One couldn't get into this one the other day for love or money. Annette Morreau's review (click above) really has it in a nutshell.
I did make it, though, to Barenboim's press conference last week -and have to say I've never before been moved to tears in a press conference before. Barenboim seems to have achieved what nobody else anywhere in the Middle East is able to do: bring young people from different sides together to meet one another during a shared endeavour. It's a grass-roots approach, and probably the only way to make any progress.
Five members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra were there with him; one was a young Palestinian violinist from Ramallah whose description of her endeavours to keep her musical training on the rails was deeply touching. After she'd talked about how she'd had a different teacher almost every year - they'd come in from other countries and then leave - Barenboim beamed: "Yet here she is, playing Mahler 1 in London." Two of the others, one Israeli and one Arab, pointed out that they lived just 40 minutes' drive from one another, yet there was no way they would ever have met, but for this orchestra.
The Goethe Institute has quite a good explanatory article about the orchestra's background.
They will play in Ramallah for the first time on 21st August. This is miraculous in itself. Spain - where the orchestra is based - has provided all the orchestra's youngsters with diplomatic passports for the occasion to make it possible. Barenboim's dream is that one day the orchestra will be permitted to play in every country from which its members are drawn...
I've been privileged to meet and write about a lot of fantastic musicians in the last 15 years, but if I had to pick out the greatest one of all, it has to be Barenboim. I don't believe anyone else on earth could have done what he's done for these young musicians.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
What my work is sometimes like
...when not editing my book. Have just been to Salzburg to interview a great soprano.
Monday 8 August: call from editor offering the job. Sounds fantastic. I haven't been to Salzburg for 10 years. Agree to drop everything and run.
Monday 15 August: leave house 2pm, train to Waterloo, tube to Bank, walk to Liverpool Street, Stansted Express to Stansted Airport. Meet press officer & photographer, stand in check-in queue for 3/4 of an hour with half of eastern Britain off for its summer hols. Fortunately we are not flying BA from Heathrow. 6pm take off into warm evening sun. 8.45pm arrive local time Salzburg, where someone in the sky has left a tap running. We leg it to the terminal building in our light summer sandals. Morose taxi driver takes us to hotel, whence it is too wet to even consider a gentle stroll up to the Mozartplatz. As for the festival, Cecilia Bartoli & Andras Schiff started their recital at 9pm and it is now 9.30pm, so we can't go there either. We spend a pleasant evening in the hotel restaurant eating spaghetti carbonara, then crash out.
Tuesday 16 August: the rain in Salzburg stays mainly on the press trip team. Press officer is taken ill (result of spaghetti carbonara or chilly, wet weather?). Taxi transfer to another hotel at 9am where record company has booked a suite for the day to accommodate photoshoot and interview. Soprano delayed on Austrian country roads by flooding. She eventually turns up looking bright and breezy, however, and next hour or so is in the hands of accomplished make-up and hair artist. I press my nose to wet glass and long to go out for a walk, but even with raincoat and umbrella this weather is seriously nasty and I don't fancy sitting in sodden jeans for the rest of the day. Press officer has to lie down. The 'Festspielhavs' [the hall's lettering boasts an odd 'u'] offers a morning concert at 11am: a typically earnest, heavyweight Salzburg programme full of Mahler songs. Can't handle Mahler at 11am, so remain a 'festspielhavnot'.
Photographer sets up & soprano appears in glorious concert gown looking several million dollars. The morning passes in a sea of raindrops and camera lights. 1pm: soprano is handed over to me and we lunch together in hotel cafe on the top floor, talking about Mozart while gazing at the Salzburg skyline, full of onion-domed churches and a romantic castle, which remains swathed in grey cloud and water. There are indeed mountains out there somewhere, she assures me... Great soprano talks about her repertoire, teaching, new CD and much more and I am immensely inspired by her insights, her intuition and her self-knowledge. At this moment, wet, tiring trip seems entirely worth it: one can learn a great deal from someone like this even if one can't sing!
2.30pm, great soprano goes home. Our plane isn't until 9pm so photographer, ailing press officer and I sit in cafe putting world to rights, wondering whether we can get out for a walk and see something of Salzburg. We decide against it. I wonder whether to text great violinist whose mobile number I have & who is possibly rehearsing nearby for a concert the next day, to see if I can gatecrash his rehearsal. Look at rain & decide against it: who'd keep a mobile on during a rehearsal anyway? Instead, sit in hotel suite all afternoon, trying to keep warm, drinking copious quantities of tea and reading biography of Margot Fonteyn.
6.30pm, stroll down to foyer, check out and ask for a taxi to the airport...
...and find that apparently there are no taxis to be had in the whole of Salzburg and EVERYBODY needs one. Girls at hotel desk ring every Salzburg taxi company on the internet, keep getting wrong numbers & eventually they begin to panic. An aging Austrian in black tie, accompanied by glamorous girl in high heels black suede shoes and waiting for taxi to concert at the Festspielhavs, yells at them and demands repeatedly, and of course counter-productively, whether they've even been trying. Festspielhavs is a gentle ten-minute stroll away, if that. We are aware that even if we'd got our act together earlier and booked taxi in advance, some irate festival-goer would have swiped it from under our suitcases. Traffic outside hotel door is solid. Rain tips out of sky. Panicking hotel girls retreat into Salzburgian intransigence. At 7pm it becomes clear that if we don't get out of there, fast, we may not make the plane. Press officer, who's been white until now, turns grey. Photographer needs a smoke and a pack horse for her gear. I persuade intransigent hotel girl to write down the best way to get to the airport by public transport and persuade the others to venture to nearest bus stop. A few minutes later we are at the Hauptbahnhoff, which naturally boasts a fine rank of waiting, unemployed taxis. Small airport is full of nerdy families with ballistic children waiting for last flight to Stansted.
Sit on plane reading, then stumble across a page about Nureyev that makes me realise one paragraph of my novel is full of nonsense about Russia because it's taking place ten years too late for that period of history; decide that I have to make a particular character ten years older than he is, which could cause severe complications given that I'm proofing and am not supposed to change anything. Spend rest of trip in blind despair wondering how stupid I've been in other parts of book...
10pm descend from plane. 10.50pm, luggage slowly gasps its way onto carousel. 11.10 a bus condescends to take us to car park. Photographer gives me lift to west London, but exit from M11 to North Circular is closed so we almost end up in the Blackwall Tunnel. 12.20 we get to Acton and my knight in shining dinner jacket - the Tomcat, fresh from Glyndebourne - is waiting to collect me for the last leg of the journey. Start, slowly, to feel as if it's summer again. 12.35, home & hit the whisky.
ADDENDUM, 1pm: in today's Indy, my Proms preview about the great violinist I didn't see in Salzburg: Mr Kavakos - newly nicknamed, in our house, The Chocolate Fiddler (=Leonidas chocolates...). He's playing the Berg concerto at the Prom on 25th. Should be incredible.
Monday 8 August: call from editor offering the job. Sounds fantastic. I haven't been to Salzburg for 10 years. Agree to drop everything and run.
Monday 15 August: leave house 2pm, train to Waterloo, tube to Bank, walk to Liverpool Street, Stansted Express to Stansted Airport. Meet press officer & photographer, stand in check-in queue for 3/4 of an hour with half of eastern Britain off for its summer hols. Fortunately we are not flying BA from Heathrow. 6pm take off into warm evening sun. 8.45pm arrive local time Salzburg, where someone in the sky has left a tap running. We leg it to the terminal building in our light summer sandals. Morose taxi driver takes us to hotel, whence it is too wet to even consider a gentle stroll up to the Mozartplatz. As for the festival, Cecilia Bartoli & Andras Schiff started their recital at 9pm and it is now 9.30pm, so we can't go there either. We spend a pleasant evening in the hotel restaurant eating spaghetti carbonara, then crash out.
Tuesday 16 August: the rain in Salzburg stays mainly on the press trip team. Press officer is taken ill (result of spaghetti carbonara or chilly, wet weather?). Taxi transfer to another hotel at 9am where record company has booked a suite for the day to accommodate photoshoot and interview. Soprano delayed on Austrian country roads by flooding. She eventually turns up looking bright and breezy, however, and next hour or so is in the hands of accomplished make-up and hair artist. I press my nose to wet glass and long to go out for a walk, but even with raincoat and umbrella this weather is seriously nasty and I don't fancy sitting in sodden jeans for the rest of the day. Press officer has to lie down. The 'Festspielhavs' [the hall's lettering boasts an odd 'u'] offers a morning concert at 11am: a typically earnest, heavyweight Salzburg programme full of Mahler songs. Can't handle Mahler at 11am, so remain a 'festspielhavnot'.
Photographer sets up & soprano appears in glorious concert gown looking several million dollars. The morning passes in a sea of raindrops and camera lights. 1pm: soprano is handed over to me and we lunch together in hotel cafe on the top floor, talking about Mozart while gazing at the Salzburg skyline, full of onion-domed churches and a romantic castle, which remains swathed in grey cloud and water. There are indeed mountains out there somewhere, she assures me... Great soprano talks about her repertoire, teaching, new CD and much more and I am immensely inspired by her insights, her intuition and her self-knowledge. At this moment, wet, tiring trip seems entirely worth it: one can learn a great deal from someone like this even if one can't sing!
2.30pm, great soprano goes home. Our plane isn't until 9pm so photographer, ailing press officer and I sit in cafe putting world to rights, wondering whether we can get out for a walk and see something of Salzburg. We decide against it. I wonder whether to text great violinist whose mobile number I have & who is possibly rehearsing nearby for a concert the next day, to see if I can gatecrash his rehearsal. Look at rain & decide against it: who'd keep a mobile on during a rehearsal anyway? Instead, sit in hotel suite all afternoon, trying to keep warm, drinking copious quantities of tea and reading biography of Margot Fonteyn.
