoffnung could have done a good job at imagining them... He could also have conjured exquisitely the expressions of the trumpet players who had to echo the fanfares but sounded suspiciously as if they were laughing as hard as I was.

I do love The Sleeping Beauty. The idea that the missing of one name from an invitation list can spark world-changing events. The sheer sadism of the choreography - Marius Petipa must have been an ogre. The way that Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat don't even consider killing Mr & Mrs Bluebird in the final act. The way that all those fairies bestow upon Princess Aurora the gifts of song, wisdom, beauty, gentleness, etc, yet the thing she seems to do best when she grows up is to balance in 'attitude' on one toe for a very, very long time (see pic). At least she meets Mr Darcy in the end. And Tamara Rojo and Federico Bonelli are a glorious pair, totally in harmony - they look made for each other.

Minor production quibbles from a ballet nut: if they kept Ashton's solo for the prince, choreographed for Anthony Dowell, why did they jettison his Garland Dance? The new one by Christopher Wheeldon sticks out like a sore thumb. Lots of cuts to the music, as if fast-forwarding through the dramatic scenes - and only the briefest gesture at the hunting party, not even a Farandole. One notes that the show finishes bang on 10.30.

Still, it looks great - the designs by Oliver Messel have been reconstructed from the 1940s classic production that shot Fonteyn to stardom - and the dancing is simply astonishing.

The horns, when they were there, played jolly well, as did the rest of the orchestra, and Sergei Levitin worked magic with the violin solos.

Affluent prawns for lunch, anyone?

Spotted by my unofficial LPO correspondent out in HK.

The LPO website has a tour blog, though when I last checked it was stuck at a cultural divide regarding Korean food on 10 March. There are some good footy photos, though. Keep an eye on it here.

Meanwhile, over in the Far East...

...the LPO has reached Hong Kong. The Tomcat reports from the harbour front that Christian 'Wow' Tetzlaff has now gone home and Nikolaj 'Phwoar' Znaider has joined them to play the Brahms concerto. I don't know if it's the piece or the sheer energy that these fiddlers impart, but something always seems to happen in the Brahms. Tetzlaff broke a string when playing it in London and trotted off to fit a fresh one; and apparently Znaider's chin rest took a tumble in Hong Kong and there was a kurze pause while repairs were done backstage. After which, he not only came back to finish the concerto but also elected to join the orchestra for the Tchaikovsky Pathetique, sitting next to lucky first fiddler Yang Zhang for the occasion (see pic).

Meanwhile, the LPO lost the football match against the Hong Kong Philharmonic 5-6. Moving on to Taipei tomorrow.

Solti and I are sitting in London gazing at the rain...

My favourite book

Wrote about Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle for today's Independent.

On a totally different tack, does anyone know anyone in London who can make Hungarian canapes for 80-100 at a reasonably reasonable rate?

Yehudi Menuhin said:

"Each human being has the eternal duty of transforming the hard and brutal into a subtle and tender offering, what is crude into refinement, what is ugly into beauty, ignorance into knowledge, confrontation into collaboration, thereby rediscovering the child's dream of a creative reality incessantly renewed by death, the servant of life, and by life the servant of love."

He died nine years ago today. Here he is (aged 16) playing the first movement of the Bach Double with his mentor George Enescu in 1932 - a recording treasured by violinophiles the world over.

'ere we go...

The London Philharmonic on tour in South Korea, not to be outdone by the New York Philharmonic in North Korea, took the opportunity to play football against the Seoul Philharmonic yesterday and beat 'em 3-2. Two of the three goals were scored by ace first trumpet Paul Beniston. LPO concerts at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts and the Seoul Arts Center tonight, tomorrow and Thursday. Pictured: before...and after!

While the tomcat's away...