6.30pm, stroll down to foyer, check out and ask for a taxi to the airport...
...and find that apparently there are no taxis to be had in the whole of Salzburg and EVERYBODY needs one. Girls at hotel desk ring every Salzburg taxi company on the internet, keep getting wrong numbers & eventually they begin to panic. An aging Austrian in black tie, accompanied by glamorous girl in high heels black suede shoes and waiting for taxi to concert at the Festspielhavs, yells at them and demands repeatedly, and of course counter-productively, whether they've even been trying. Festspielhavs is a gentle ten-minute stroll away, if that. We are aware that even if we'd got our act together earlier and booked taxi in advance, some irate festival-goer would have swiped it from under our suitcases. Traffic outside hotel door is solid. Rain tips out of sky. Panicking hotel girls retreat into Salzburgian intransigence. At 7pm it becomes clear that if we don't get out of there, fast, we may not make the plane. Press officer, who's been white until now, turns grey. Photographer needs a smoke and a pack horse for her gear. I persuade intransigent hotel girl to write down the best way to get to the airport by public transport and persuade the others to venture to nearest bus stop. A few minutes later we are at the Hauptbahnhoff, which naturally boasts a fine rank of waiting, unemployed taxis. Small airport is full of nerdy families with ballistic children waiting for last flight to Stansted.
Sit on plane reading, then stumble across a page about Nureyev that makes me realise one paragraph of my novel is full of nonsense about Russia because it's taking place ten years too late for that period of history; decide that I have to make a particular character ten years older than he is, which could cause severe complications given that I'm proofing and am not supposed to change anything. Spend rest of trip in blind despair wondering how stupid I've been in other parts of book...
10pm descend from plane. 10.50pm, luggage slowly gasps its way onto carousel. 11.10 a bus condescends to take us to car park. Photographer gives me lift to west London, but exit from M11 to North Circular is closed so we almost end up in the Blackwall Tunnel. 12.20 we get to Acton and my knight in shining dinner jacket - the Tomcat, fresh from Glyndebourne - is waiting to collect me for the last leg of the journey. Start, slowly, to feel as if it's summer again. 12.35, home & hit the whisky.
ADDENDUM, 1pm: in today's Indy, my Proms preview about the great violinist I didn't see in Salzburg: Mr Kavakos - newly nicknamed, in our house, The Chocolate Fiddler (=Leonidas chocolates...). He's playing the Berg concerto at the Prom on 25th. Should be incredible.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
August
Tom & Solti
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.
We can't let it be mid-August without putting up a picture of the cat, so here's the latest. It's a better likeness of Solti than of Tom, but I think they both look cute...
Thursday, August 11, 2005
A few reviews
...of Tuesday. Here's Hilary Finch's write-up in The Times.
And David Fanning in The Telegraph.
Last (for the moment) but not least, Andrew Clements being ever so patronising in The Guardian.
ADDENDUM: FRIDAY 12th, 9.30am: Barry Millington in The Evening Standard says: "...the concerto is ‘worth hearing for its historical interest and also for its slow movement, which is in a different class. Despite its Puccini-like opening, the Andante Semplice takes wing in an unpredictable way and Philippe Graffin, well established as one of the work’s leading interpreters, soared above the fray in rhapsodical flights of extraordinary beauty."
And David Fanning in The Telegraph.
Last (for the moment) but not least, Andrew Clements being ever so patronising in The Guardian.
ADDENDUM: FRIDAY 12th, 9.30am: Barry Millington in The Evening Standard says: "...the concerto is ‘worth hearing for its historical interest and also for its slow movement, which is in a different class. Despite its Puccini-like opening, the Andante Semplice takes wing in an unpredictable way and Philippe Graffin, well established as one of the work’s leading interpreters, soared above the fray in rhapsodical flights of extraordinary beauty."
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Just found...
...Evelio, writing absolutely wonderfully on the true nature of love and its detrimental commercialisation. Bravo, Evelio! You've done it again - made my day - as you often do!
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Tuesday morning
Only one thing to say to Philippe Graffin this morning: "MERDE!!!!"
You can listen to the Prom tonight via the internet from anywhere: here's the link.
Meanwhile... Tom and I are still reeling from yesterday: we went to see 'The Producers'. Now I know where opera houses go wrong: they're not doing this show! It's the best thing I've seen in a theatre since 'Meistersinger'. And I don't think I've laughed so much since I saw the Marx Brothers for the first time. If you are in London or New York and you have only one free evening to do something, then do this! (Unless that evening is in London tonight, in which case you have to come to the Prom...)
You can listen to the Prom tonight via the internet from anywhere: here's the link.
Meanwhile... Tom and I are still reeling from yesterday: we went to see 'The Producers'. Now I know where opera houses go wrong: they're not doing this show! It's the best thing I've seen in a theatre since 'Meistersinger'. And I don't think I've laughed so much since I saw the Marx Brothers for the first time. If you are in London or New York and you have only one free evening to do something, then do this! (Unless that evening is in London tonight, in which case you have to come to the Prom...)
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Imagine...
...playing at the Proms for the first time.
Philippe Graffin is doing this on Tuesday. Full details here.
How anyone tackles such a task is simply beyond me. I found it quite scarey enough playing to a nice little roomful of 50 people at the Elgar Birthplace Museum. The Royal Albert Hall can take around 6,000 on a good night. And this should be a good night: the BBC Concert Orchestra in a rather original all-British programme. Philippe plays the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor concerto, which is many decades overdue for a Proms performance. Here's my article from Friday's Indy about "SCT" - there's also a link on the left to my liner notes for his recording on Avie. This is not a dusty rarity. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece. If you're in London, come and cheer him on!
Philippe Graffin is doing this on Tuesday. Full details here.
How anyone tackles such a task is simply beyond me. I found it quite scarey enough playing to a nice little roomful of 50 people at the Elgar Birthplace Museum. The Royal Albert Hall can take around 6,000 on a good night. And this should be a good night: the BBC Concert Orchestra in a rather original all-British programme. Philippe plays the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor concerto, which is many decades overdue for a Proms performance. Here's my article from Friday's Indy about "SCT" - there's also a link on the left to my liner notes for his recording on Avie. This is not a dusty rarity. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece. If you're in London, come and cheer him on!
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Ooh la la!
Back from Nice, which lived up to its name. Didn't get much proof-reading done...
Speaking of France, now I'm reading up about Sacha Guitry, for reasons which I'll explain in due course. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who knows anything more about the following: it seems that this 'French Noel Coward' (should one add 'heterosexual French Noel Coward'?!?) wrote a number of 'comedies musicales' with Andre Messager, the conductor, opera house director and much-underrated composer who as a youth shared a flat with my beloved Monsieur Gabriel in Paris - they'd been students together at the Niedermeyer School and later joined forces to write the most glorious piano duet skit on Wagner's Ring Cycle entitled 'Souvernirs de Bayreuth' (hear it and die laughing!).
One of Messager's last works was a comedy, with Guitry's words, entitled 'Deburau'. It is dedicated to the memory of Gabriel Faure.
When I came across a reference to this, I pulled up short: Deburau was the surname of the hero of 'Les Enfants du Paradis', my favourite film EVER. And Messager's 'comedy' is dedicated to the memory of my favourite composer?!? In 'Les Enfants du Paradis' - made in the forties, during the war - the 19th-century genius mime actor Baptiste Deburau is played by Jean-Louis Barrault and the free-spirited woman he loves, Garance 'comme la fleur', by Arletty.
It seems a film was made of Guitry's comedy 'Deburau' in 1951, using Messager's music (sadly it seems it's now not available on video or DVD). An outline of ir that I found on the internet tells me that we are indeed talking about the same Deburau as 'Les enfants' - but the woman that Deburau loves is none other than La Dame aux Camelias, Marie Duplessis. (Camelias - comme la fleur???)
I know woefully little about Guitry, though now I've ordered some books (including a translation of 'Deburau', which is on its way from the States). What I'd like to know is: a) Did Guitry's play spark the idea for 'Les Enfants du Paradis'? It seems that he knew both Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty quite well... b) Why was Messager's version dedicated to Faure's memory? Was it merely that Faure had recently died (1924) and this happened to be the next thing that his old friend wrote? Or was there more to it than that? Had Faure had any particular interest in Deburau, the Funambules theatre, the story...? Could the pair of them perhaps have gone to the Funambules and seen the real Deburau together?!?
This kind of thing ZAPS me. Here's the subject of a film that changed my life when I was 14 or so, being linked directly with a composer who has changed my life again and again and is still doing so. It seems uncanny and I need to know more! Any leads would be greatly appreciated!
Speaking of France, now I'm reading up about Sacha Guitry, for reasons which I'll explain in due course. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who knows anything more about the following: it seems that this 'French Noel Coward' (should one add 'heterosexual French Noel Coward'?!?) wrote a number of 'comedies musicales' with Andre Messager, the conductor, opera house director and much-underrated composer who as a youth shared a flat with my beloved Monsieur Gabriel in Paris - they'd been students together at the Niedermeyer School and later joined forces to write the most glorious piano duet skit on Wagner's Ring Cycle entitled 'Souvernirs de Bayreuth' (hear it and die laughing!).
One of Messager's last works was a comedy, with Guitry's words, entitled 'Deburau'. It is dedicated to the memory of Gabriel Faure.
When I came across a reference to this, I pulled up short: Deburau was the surname of the hero of 'Les Enfants du Paradis', my favourite film EVER. And Messager's 'comedy' is dedicated to the memory of my favourite composer?!? In 'Les Enfants du Paradis' - made in the forties, during the war - the 19th-century genius mime actor Baptiste Deburau is played by Jean-Louis Barrault and the free-spirited woman he loves, Garance 'comme la fleur', by Arletty.
It seems a film was made of Guitry's comedy 'Deburau' in 1951, using Messager's music (sadly it seems it's now not available on video or DVD). An outline of ir that I found on the internet tells me that we are indeed talking about the same Deburau as 'Les enfants' - but the woman that Deburau loves is none other than La Dame aux Camelias, Marie Duplessis. (Camelias - comme la fleur???)
I know woefully little about Guitry, though now I've ordered some books (including a translation of 'Deburau', which is on its way from the States). What I'd like to know is: a) Did Guitry's play spark the idea for 'Les Enfants du Paradis'? It seems that he knew both Jean-Louis Barrault and Arletty quite well... b) Why was Messager's version dedicated to Faure's memory? Was it merely that Faure had recently died (1924) and this happened to be the next thing that his old friend wrote? Or was there more to it than that? Had Faure had any particular interest in Deburau, the Funambules theatre, the story...? Could the pair of them perhaps have gone to the Funambules and seen the real Deburau together?!?
This kind of thing ZAPS me. Here's the subject of a film that changed my life when I was 14 or so, being linked directly with a composer who has changed my life again and again and is still doing so. It seems uncanny and I need to know more! Any leads would be greatly appreciated!
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Dreams come true...
...in stages. The proofs and cover design of my book have turned up. The book will be 375 pages. The cover is perfect. I'm bowled over, because I have very little design imagination - when asked whether I had any ideas about how I wanted the jacket to look, all I could come up with was 'for goodness' sake, no lemon yellow, shocking pink, lime green or champagne glasses'! Now someone in that company, somehow, has come up with an image that is strong and simple and that says what needs to be said. The photo, font and entire style is very classy but entirely immediate. I can't quite believe how thrilled I am with it - yet have a seriously odd sensation that I always knew in some strange corner of the brain that my first novel was going to look like this. How? no idea.
Please excuse me for a couple of days while I go off to proof-read...in France.
Please excuse me for a couple of days while I go off to proof-read...in France.
Friday, July 29, 2005
Mountain excitement
Verbier tent
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.
Back from Verbier. Here's a picture of the scene outside the concert tent the other night. The tent in the picture is the Cafe Schubert, where lectures and pre-concert talks are held. It's quite some setting for music...
The quality of the performances was, as usual absolutely incredible (with one scarey exception). The highlights of our all-too-brief stay were Leonidas Kavakos, Mischa Maisky and Elena Bashkirova playing the Schubert B flat Trio; and Thomas Quasthoff, accompanied by Evgeny Kissin, singing a selection of dark-hued Schubert with a power and empathy that were positively spine-chilling.
During less than 48 hours we experienced all of this and much more. Cello masterclass with Ralph Kirshbaum, lunch & interview with the fabulous Kavakos (stopping on way into street cafe to say hi to Vengerov a few tables away), mountain cable car & glorious walk, amazing concert with Mozart played by Michala Petri, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin & various others, a scrumptious fondue, the Quastoff/Kissin gig and the most extraordinary party I've ever been to...
The only upset was a cellist called Alexander Knaizev, who - despite having Kissin as his pianist - gave the most horrible performance of sonatas by Franck and Shostakovich. I disgraced myself by getting the giggles, but I don't think I was the only one. Half the audience loved it; many others fled the moment the Franck was finished. I hung on for the Shostakovich in case it improved, but it didn't.
Some claim to like his 'intensity' - but if someone TALKED to you like that, constantly fortissimo, milking E-V-E-R-Y W-O-O-O-R-D F-O-R M-A-A-A-A-A-A-X-I-M-U-U-U-M E-M-O-T-I-O-O-O-O-N A-A-A-A-L-L T-H-E T-I-I-I-I-M-E W-I-T-H-O-U-U-T A-N-Y V-A-R-I-E-T-Y-Y-Y-Y, you would either think they were crazy or you'd go crazy yourself. Sorry, but that's not intensity. It's emotional claptrap and it has nothing, but NOTHING, to do with Franck, let alone Shostakovich (and this guy, being Russian, should at least have known better there). Plus it takes some doing to make an audience come out of a cello recital in a tent feeling as if their ears have been assaulted by an electric guitar. I was particularly disappointed because I've heard some of his recordings and liked them very much, including his solo Bach.
Anyway, win some, lose some... Verbier is beautiful, thrilling and -given the amount of serious dosh there - remarkably human. This was my fourth visit (and Tom's first) and I hope I'll be able to go back next year.
I'm now about to do extra time on the exercise bike to burn off some of that fondue...
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Sunday
OK. I think that's quite enough about Wagner for a bit. My brain's getting twisted.
I'm off to Switzerland for a flying visit to the Verbier Festival tomorrow - back rather too soon. A couple of thoughts to leave you with in the meantime, including the promised Desert Island Discs in case anyone's interested!
First, though, for the literary-minded: in the wake of the bombings in London and Egypt and the continual suicide bombing insurgency in Iraq, how are we creatives to respond? I've often been annoyed by the way that much contemporary fiction seems to be an extended version of what's happened to be in the news - the result is a lot of books that date very quickly - and even my favourite books, which on the whole don't do that, can contain elements that become dated through their 'relevance to contemporary issues'. On the other hand, there's a lot of escapism too: historical novels that bury their concerns in the distant past (though I hasten to add that I love many of those!!). Is it possible for writers and, indeed, composers to handle the impact of our changing world in a creative way that doesn't become obsessed with relevance to these issues? I'm wondering how to make my new novel feel contemporary without getting too involved in such things. It's difficult.
Enough of that - here are 8 Desert Island Discs to enjoy. I've a nasty feeling I've done this before, but can't remember when - and the list has probably changed...
1. Krystian Zimerman plays the Ravel piano concertos - with LSO/Boulez (DG). Perfection.
2. Marc-Andre Hamelin's album 'Kaleidoscope'. All his recordings are brilliant, but this is the one I play most.
3. Mozart: The Magic Flute, conducted by Klemperer with fab cast including Nikolai Gedda, Gundula Janowitz and Lucia Popp. I grew up with this & may be where I am today partly because of it.
4. Tchaikovsky. Mravinsky conducts his own selection from The Nutcracker's most meaningful moments. Another world.
5. Peter Schreier and Andras Schiff in the Schubert song cycles. I was going to choose just 'Die schone Mullerin' but have now discovered that all three are available together!
6. The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto, played by Philippe Graffin in South Africa. This is meaningful to me for long, complex reasons that I've written about before.
7. Andras Schiff plays the Goldberg Variations. Definitely can't do without this.
8. Faure. It has to be Faure. I'd like to take my own compilation of Favourite Faure, but in the absence of that, This will do nicely: historical Faure, including Thibaut & Cortot in the Violin Sonata No.1 and the Calvet Quartet with Robert Casadesus in the Piano Quartet No.1. Having said that, my ultimate Faure choice has yet to appear on CD. I'm hoping that it will do so within the next couple of years.
I'm off to Switzerland for a flying visit to the Verbier Festival tomorrow - back rather too soon. A couple of thoughts to leave you with in the meantime, including the promised Desert Island Discs in case anyone's interested!
First, though, for the literary-minded: in the wake of the bombings in London and Egypt and the continual suicide bombing insurgency in Iraq, how are we creatives to respond? I've often been annoyed by the way that much contemporary fiction seems to be an extended version of what's happened to be in the news - the result is a lot of books that date very quickly - and even my favourite books, which on the whole don't do that, can contain elements that become dated through their 'relevance to contemporary issues'. On the other hand, there's a lot of escapism too: historical novels that bury their concerns in the distant past (though I hasten to add that I love many of those!!). Is it possible for writers and, indeed, composers to handle the impact of our changing world in a creative way that doesn't become obsessed with relevance to these issues? I'm wondering how to make my new novel feel contemporary without getting too involved in such things. It's difficult.
Enough of that - here are 8 Desert Island Discs to enjoy. I've a nasty feeling I've done this before, but can't remember when - and the list has probably changed...
1. Krystian Zimerman plays the Ravel piano concertos - with LSO/Boulez (DG). Perfection.
2. Marc-Andre Hamelin's album 'Kaleidoscope'. All his recordings are brilliant, but this is the one I play most.
3. Mozart: The Magic Flute, conducted by Klemperer with fab cast including Nikolai Gedda, Gundula Janowitz and Lucia Popp. I grew up with this & may be where I am today partly because of it.
4. Tchaikovsky. Mravinsky conducts his own selection from The Nutcracker's most meaningful moments. Another world.
5. Peter Schreier and Andras Schiff in the Schubert song cycles. I was going to choose just 'Die schone Mullerin' but have now discovered that all three are available together!
6. The Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto, played by Philippe Graffin in South Africa. This is meaningful to me for long, complex reasons that I've written about before.
7. Andras Schiff plays the Goldberg Variations. Definitely can't do without this.
8. Faure. It has to be Faure. I'd like to take my own compilation of Favourite Faure, but in the absence of that, This will do nicely: historical Faure, including Thibaut & Cortot in the Violin Sonata No.1 and the Calvet Quartet with Robert Casadesus in the Piano Quartet No.1. Having said that, my ultimate Faure choice has yet to appear on CD. I'm hoping that it will do so within the next couple of years.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Wagnerama
The result of my Wednesday Wagner crisis is in The Independent today. Read it online here. The commission began rumbling on Tuesday, was confirmed Wednesday morning & I had to get it finished that day by 5.30. Voila...
Yesterday more nutcases tried to set off bombs on the London underground - thank heavens they didn't kill anyone this time. This morning the pictures are on the front page of the Indy. In the top right-hand corner, however, is a little picture of Wagner. This feels extremely weird.