The LPO set off yesterday for a two-and-a-half week tour to the Far East and, briefly, nearer East. They've just arrived in Seoul and will be playing there in a few days' time. Then off to Hong Kong, Taipei and finally Abu Dhabi. I would like to offer a special Ginger Stripes prize to whoever it was who invented Skype.

While the Tomcat's away, the mice need cheering up, so we are watching Charlie Chaplin on Youtube. Here is that famous scene from The Great Dictator involving Brahms's Hungarian Dance No.5.

Culture minister with foot-in-mouth disease

Howard Jacobson has a brilliant piece in today's Independent about our so-called Culture Minister Margaret Hodge's foot-in-mouth about the Proms. Could someone please a) send her a DVD of the Buskaid/English Baroque Orchestra's Prom last year, b) actually force her to watch it, c) wash her mouth out with soap? The joke is on her in the end, because she evidently is thinking of the Last Night of the Proms (the good ol' jingoism debate), and therefore makes one suspect that she doesn't know what happens there the rest of the summer...

This week in pictures #2

Meanwhile, along the Danube, the LPO took Korngold home to Vienna. A fabulous trip, one of the rare tours when I can't resist going along - two concerts at the Musikverein with principal conductor Vladimir 'Vlad' Jurowski, pianist Jean-Yves 'Silver Shoes' Thibaudet (Ravel G major), violinist Christian 'Wow' Tetzlaff (not pictured, sorry), a stunning Tchaikovsky Pathetique Symphony that was mercifully free of both mobile phones and clapping after the third movement, a hair-raising Prokofiev 5th, and as encore on the second night, the Zwischenspiel from Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane. It went down a treat in the golden hall's luminous acoustic; a strong round of applause greeted Vlad's announcement of it and far more followed the piece itself. At a post-concert reception, every dignitary in town seemed to be praising it and declaring delight that Korngold was back in the repertoire at last.

We visited the exhibition about Korngold and Papa Julius that's currently running at Vienna's Jewish Museum, put lovingly together by curator and record producer supremo Michael Haas. Highly recommended: you can see Jan Kiepura's costume from Heliane, the cigarette cases showing Jonny versus Heliane, Korngold's Oscar and his dinner suit; and the plentiful music examples, many of them exceedingly rare, could have kept me there all day. Particularly enchanting is a whole bank of historic recordings from Korngold's operetta arrangements - part of his work that today has been nearly forgotten but that kept his family in clover and got him away, to some extent, from the pernicious interference of Papa. It's hard to imagine a more Viennese sound than Korngold's aria arrangement of Tales from the Vienna Woods crackling gently out of a lost world. Closes 18 May, highly recommended to all fans.

The final photo shows Tom with Pieter Schoeman, who after seven years as the LPO's highly praised and inspiring co-leader has now been made official joint leader on an equal footing with Boris Garlitsky. Much goulash to celebrate.

This week in pictures #1

Hungarian Dances is out today! Above, pictures from the presentation of the book courtesy of the British-Hungarian Fellowship which took place at the Hungarian Cultural Centre on Tuesday night, featuring Eva Norton, chairman of the BHF, who organised the event; Lady Valerie Solti who spoke movingly about the book in relation to her husband's experiences of leaving Hungary and read some extracts; and a slightly overwhelmed author.

'HUNGARIAN DANCES' HITS THE ROAD

I'll be off for a week or so, so here are a few snippets to keep you busy.

THURSDAY 6 MARCH is Hungarian Dances publication day. I will be at Richmond Library, Little Green, Richmond-upon-Thames TW9 1 QL to introduce the book at 6.15pm. Readings, questions, refreshments, signed copies etc. Admission free, but please reserve a place by phoning 020 8940 0891.

FRIDAY 7 MARCH I will be at East Sheen Library, Sheen Lane, London SW14, for a teatime intro to same, at 3pm. Readings this time from ace local actress Geraldine Moffatt (who was in Get Carter), plus intro, questions, signed copies, refreshments provided. Admission free too, but please reserve a place by phoning 020 8876 8801.