Yesterday more nutcases tried to set off bombs on the London underground - thank heavens they didn't kill anyone this time. This morning the pictures are on the front page of the Indy. In the top right-hand corner, however, is a little picture of Wagner. This feels extremely weird.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Blimey...
Beethoven has out-downloaded Bono, according to The Guardian today. This really is interesting. One correspondent quoted from the BBC's message board talks about 'the democratisation of high culture' and I think that's an excellent description.
It seems clear from the BBC's Beethoven symphonies download experiment, and also from a number of conversations I had with some very interesting people yesterday about Wagner (of which more shortly), that people DO want great classical music. They just need to be able to GET AT IT easily. That doesn't mean dumbing-down or doing crossover. It just means changing the means by which the best stuff is made available.
Meanwhile here's a review of that Walkure Prom from today's Indy.
I spent yesterday in the throes of a major, unexpected Wagner crisis which may have been prompted by that Prom (no pun intended!). More of this tomorrow...
It seems clear from the BBC's Beethoven symphonies download experiment, and also from a number of conversations I had with some very interesting people yesterday about Wagner (of which more shortly), that people DO want great classical music. They just need to be able to GET AT IT easily. That doesn't mean dumbing-down or doing crossover. It just means changing the means by which the best stuff is made available.
Meanwhile here's a review of that Walkure Prom from today's Indy.
I spent yesterday in the throes of a major, unexpected Wagner crisis which may have been prompted by that Prom (no pun intended!). More of this tomorrow...
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
aspiration? or perspiration?
I wish I could say that this great tango pic courtesy of George Hunka at Superfluities was me & Tom. Unfortunately it isn't. Picture to yourself a satirical cartoon version starring Pooh and Piglet and the Woozle and it will give you a better idea of how we look. Thanks for the kind words, George; they make me feel better!
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
This thing called The Proms
In answer to Andrea, here's a quick explanation of the Proms.
'Proms' is short for BBC Promenade Concerts. It's an annual summer festival in central London at the Royal Albert Hall - reputedly the largest music festival in the world. This summer there are 74 concerts, which began last Friday and go on every day until mid September. 'Promenade' = standing. They take all the seats out of the stalls and pack in 'promenaders' - you can also stand in the gallery. Over 1400 standing places are available at every concert, sold on the door for £4. There are also plenty of seats for those who want them. But it's more fun to prom because the atmosphere is fantastic and the sound quality is best in the arena! It's top-quality stuff from beginning to end: the finest orchestras, conductors and soloists and plenty of interesting programming too. There's a whole promming subculture which is to do with etiquette inside, queuing, buying season tickets to the whole lot, etc etc. ... As it's a BBC festival, they broadcast absolutely everything on BBC Radio 3 and now that they have some digital TV channels quite a lot of the concerts also go out on BBC 4. The Last Night of the Proms is when we get the Sea Shanties, Rule Britannia, Land of Hope & Glory and Jerusalem - it's always a bone of contention for those who don't like its 'jingoistic' element, but anytime anyone talks about changing it there's an outcry (...long topic, will save it up for another time). The Proms were founded by the conductor Henry Wood 110 years ago and the Beeb took over in 1927.
Last night's Prom was a concert performance of Die Walkure with the team from the current Royal Opera House production: Antonio Pappano conducting, Waltraud Meier and Placido Domingo as Sieglinde and Siegmund, Lisa Gasteen as Brunnhilde and Bryn Terfel as Wotan. It doesn't get better than that and you could get in for £4. I regret to say I didn't hear it - because I was backstage, interviewing Domingo during Act III once his role was over!!!! :-)))
He's LOVELY...
Here's what The Indy has to say this morning.
The great news for me is that each Prom is now available to listen to online for 7 days after it takes place! Further details of how to do it here!
We'll do Desert Island Discs next time, Andrea. A British phenomenon, by the way, dating back to 1942 and originating on BBC Radio 4, and here they do 8 records, not 2.
'Proms' is short for BBC Promenade Concerts. It's an annual summer festival in central London at the Royal Albert Hall - reputedly the largest music festival in the world. This summer there are 74 concerts, which began last Friday and go on every day until mid September. 'Promenade' = standing. They take all the seats out of the stalls and pack in 'promenaders' - you can also stand in the gallery. Over 1400 standing places are available at every concert, sold on the door for £4. There are also plenty of seats for those who want them. But it's more fun to prom because the atmosphere is fantastic and the sound quality is best in the arena! It's top-quality stuff from beginning to end: the finest orchestras, conductors and soloists and plenty of interesting programming too. There's a whole promming subculture which is to do with etiquette inside, queuing, buying season tickets to the whole lot, etc etc. ... As it's a BBC festival, they broadcast absolutely everything on BBC Radio 3 and now that they have some digital TV channels quite a lot of the concerts also go out on BBC 4. The Last Night of the Proms is when we get the Sea Shanties, Rule Britannia, Land of Hope & Glory and Jerusalem - it's always a bone of contention for those who don't like its 'jingoistic' element, but anytime anyone talks about changing it there's an outcry (...long topic, will save it up for another time). The Proms were founded by the conductor Henry Wood 110 years ago and the Beeb took over in 1927.
Last night's Prom was a concert performance of Die Walkure with the team from the current Royal Opera House production: Antonio Pappano conducting, Waltraud Meier and Placido Domingo as Sieglinde and Siegmund, Lisa Gasteen as Brunnhilde and Bryn Terfel as Wotan. It doesn't get better than that and you could get in for £4. I regret to say I didn't hear it - because I was backstage, interviewing Domingo during Act III once his role was over!!!! :-)))
He's LOVELY...
Here's what The Indy has to say this morning.
The great news for me is that each Prom is now available to listen to online for 7 days after it takes place! Further details of how to do it here!
We'll do Desert Island Discs next time, Andrea. A British phenomenon, by the way, dating back to 1942 and originating on BBC Radio 4, and here they do 8 records, not 2.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Women writing wonderfully
OK, I know I'm with the Indy, but there are two very special pieces in The Guardian today.
Here's Charlotte Higgins on the wonders of ballet - something about which I couldn't agree more! I used to go to the ballet all the time when I was younger...actually, I used to dance too.....and I MISS IT.
And here is my very old friend Anna Swan writing about the mother she never knew - a trail for her book Statues Without Shadows, which is being published by Hodder & Stoughton today (having not met up for a couple of years, we've only just discovered we are with the same publisher!). It's a brave book and a powerful history. Bravo, Anna - and encore!
Here's Charlotte Higgins on the wonders of ballet - something about which I couldn't agree more! I used to go to the ballet all the time when I was younger...actually, I used to dance too.....and I MISS IT.
And here is my very old friend Anna Swan writing about the mother she never knew - a trail for her book Statues Without Shadows, which is being published by Hodder & Stoughton today (having not met up for a couple of years, we've only just discovered we are with the same publisher!). It's a brave book and a powerful history. Bravo, Anna - and encore!
Sunday, July 17, 2005
I am a newcomer to...
...TANGO.
We've been to three classes and have learned, kind of, to do a total of 8 beats. Between us, we seem to have 8 left feet. While the other 'beginners' have been in the class for several months, look relatively graceful and have the most fabulous shoes (! tango shoes are gorgeous!), we've been lumping about at the side of the room, trying to get the hold right, the stance and the attitude. The latter is the most difficult for me, because the secret of the whole thing seems to be that the man has to lead and must indicate clearly exactly what you, the woman, are supposed to do. I'm not used to this. In day to day life, I go and do my own thing and Tom joins in if/when he can. In tango, this is the biggest of all big no-nos! I reckon Tom absolutely loves this deep down and is trying not to admit it. For me, it's come as a big shock...but the music and the shoes, when I get some, are going to be worth it.
Have been listening to recordings of Piazzolla's own band from the 1940s and they are AMAZING (I can't find the CD I have on Amazon, but a quick search there on Piazzolla's name produces plenty to choose from). I don't know many dances that are that atmospheric by their very nature.
Anyway, we are absolute, absolute beginners. We have to ditch our classical tendency to do things by counting, not feeling; I have to ditch my long-buried classical ballet reflexes (20 years on, they still come back on a dance floor); we have to learn a softer, smoother method of crossing a floor, and somehow we have to learn to trust each other in a whole new way, which is very bizarre.
But it's like learning anything new: if you really want to do it, you persevere. You get inspired, not intimidated, by people who can do it already. You apply effort and commitment and time and take some lessons. And having a goal is no bad thing. We are going to Buenos Aires in January; my goal is that by the time we get there, I want to be able to hit the dance floor for an evening and not feel like a total idiot. I think Tom feels the same (hope so, anyway). It's not a crime for other people to have spent half their lives doing this, nor do I resent the fact that they have and I haven't. I just want the chance to learn now to the best of my ability, even if I'm abysmal.
We've been to three classes and have learned, kind of, to do a total of 8 beats. Between us, we seem to have 8 left feet. While the other 'beginners' have been in the class for several months, look relatively graceful and have the most fabulous shoes (! tango shoes are gorgeous!), we've been lumping about at the side of the room, trying to get the hold right, the stance and the attitude. The latter is the most difficult for me, because the secret of the whole thing seems to be that the man has to lead and must indicate clearly exactly what you, the woman, are supposed to do. I'm not used to this. In day to day life, I go and do my own thing and Tom joins in if/when he can. In tango, this is the biggest of all big no-nos! I reckon Tom absolutely loves this deep down and is trying not to admit it. For me, it's come as a big shock...but the music and the shoes, when I get some, are going to be worth it.
Have been listening to recordings of Piazzolla's own band from the 1940s and they are AMAZING (I can't find the CD I have on Amazon, but a quick search there on Piazzolla's name produces plenty to choose from). I don't know many dances that are that atmospheric by their very nature.