The book is now in stock at Amazon and can be ordered here.

And to put you in the mood for this very violiny tale, here is Jascha Heifetz playing Dohnanyi's Andante Rubato Alla Zingaresca, with a wonderful Hungarian Gypsy photo montage. Enjoy.

Back soonish

To forestall any more barbed comments from the likes of Viola in Vilnius below, this is just to say I am, as a friend of mine would say, "under the snow". Normal blogging, both writing and reading, to resume as soon as humanly possible.

Whatever will they think of next?

First it was classical music in the London underground to soothe commuters. Now it's ballet-dancing traffic cops - at least, in Timisoara. Read all about it.

More about traffic, too, in the marvellous tale of how a motorbike courier made everything possible for ace soprano Marina Poplavskaya, who's about to sing Tatyana in the ROH's Eugene Onegin - here's my interview with her from yesterday's Independent. Spassiba balshoy, Marina, and toi-toi for the big day!

Oscar and Dario

Big cheers and congratulations to our fabulous Italian turned Londoner Dario Marianelli, whose music for Atonement last night scooped the Oscar for Best Original Score. Watch his 'thank-you cam' spiel here. And for a more in-depth look at the score, read his interview at Music from the Movies here.

Heard the one about the naked busker in the ROH 'Salome'?

If not, hear it in the Sunday Times today, here.

Meadows, 35, will appear in a new production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, where he will take centre stage at the end as the executioner, chopping off the head of John the Baptist before handing it to Salome.

How did a busker capture the spotlight inside Covent Garden? The transformation began when Meadows, a body builder and former Mr Wales, was spotted in the piazza outside the opera house by David McVicar, one of the world’s best opera directors.

“I saw him outside and thought that he had just the right body for the part,” said McVicar. “But he also had the ability to move well, and, particularly importantly, to stand still, which is necessary for the role of the executioner as for much of the time he is stationary in the crowd...”

Viva Maya & Rodion

The Shchedrins have been in town for last night's UK premiere, chez BBC Maida Vale, of Rodion Shchedrin's Concerto Parlando for violin and trumpet, written for Philippe's festival in St Nazaire in 2004 and now recorded by said violinist, trumpeter Martin Hurrell and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Agrest for future broadcast on BBCR3 and, we hope, an eventual CD.

I'd have posted something ahead of the concert, but it was already chockablock and about 40 people were turned away at the door. For future ref for those within easy reach of Little Venice, it's worth keeping an eye on the Maida Vale studio concerts because they offer world class music free on your doorstep, if you book in quickly...

This morning I went to interview Shchedrin, who is not only charming but utterly fascinating (more of this in due course). His wife, Bolshoi prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya, kindly autographed one of her DVDs that I'd brought along.

For ballet nuts like me, Plisetskaya is basically God. Here she is in Maurice Bejart's Bolero, choreography as startling and elemental a force as she is herself. (It's only viewable on Youtube in two parts, but at least it is viewable.)

Barenboim at last

So Sunday morning a blog comment pops into my inbox from our Ozzie-in-London reader Anne, offering a ticket for Barenboim's last Beethoven recital that afternoon. I dropped everything (indeed certain people would be justified in not talking to me for a while) and ran.

It was indeed a remarkable occasion.

Got there to see banks of seats in the foyer where usually there are none: the box office area looked like hospital outpatients, with around 40-50 people sitting in wait for returns. On the ballroom floor, a big screen was ready to relay the concert to the overflow - at first there were about 20 seats in front of it, but many more appeared as if by magic as time wore on.

In a boxed-out area near the Mandela door, a film about Barenboim was being screened, so I went to have a look. He talked about how his grandparents arrived in Buenos Aires from Russia and got married on the boat, how there was always music in the apartment because everyone who visited was there for a piano lesson with his parents, and how the Argentinian capital was a melting pot of religions and nationalities over which nobody worried for an instant. Then someone's mobile rang and instead of soaking up the maestro's words of wisdowm we were all treated to her bellowed conversation: "I'M IN THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL WATCHING A FILM ABOUT BARENBOIM, IT'S ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING..."