Anyway, we are absolute, absolute beginners. We have to ditch our classical tendency to do things by counting, not feeling; I have to ditch my long-buried classical ballet reflexes (20 years on, they still come back on a dance floor); we have to learn a softer, smoother method of crossing a floor, and somehow we have to learn to trust each other in a whole new way, which is very bizarre.
But it's like learning anything new: if you really want to do it, you persevere. You get inspired, not intimidated, by people who can do it already. You apply effort and commitment and time and take some lessons. And having a goal is no bad thing. We are going to Buenos Aires in January; my goal is that by the time we get there, I want to be able to hit the dance floor for an evening and not feel like a total idiot. I think Tom feels the same (hope so, anyway). It's not a crime for other people to have spent half their lives doing this, nor do I resent the fact that they have and I haven't. I just want the chance to learn now to the best of my ability, even if I'm abysmal.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
The ultimate consoling music
...is Schubert.
I may go on about Faure,Elgar, Korngold and the rest, but in truth, for me there is nobody to touch Schubert. He has a profound empathy with humanity's greatest conundrum - mortality - without having to hammer us on the head with it the way Mahler does. Schubert spent what few mature years he had (he died at 31) suffering from syphilis, knowing that his time would be short, knowing that he could never enjoy love without passing on a deadly disease. Read his letters and you feel the pain: a vast love for the wonders of life on earth and, at the same time, complete revulsion at the ugly side of humanity and, indeed, himself. Christopher Nupen's documentary about him is called 'The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow' - a title that couldn't be more perfect.
The music? Divine. Nothing less. There can be nothing that carries one as he does into heightened awareness of life in the moment; nothing that furrows the brain more incisively; nothing else that taps to that extent into the endless longing that is both life's torment and possibly its meaning, without ever becoming remotely self-important or pretentious.
Schubert leaves extremely vivid images behind when you hear him. I remember my mother in tears over the G flat impromptu (I used to play it a lot), myself aged 13 encountering the String Quintet and being off school for two days afterwards, Andras Schiff playing the complete cycle in the Wigmore a few years ago and snow falling outside, Uchida playing the G major Piano Sonata in the Festival Hall, hearing the Notturno for piano trio at midnight in a Norwegian cathedral; the list is endless and the effects magical beyond description.
A few days ago a friend came round to play a concerto to us and a handful of other friends. The weather was glorious and we were all happy to be together after last week's tragedies. Our friend played exquisitely; afterwards I cooked what even I felt was a reasonably sumptuous dinner; and we sat around until after midnight listening to music and getting through a fair bit of Beaujolais. Finding the right music didn't seem to be easy, though; we experimented with Eddy Duchin (my famous relation!), Kapustin, Strauss, Debussy...and finally someone found the Schubert B flat Piano Trio in the recording by Thibaud, Cortot and Casals. This piece has a thousand and one associations for me already, but I doubt I'll ever hear it again without seeing my own lounge by lamplight, the doors wide open into the dark garden, golden reflections in the glass, the closeness of people I love, the awareness of loss lingering unseen amid all the sweetness.
I think that one reason I want to write is to preserve something of such experience.
I may go on about Faure,Elgar, Korngold and the rest, but in truth, for me there is nobody to touch Schubert. He has a profound empathy with humanity's greatest conundrum - mortality - without having to hammer us on the head with it the way Mahler does. Schubert spent what few mature years he had (he died at 31) suffering from syphilis, knowing that his time would be short, knowing that he could never enjoy love without passing on a deadly disease. Read his letters and you feel the pain: a vast love for the wonders of life on earth and, at the same time, complete revulsion at the ugly side of humanity and, indeed, himself. Christopher Nupen's documentary about him is called 'The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow' - a title that couldn't be more perfect.
The music? Divine. Nothing less. There can be nothing that carries one as he does into heightened awareness of life in the moment; nothing that furrows the brain more incisively; nothing else that taps to that extent into the endless longing that is both life's torment and possibly its meaning, without ever becoming remotely self-important or pretentious.
Schubert leaves extremely vivid images behind when you hear him. I remember my mother in tears over the G flat impromptu (I used to play it a lot), myself aged 13 encountering the String Quintet and being off school for two days afterwards, Andras Schiff playing the complete cycle in the Wigmore a few years ago and snow falling outside, Uchida playing the G major Piano Sonata in the Festival Hall, hearing the Notturno for piano trio at midnight in a Norwegian cathedral; the list is endless and the effects magical beyond description.
A few days ago a friend came round to play a concerto to us and a handful of other friends. The weather was glorious and we were all happy to be together after last week's tragedies. Our friend played exquisitely; afterwards I cooked what even I felt was a reasonably sumptuous dinner; and we sat around until after midnight listening to music and getting through a fair bit of Beaujolais. Finding the right music didn't seem to be easy, though; we experimented with Eddy Duchin (my famous relation!), Kapustin, Strauss, Debussy...and finally someone found the Schubert B flat Piano Trio in the recording by Thibaud, Cortot and Casals. This piece has a thousand and one associations for me already, but I doubt I'll ever hear it again without seeing my own lounge by lamplight, the doors wide open into the dark garden, golden reflections in the glass, the closeness of people I love, the awareness of loss lingering unseen amid all the sweetness.
I think that one reason I want to write is to preserve something of such experience.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Friday night
I'd like to tell you all about the spirit of London's music-lovers on Friday night when my friends of the Razumovsky Ensemble were unlucky enough to have their Wigmore Hall concert. The concert the night before - the day of the bombings - had been cancelled, but Oleg and the hall decided to go ahead as planned, although the audience was half of what it should have been, understandably enough.
I went along with a friend who feels, as I do, that we must defy terrorism and not let our daily lives be disrupted. We drove in, but I took the train home and had to get on the tube to return to Waterloo. If I couldn't do it that day, I might never have done it again. And, bolstered by the extraordinary music-making I'd been witnessing, it wasn't so difficult after all.
When the evening's total of four musicians took the stage for the Faure C minor Piano Quartet at the start of the second half (the first having been string players without pianist), Philippe turned to the audience and declared, "We'd like to thank you for coming to this concert tonight." Before he could say anything else, someone called back from the stalls, "Thank you for playing for us!!" Hugely appreciative round of applause followed; and then a transcendental account of the Faure, filled with elan, refinement, sensitivity, poetry and sensuality in perfect balance.
Life is very short, and often shorter than we could have imagined. Music is one of the best things we can experience during it. If we can clock in to that depth of beauty, that intensity of poetic vision, then something about life will have been worth living, despite the horrors around us. It's not just diversion, entertainment, escapism or something to do after work. Oscar Wilde wrote: "It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection." It is enrichment, defiance, assertion, power, but, above all, a form of love - a universal love that enters, draws out and re-expresses a deep-seated spirit shared, in some obscure corner of the soul, by most people on earth. We are, and in the modern world must struggle to remain, more than animals who go about daily life eating and sleeping and surviving and buying things. I feel it is our ability to appreciate and create art, in whatever form, that raises us to the apex of all that humanity at its best can be.
I went along with a friend who feels, as I do, that we must defy terrorism and not let our daily lives be disrupted. We drove in, but I took the train home and had to get on the tube to return to Waterloo. If I couldn't do it that day, I might never have done it again. And, bolstered by the extraordinary music-making I'd been witnessing, it wasn't so difficult after all.
When the evening's total of four musicians took the stage for the Faure C minor Piano Quartet at the start of the second half (the first having been string players without pianist), Philippe turned to the audience and declared, "We'd like to thank you for coming to this concert tonight." Before he could say anything else, someone called back from the stalls, "Thank you for playing for us!!" Hugely appreciative round of applause followed; and then a transcendental account of the Faure, filled with elan, refinement, sensitivity, poetry and sensuality in perfect balance.
Life is very short, and often shorter than we could have imagined. Music is one of the best things we can experience during it. If we can clock in to that depth of beauty, that intensity of poetic vision, then something about life will have been worth living, despite the horrors around us. It's not just diversion, entertainment, escapism or something to do after work. Oscar Wilde wrote: "It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection." It is enrichment, defiance, assertion, power, but, above all, a form of love - a universal love that enters, draws out and re-expresses a deep-seated spirit shared, in some obscure corner of the soul, by most people on earth. We are, and in the modern world must struggle to remain, more than animals who go about daily life eating and sleeping and surviving and buying things. I feel it is our ability to appreciate and create art, in whatever form, that raises us to the apex of all that humanity at its best can be.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
A thought from Faure
"The work of the imaginatiion consists in attempting to formulate all that one wants that is best, everything that goes beyond reality... To my mind, art, and above all music, consists in lifting us as far as possible above what is."
(Gabriel Faure in a letter to his son, Philippe Faure-Fremiet, August 1908)
(Gabriel Faure in a letter to his son, Philippe Faure-Fremiet, August 1908)
Friday, July 08, 2005
This morning
Things are working once again around London, but in a low-key manner. The count from the attacks yesterday is 38 dead, 700 injured and a whole city traumatised.
My friends of the Razumovsky Ensemble are not going to find it easy to recruit an audience for their Wigmore Hall concert tonight, wonderful though they and their programme are. I am determined to get there. I am not going to be afraid. At 7.30pm I shall be in that hall and if I have to get on the tube, then get on it I shall. I refuse to let a bunch of thugs stop me.
And so to some recordings to recommend, as promised yesterday.
What can one do but reach for the Elgar? The obvious thing, I suppose, is Jacqueline du Pre playing the Cello Concerto - her first recording of it, with John Barbirolli conducting. But the Violin Concerto is more consoling, more reflective, and, to my ears, more beautiful. Try the classic recording by the teenaged Yehudi Menuhin, conducted by Elgar himself.