No mobiles in the concert, though. A saintly silence prevailed, except for coughing between movements. Barenboim strode on to huge applause. At the risk of upsetting fans here, I'd say he could give us all a lesson in how to make the most of an entrance. He stands, holding the attention for a good while, gazing about, before bowing; he generously turns his attention to each section of the audience in turn - left, centre, right, and everyone sitting behind the piano...

Rather than placing the three last sonatas together, Barenboim had chosen to mix the early, middle and late works in each programme. This one consisted of Op.14 No.1, Op.7, Op.54 and Op.111. Several points stood out a mile. One was how anybody could make the harmless little Op.14 No.1 sound like a masterpiece. The next was how Op.7, which I love and have learned, but seemed to be hearing for the first time, could suddenly shine out as the Eroica Symphony and Fidelio rolled into one. And a third: Barenboim literally made the piano sound like an orchestra. Every phrase seemed to be assigned an instrumentation, and by some bizarre alchemy the sound of that instrument came gliding out of the Steinway. No doubt about it: the final phrase before the last deep trill of the introduction of Op.111 was a trio of French horns. Don't ask how he does it: I've no idea.

Later a record producer friend remarked to me: "Normally, if I heard someone play the piano like this, I'd say he ought to become a conductor." And in terms of velocity and accuracy Barenboim's technique, to be frank, ain't what it used to be. Anyone who doesn't allow for pianists to play wrong notes or occasional unevennesses wouldn't have been happy. But if musicianship of old-fashioned, idealistic grandeur, seriousness of purpose and deep, complete assimilation of not just the music but the kernel of its spirit still counts for anything in this mad world, this was the proof.

I've recently been reading a book by Swami Omananda Puri, a.k.a. the second Mrs John Foulds (real name Maud McCarthy) which is filled with extraordinary soundbites of eastern philosophical wisdom. She asserts that Beethoven kept a copy of the Upanishads on his desk. I can't say whether or not this is true, but hearing Barenboim play the second movement of Op.111, I could believe it.

Who can interpret what lies behind late Beethoven? Yet to me it has never seemed clearer that the variations follow a mystical pattern. Simplicity and purity; growing life that builds to full tilt (if a somewhat stately version in Barenboim's hands); subsiding into exhaustion and the temptation of death's freedom; transformation of the soul beyond the body; heaven; and finally a descent into the simplicity and purity of rebirth. Too much of a mystical absorption to allow for tears, but later I compared notes with a friend who, like me, has lost much close family - we had both experienced lingering thoughts of them.

You may think all this is tripe, of course, but it's a true reflection what went through my mind listening to this concert - so take it or leave it.

Something about the afternoon felt deeply valedictory. All right, it was the last concert of a very intense series, but I know I wasn't the only person present wondering whether we will ever see Barenboim play these pieces again here. There's no particular reason to believe that we won't - but this felt like a farewell, the end of an era.

There was a good ten-second silence at the end. Then the clapping, and everyone stood up straight away. Was the applause for Barenboim's playing, or his personality, idealism and downright statesmanship in being one of the few public figures who talks any sense about the Israeli-Palestinian situation? I suspect the split was respectively about 40% to 60%.

I still prefer his old recording from the 1960s. But I'm glad I was there.

Today's article

I have a piece in The Independent today, exploring - in the wake of Barenboimania - why profundity is good box office at the moment.

Thanks to doughty reader Anne, who offered me her spare ticket for Barenboim's last recital on Sunday afternoon, I was present at the final installment of the Danny-&-Ludwig Show. I am preparing a detailed post about it, but have had One Of Those Weeks and as yet no chance to finish the thing. Check back soon.