Alternatively, this next one is extremely good value: Hugh Bean plays the concerto and the violin sonata, and you also get the Piano Quintet, the Serenade, the String Quartet and the Concert Allegro with John Ogdon. Hugh Bean's tone is incredible. I once heard him performing the Brahms Horn Trio at the Wigmore Hall and when he began the tune, his violin sounded like the horn.
While talking British violin performances, I mustn't leave Tasmin out. Her recording of the Delius Violin Sonatas with pianist Piers Lane is fabulous. I'm a secret Delius fan. It doesn't always do to admit this, mysteriously enough, but I think he's GREAT. The Walk to the Paradise Garden is one of the most exquisite pieces ever written by someone who was technically British. Here's The Halle Orchestra with John Barbirolli.
A close-run second is Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, recorded here by our Tazza.
All of this is, however, very English although London is today a tremendously multicultural place - one of the things that we're proudest of here. Multicultural celebrations are rare in early 20th-century British music, and for a recording that celebrates the little that there was, turn to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto which is both stirring and gorgeous in this recording by Philippe Graffin. Philippe is playing it at the Proms on 9 August and I find it absolutely extraordinary that it should be buried in a programme of British Light Music - since it is neither particularly light nor typically British. Classical music gets a lot of stick for consisting mainly of music by dead white men. The one time we're treated to some extremely good music by a dead half-black man, however, it has to be presented either as a rarity (by Hyperion, who recorded it with Anthony Marwood) or a trifle (by whoever plans the Proms these days)! Ouch. This recording takes it as seriously as it deserves and, as I've said before, is more than the sum of its parts, since it's the first commercial recording made in South Africa since the fall of Apartheid and features the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra which struggles valiantly day to day for its very existence.
Ultimately, though, for songs of love and fun and quality and British creativity at its best, there has to be the Beatles... and Revolver is my favourite album.
My friends of the Razumovsky Ensemble are not going to find it easy to recruit an audience for their Wigmore Hall concert tonight, wonderful though they and their programme are. I am determined to get there. I am not going to be afraid. At 7.30pm I shall be in that hall and if I have to get on the tube, then get on it I shall. I refuse to let a bunch of thugs stop me.
And so to some recordings to recommend, as promised yesterday.
What can one do but reach for the Elgar? The obvious thing, I suppose, is Jacqueline du Pre playing the Cello Concerto - her first recording of it, with John Barbirolli conducting. But the Violin Concerto is more consoling, more reflective, and, to my ears, more beautiful. Try the classic recording by the teenaged Yehudi Menuhin, conducted by Elgar himself.
Alternatively, this next one is extremely good value: Hugh Bean plays the concerto and the violin sonata, and you also get the Piano Quintet, the Serenade, the String Quartet and the Concert Allegro with John Ogdon. Hugh Bean's tone is incredible. I once heard him performing the Brahms Horn Trio at the Wigmore Hall and when he began the tune, his violin sounded like the horn.
While talking British violin performances, I mustn't leave Tasmin out. Her recording of the Delius Violin Sonatas with pianist Piers Lane is fabulous. I'm a secret Delius fan. It doesn't always do to admit this, mysteriously enough, but I think he's GREAT. The Walk to the Paradise Garden is one of the most exquisite pieces ever written by someone who was technically British. Here's The Halle Orchestra with John Barbirolli.
A close-run second is Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending, recorded here by our Tazza.
All of this is, however, very English although London is today a tremendously multicultural place - one of the things that we're proudest of here. Multicultural celebrations are rare in early 20th-century British music, and for a recording that celebrates the little that there was, turn to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto which is both stirring and gorgeous in this recording by Philippe Graffin. Philippe is playing it at the Proms on 9 August and I find it absolutely extraordinary that it should be buried in a programme of British Light Music - since it is neither particularly light nor typically British. Classical music gets a lot of stick for consisting mainly of music by dead white men. The one time we're treated to some extremely good music by a dead half-black man, however, it has to be presented either as a rarity (by Hyperion, who recorded it with Anthony Marwood) or a trifle (by whoever plans the Proms these days)! Ouch. This recording takes it as seriously as it deserves and, as I've said before, is more than the sum of its parts, since it's the first commercial recording made in South Africa since the fall of Apartheid and features the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra which struggles valiantly day to day for its very existence.
Ultimately, though, for songs of love and fun and quality and British creativity at its best, there has to be the Beatles... and Revolver is my favourite album.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
today
After the best day ever in London yesterday, today we have the worst.
We are all in shock, but there are a few positive things to say:
1. We will NOT be cowed by terrorists. London is, and will remain, the great capital city that it truly is.
2. The casualties are appalling, but we must be grateful that it wasn't worse than it is.
3. The emergency services have been marvellous.
My thanks to everyone who has phoned and written today - your concern is a signal of the solidarity we all feel in the face of such horrific and cowardly attacks on innocent civilians.
We are all in shock, but there are a few positive things to say:
1. We will NOT be cowed by terrorists. London is, and will remain, the great capital city that it truly is.
2. The casualties are appalling, but we must be grateful that it wasn't worse than it is.
3. The emergency services have been marvellous.
My thanks to everyone who has phoned and written today - your concern is a signal of the solidarity we all feel in the face of such horrific and cowardly attacks on innocent civilians.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Chocolate heaven?
A couple of e-mails resulting from my comments about male & female rival visions of heaven raise a few questions. One lady in Lithuania is a tad confused because she loves Vilnius and dislikes chocolate. A friend from New York writes that his idea of heaven would be Bruges populated by leggy blondes, which sounds to me like trying to have your cake and eat it (or at least your chocolate)! But I suspect that Korngold would have agreed. His opera Die tote Stadt is based on a book named Bruges-la-Morte by the Belgian symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach - and there's no greater chocaholic in music history than dear old Erich Wolfgang K.
I'm wondering whether to change the heading on this blog to 'music, writing and food in London, UK'....
I'm wondering whether to change the heading on this blog to 'music, writing and food in London, UK'....
OH MY GOD
We got the 2012 Olympics!! This is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE!!!
It could just be the best thing that has ever happened to London - this city is going to have to get its transport & infrastructure act together within seven years, and being obliged to do so is probably the only way it ever will.
It's wonderful to hear people on TV declaring that London's going to be the greatest city on the planet. As a kid, I was always convinced that that was the case; but through the 1980s, watching the place grow run-down, demoralised and neglected, it was depressing to feel that we were being relegated to what one well-known writer described during the John Major years as 'the bargain basement of Europe'. That's no longer true. Things have been on the up for some years now, speaking on average (there are, of course, still parts of the city which are horrendously deprived, including the eastern districts where the Olympics are to take place), but if this can't complete the transformation then nothing can.
The London bid seems to have succeeded not least because it talked about inspiring young people. The arts need to inspire young people with a similar world-class example - and in music, as well as in sport, it's only the combination of the finest practitioners, accessibility (not least physical accessibility) and solid media coverage that can provide it strongly and widely enough. Arts and music movers and shakers need to start thinking NOW about how we can join in most effectively.
It could just be the best thing that has ever happened to London - this city is going to have to get its transport & infrastructure act together within seven years, and being obliged to do so is probably the only way it ever will.
It's wonderful to hear people on TV declaring that London's going to be the greatest city on the planet. As a kid, I was always convinced that that was the case; but through the 1980s, watching the place grow run-down, demoralised and neglected, it was depressing to feel that we were being relegated to what one well-known writer described during the John Major years as 'the bargain basement of Europe'. That's no longer true. Things have been on the up for some years now, speaking on average (there are, of course, still parts of the city which are horrendously deprived, including the eastern districts where the Olympics are to take place), but if this can't complete the transformation then nothing can.
The London bid seems to have succeeded not least because it talked about inspiring young people. The arts need to inspire young people with a similar world-class example - and in music, as well as in sport, it's only the combination of the finest practitioners, accessibility (not least physical accessibility) and solid media coverage that can provide it strongly and widely enough. Arts and music movers and shakers need to start thinking NOW about how we can join in most effectively.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Yum
One of the most interesting effects of performing is what it does to one's eating habits. Since we finished our little run of recitals, my chocolate consumption has reduced by 500%. Miraculous, but true. Does the chocolate produce the highs & lows associated with giving concerts, or does one eat it to forestall those dips in energy? (If the latter, afraid it doesn't work.)
I'm enjoying having my life back, as well as the healthier diet. Am cooking dinner for friends today, via my current favourite recipe book: Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer. It's a special treat to be confined to the kitchen late on Saturday afternoon because BBC Radio Three has jazz 4-6.30pm and I love Geoff Smith's Jazz Record Requests - there's always something wonderful or fascinating or rare, if not several of all three. So any guests who come over on a Saturday are more or less guaranteed a more elaborate meal than they'd get here during the rest of the week! ...oh well, so much for that healthy diet...
Speaking of which, here's a recent revelation about the nature of masculine & feminine alternative heavens. Apparently, for most man, the best alternative to heaven would be a place with an endless supply of leggy blondes (maybe this place?). Us girls think differently. Our alternative heaven has got to be Bruges: the town, I believe, that has the highest concentration of Belgian chocolate shops per square metre!
I'm enjoying having my life back, as well as the healthier diet. Am cooking dinner for friends today, via my current favourite recipe book: Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer. It's a special treat to be confined to the kitchen late on Saturday afternoon because BBC Radio Three has jazz 4-6.30pm and I love Geoff Smith's Jazz Record Requests - there's always something wonderful or fascinating or rare, if not several of all three. So any guests who come over on a Saturday are more or less guaranteed a more elaborate meal than they'd get here during the rest of the week! ...oh well, so much for that healthy diet...
Speaking of which, here's a recent revelation about the nature of masculine & feminine alternative heavens. Apparently, for most man, the best alternative to heaven would be a place with an endless supply of leggy blondes (maybe this place?). Us girls think differently. Our alternative heaven has got to be Bruges: the town, I believe, that has the highest concentration of Belgian chocolate shops per square metre!
Thursday, June 30, 2005
The Pagan Serenity Prayer
I love this. An unfamiliar version of a familiar yet perennial plea..
PAGAN SERENITY PRAYER
God & Goddess grant me:
The power of water, to accept with ease & grace what I cannot change
The power of fire, for the energy & courage to change the things I can.
The power of Air, for the ability to know the difference.
And the power of Earth, for the strength to continue my path.
PAGAN SERENITY PRAYER
God & Goddess grant me:
The power of water, to accept with ease & grace what I cannot change
The power of fire, for the energy & courage to change the things I can.
The power of Air, for the ability to know the difference.
And the power of Earth, for the strength to continue my path.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
On Friday 8 July...
...the place to be is the Wigmore Hall, where a concert is taking place that's rather special to me. If you introduce a violinist to a cellist over dinner one day and suddenly they're playing your favourite piece of music together at the Wigmore Hall, you can't help feeling a little responsible! Anyway, this performance by the Razumovsky Ensemble is the result. Online booking here via the Wigmore website, or phone the box office on 020 935 2141.
The Razumovsky Ensemble is Oleg Kogan's baby. He's hit on a most unusual but highly creative modus vivendi for it, drafting in top-notch musicians who don't often have the chance to get together and play chamber music, but give everything when they do. The line-up is never exactly the same, but the combinations are always intensely combustible - every one of their Wigmore gigs that I have heard has absolutely raised the roof. For this concert, Philippe and Asdis are joining the line-up for the first time. And I am so thrilled that they are playing my beloved Faure C minor Piano Quartet that I'm ready to turn somersaults.
Here's what The Times said about the Razumovskys a few concerts ago: "They open up a world of music-making fabulously rich in tone colours, ensemble precision and lyrical sweep of a kind rarely met this side of paradise. Each Razumovsky member may be king of their chosen instrument, but they scale the heavens as a team."
Need I say more? Except: BE THERE!
The Razumovsky Ensemble is Oleg Kogan's baby. He's hit on a most unusual but highly creative modus vivendi for it, drafting in top-notch musicians who don't often have the chance to get together and play chamber music, but give everything when they do. The line-up is never exactly the same, but the combinations are always intensely combustible - every one of their Wigmore gigs that I have heard has absolutely raised the roof. For this concert, Philippe and Asdis are joining the line-up for the first time. And I am so thrilled that they are playing my beloved Faure C minor Piano Quartet that I'm ready to turn somersaults.
Here's what The Times said about the Razumovskys a few concerts ago: "They open up a world of music-making fabulously rich in tone colours, ensemble precision and lyrical sweep of a kind rarely met this side of paradise. Each Razumovsky member may be king of their chosen instrument, but they scale the heavens as a team."
Need I say more? Except: BE THERE!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Oyyyyyyyyyyy
I reckon it's the beginning of the end.
I've been reading what I initially thought was a wonderful book, published in a serious literary imprint, with an exotic setting and a nice arty photo on the cover. I was riveted from the first page. But a little way in, the brakes screeched: I was reading - and I'm not making this up - the words "he was stood". The hero was standing in a doorway. In a literary novel he should not have "been stood" anywhere. In NO novel purporting to be written in halfway decent English should one see the expression "he was stood" - or anything similar. Nor was this a one-off accident. Later, I found a reference to a bunch of characters who "were sat" in a bar. It's not as if this writer was trying to create a colloquial local voice (the novel's hero is supposedly a writer himself and would probably rather have died than use this moronic construction). And the author's biog suggests he's someone who should have known better.
No doubt there'll be plenty wrong with my own book - but at least not that...
I would like to excise from the current use of English the following turns of phrase"
"was sat/stood" - in every permutation;
"concertize" - you don't concertize. You give a concert. Please note that I use 'z' here and not 's' for a reason;
"I'm, like,....and she's, like,....and then I'm, like,...." as a way of explaining who said what;
"Buy your CD's here" - note incorrect use of apostrophe. Not long ago I had an email from a youngster working for a reputable music agency who didn't have a CLUE where to put his apostrophes. If I were the artist he's working for, I'd be worried about my chances.
Oh heck, there has got to be a better way than this to spend a Saturday evening...
I've been reading what I initially thought was a wonderful book, published in a serious literary imprint, with an exotic setting and a nice arty photo on the cover. I was riveted from the first page. But a little way in, the brakes screeched: I was reading - and I'm not making this up - the words "he was stood". The hero was standing in a doorway. In a literary novel he should not have "been stood" anywhere. In NO novel purporting to be written in halfway decent English should one see the expression "he was stood" - or anything similar. Nor was this a one-off accident. Later, I found a reference to a bunch of characters who "were sat" in a bar. It's not as if this writer was trying to create a colloquial local voice (the novel's hero is supposedly a writer himself and would probably rather have died than use this moronic construction). And the author's biog suggests he's someone who should have known better.
No doubt there'll be plenty wrong with my own book - but at least not that...
I would like to excise from the current use of English the following turns of phrase"
"was sat/stood" - in every permutation;
"concertize" - you don't concertize. You give a concert. Please note that I use 'z' here and not 's' for a reason;
"I'm, like,....and she's, like,....and then I'm, like,...." as a way of explaining who said what;
"Buy your CD's here" - note incorrect use of apostrophe. Not long ago I had an email from a youngster working for a reputable music agency who didn't have a CLUE where to put his apostrophes. If I were the artist he's working for, I'd be worried about my chances.
Oh heck, there has got to be a better way than this to spend a Saturday evening...
Friday, June 24, 2005
Return to the old country
Oldest church
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.
It's a little like meeting people: it can take two encounters to make the penny drop, a double dose to take in the full measure of somebody special. So it was with Vilnius.
Above, the oldest church in Vilnius, or so it says inside. You can see from this picture the kind of loving care that has been lavished on its restoration. There are around 130 churches in Vilnius and they are all architectural gems (though I can do without the Russian orthodox one that contains a glass casket of three pickled 14th-century saints in white stockings!).
Only one synagogue is left. And it's closed. It appears that the old divide between the mystics and the intellectuals has resurfaced in a rather unexpected way. All very complicated... I hear, however, that there is a long-term project to restore the old Jewish sites of the city and a very long-term hope that perhaps one day the Great Synagogue, destroyed by the Nazis, could be reconstructed. At the moment there is an open basketball court where it once stood.
I'm very, very glad that I went back to Vilnius to re-order my impressions after the vaguely surreal experiences I had there during my first visit last year (see archive for June 04). It was an incredible trip, full of extraordinary music and wonderful people. I met most of my friends from last year and made some new ones too. Tom came with me and was bowled over by the whole experience; we both feel that this place, in one way or another, gets under one's skin. You can't escape the horrors of the past, however much you try to look forward rather than back; but maybe this is why the place has such a sense of soul.
It was once a melting pot; and perhaps it will be again, since during two days we encountered Indian classical music (the incredible Wahajat Khan in collaboration with the Ciurlionis Quartet), a travelling Norwegian choir, a free concert of Lithuanian premieres and Mischa Maisky performing Bruch's Kol Nidrei looking extraordinarily like the Vilna Gaon himself. Whatever the programme notes had managed to dredge up about the lack of Jewishness in this piece of music, I can think of little that would be more moving than listening to it being performed in "Vilne". Several members of the audience around us were in tears too.
The language seems impenetrable at first - it's like nothing you've heard anywhere before (unless you happen to know Latvian). I've managed to remember Labas (hello), Aciu (thank you - sounds like you're sneezing) and I svekata (cheers - memorable not only through quantity of use but because it sounds like "is the cat here?"). As for the food, I'm still not keen on the potato pancakes, but can heartily recommend my favourite soup EVER: Saltibarsciai. Essentially it's cold borscht with hot potatoes. Here's a recipe, which I'll be trying at home shortly...
Vilnius is, in one word, extraordinary. Don't ask how or why, but something tells me that this won't be my last visit.
A thought
Have just leaned via BBC Breakfast news that tickets to the Glastonbury Festival this year cost £125 each. Thunderstorms forecast for today. So much for that old argument that opera houses are elitist because of the price - though that's often less than this pop bonanza in the English countryside. If people are willing to pay £125 to go and listen to loud noise in the middle of a field of mud, why should they be told they're elitist if they pay the same money to hear quality stuff in beautiful surroundings? OK, it rains at Glyndebourne too, but the mud factor is considerably diminished...
Just back from Vilnius. Will report fully when I have put my brain back together.
Just back from Vilnius. Will report fully when I have put my brain back together.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Notorious?
I'm amused to see that one of the music sites I visit most often, The Classical Source, is running a banner ad for pet food deliveries. Are we music lovers also such notorious animal lovers? It certainly made Solti's day (though he has been comatose in the heat under a rose bush for most of it). I regret to say that I've come across a cat nicknamed Clawed DePussy and one answering to Milhaud - and the possibilities of Faure and Furry don't really bear thinking about. At this rate it will all unRavel...
Anyway, I am off to Lithuania tomorrow, where the weather's going to be slightly cooler. I've just been sent an advance copy of the CD of the concert I went there to hear last year, Vytautas Barkauskas's Duo Concertante - it will be released by Avie Records on 27 June. Very excited to be going there again to straighten out and consolidate last year's impressions. At least it will stop me sitting at my desk blogging lousy puns after getting tipsy on ginger beer and too much sun.
Also, NB, final tonight of Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. I've managed to miss the run-up to it - I look at my Freeview box so infrequently that I've actually forgotten how it works - but am looking forward to hearing the English contestant Andrew Kennedy, whom I heard on the radio the other day by accident without knowing who he was and found exceptionally impressive. Lovely, open-toned lyric tenor, selected by some of the UK's best young artists schemes and evidently going places. The Lithuanian candidate, incidentally, looks seriously gorgeous, but I haven't heard him and don't know whether he has reached the final.
Anyway, I am off to Lithuania tomorrow, where the weather's going to be slightly cooler. I've just been sent an advance copy of the CD of the concert I went there to hear last year, Vytautas Barkauskas's Duo Concertante - it will be released by Avie Records on 27 June. Very excited to be going there again to straighten out and consolidate last year's impressions. At least it will stop me sitting at my desk blogging lousy puns after getting tipsy on ginger beer and too much sun.
Also, NB, final tonight of Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. I've managed to miss the run-up to it - I look at my Freeview box so infrequently that I've actually forgotten how it works - but am looking forward to hearing the English contestant Andrew Kennedy, whom I heard on the radio the other day by accident without knowing who he was and found exceptionally impressive. Lovely, open-toned lyric tenor, selected by some of the UK's best young artists schemes and evidently going places. The Lithuanian candidate, incidentally, looks seriously gorgeous, but I haven't heard him and don't know whether he has reached the final.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Heatwave...
Argument this morning on the TV over whether one or two days of blistering sunshine, such as we're now having, constitutes a heat wave. No idea of the correct definition, but it's a scorcher and poor Solti is a very hot cat.
I've done some very nice interviews this week, including composer Jonathan Dove (for Indy) and violinist Nikolaj Znaider (for Strad) - both great guys and terrific musicians in totally different ways. It's a relief to get back to normal and not have to play the piano. Summer is shaping up super-hectic, which hadn't been the idea - I am supposed to sit at my desk and write my new book, not go gadding off to four or five different festivals, but that's life... I shouldn't complain since I will be returning to Vilnius and Verbier and adding some more.
Too hot to carry on thinking now. Will try again soon...
I've done some very nice interviews this week, including composer Jonathan Dove (for Indy) and violinist Nikolaj Znaider (for Strad) - both great guys and terrific musicians in totally different ways. It's a relief to get back to normal and not have to play the piano. Summer is shaping up super-hectic, which hadn't been the idea - I am supposed to sit at my desk and write my new book, not go gadding off to four or five different festivals, but that's life... I shouldn't complain since I will be returning to Vilnius and Verbier and adding some more.
Too hot to carry on thinking now. Will try again soon...
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Coming up for air
I hadn't thought further ahead than 10th June for weeks and now suddenly it's the 12th. Reaching the end of last week, it's quite a surprise to discover that the concerts are OVER and the book is FINISHED - all at once.
Final concert was at Woodhouse Copse in the hills near Dorking, Surrey - a fabulous place with a marvellous acoustic, a delicious Steinway and the most beautiful gardens. They are going to stage Dido & Aeneas there in early September and it's well worth a visit.
Meanwhile, RITES OF SPRING has gone back to its publisher with my final edits...next thing will be proofreading in a few weeks' time.
Have been too absorbed in all this to blog about Krystian Zimerman's amazing recital at the Festival Hall last Thursday...but will try to correct this soon. He IS amazing. He's really, really amazing.
Proper blogging to resume once I've got my breath.
Final concert was at Woodhouse Copse in the hills near Dorking, Surrey - a fabulous place with a marvellous acoustic, a delicious Steinway and the most beautiful gardens. They are going to stage Dido & Aeneas there in early September and it's well worth a visit.
Meanwhile, RITES OF SPRING has gone back to its publisher with my final edits...next thing will be proofreading in a few weeks' time.
Have been too absorbed in all this to blog about Krystian Zimerman's amazing recital at the Festival Hall last Thursday...but will try to correct this soon. He IS amazing. He's really, really amazing.
Proper blogging to resume once I've got my breath.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Aw, shucks....
I'm very touched by all the moral support I've been receiving, directly and indirectly, from friends visible and invisible, over these concerts. Special thanks to Bart at The Well-Tempered Blog, where our Elgar gig takes second place only to detailed reports of nothing less than the Van Cliburn Piano Competition (which sounds as if it has a worthy winner in Alexander Kobrin).
Lack of blogging here this week is not only down to practising but also to the fact that I have to finalise the text of my novel NOW. It is about to go off to be typeset, which means that anything that I don't change now will probably outlive me on a shelf somewhere. Today I also had my first glimpse of the "blurb", or draft for it, that will go on the back cover. When I started my 'professional' life, thinking it would be nice to combine music and writing, I never thought that I'd find myself preparing my "first" novel for typesetting AND doing my first full-length, ticket-selling recital since student days within the same WEEK at the age of - oh well, never mind...
As if that wasn't enough, my brother got married on Saturday!
By the end of this week, both novel and concerts will be complete and I can get back to blogging in earnest.
Lack of blogging here this week is not only down to practising but also to the fact that I have to finalise the text of my novel NOW. It is about to go off to be typeset, which means that anything that I don't change now will probably outlive me on a shelf somewhere. Today I also had my first glimpse of the "blurb", or draft for it, that will go on the back cover. When I started my 'professional' life, thinking it would be nice to combine music and writing, I never thought that I'd find myself preparing my "first" novel for typesetting AND doing my first full-length, ticket-selling recital since student days within the same WEEK at the age of - oh well, never mind...
As if that wasn't enough, my brother got married on Saturday!
By the end of this week, both novel and concerts will be complete and I can get back to blogging in earnest.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
The Elgar conundrum
Tom & Jess Elgar house
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.
Here's a picture of me & Tom outside the Elgar Birthplace Museum yesterday. If you've never been, go and see this place - it's wonderful, full of treasures, exquisitely maintained by a team that knows its Elgar inside out and backwards.
Our concert was in the visitor centre and I can say, rather smugly, that it was quite full...We got interviewed live on BBC Radio Hereford too! Most flattering of all was that Elgar's great-niece turned up. And she told us all about the time she met Uncle Edward when she was a little girl.
Well, the evening seems to have been a real success. We got home about midnight feeling exceedingly pleased with ourselves.
Here's the conundrum: beforehand, for weeks, I felt FRIGHTFUL. Lots of those last-thing-at-night conversations with Tom in which I came up with many permutations of "Why the hell are you making me do this? I'm a writer, for God's sake!" During the journey to Worcester, I found myself wishing that the car would break down or I'd collapse or - well, anything rather than have to do the concert. But then afterwards I felt FABULOUS. This was a day we'll both remember fondly for the rest of our lives. As Tom says: "Of course it's always easier to do nothing, but..."
So there we are. It's torture. It's misery. And now we can't wait to do it again. Ridiculous? Totally. True? Oh yes.
Elgar would have been 148 today. Happy birthday, Uncle Edward!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Our concert on Friday 10 June
Just to remind everyone that next Friday, 10 June, Tom and I are playing in the 'Music at Woodhouse' series in Surrey. Woodhouse is a beautiful little private venue in the North Downs, not far from Dorking. Gorgeous gardens, top-class atmosphere. Here's the address:
Woodhouse Copse
Holmbury St Mary
Surrey
RH5 6NL
England
Email: woodhousemusic@dsl.pipex.com
Phone for enquiries: 01306 730403
Fax: 01306 730956
And our programme:
10 June 8p.m - 'Entente Cordiale', a recital
Tom Eisner, violin
Jessica Duchen, piano
EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934): Violin Sonata in E minor
Allegro, Romance (Andante), Allegro non troppo
Sospiri
La Capricieuse
Interval
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918): La plus que lente (arr. Leon Roques)
GABRIEL FAURE (1845-1924): Violin Sonata No.1 in A major, Op.13
Allegro molto, Andante, Allegro vivo, Allegro quasi presto
This is what we're playing at the Elgar Birthplace Museum tomorrow (1 June) as well, 7.30pm start.
SATURDAY 4 JUNE UPDATE: We've dropped the Delius piece & are replacing it with Elgar's 'Sospiri'. Nothing personal about Freddy - and I'm sorry to lose my lovely reading about when Elgar visited Delius in 1933 and told him what it's like to fly in an aeroplane - but we've played the Legende rather too much and it sort of doesn't work any more. Besides, Sospiri is just wonderful and nobody ever plays it.
Woodhouse Copse
Holmbury St Mary
Surrey
RH5 6NL
England
Email: woodhousemusic@dsl.pipex.com
Phone for enquiries: 01306 730403
Fax: 01306 730956
And our programme:
10 June 8p.m - 'Entente Cordiale', a recital
Tom Eisner, violin
Jessica Duchen, piano
EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934): Violin Sonata in E minor
Allegro, Romance (Andante), Allegro non troppo
Sospiri
La Capricieuse
Interval
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918): La plus que lente (arr. Leon Roques)
GABRIEL FAURE (1845-1924): Violin Sonata No.1 in A major, Op.13
Allegro molto, Andante, Allegro vivo, Allegro quasi presto
This is what we're playing at the Elgar Birthplace Museum tomorrow (1 June) as well, 7.30pm start.
SATURDAY 4 JUNE UPDATE: We've dropped the Delius piece & are replacing it with Elgar's 'Sospiri'. Nothing personal about Freddy - and I'm sorry to lose my lovely reading about when Elgar visited Delius in 1933 and told him what it's like to fly in an aeroplane - but we've played the Legende rather too much and it sort of doesn't work any more. Besides, Sospiri is just wonderful and nobody ever plays it.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Conductor cat in residence
Solti on the bench
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.
I am hostage to my piano again - recital with Tom at the Elgar Birthplace Museum on Wednesday 1 June, a.k.a. the day after tomorrow. So, in the absence of anything refreshingly new to blog about, here is a picture of Solti, our conductor cat in residence. Sir Georg does love to sit on the garden bench of a sunny afternoon.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
More about yesterday
Here's what The Guardian has to say about Paul Kildea's resignation from the Wigmore Hall. And The Classical Source has the official version released by the hall's PR.
I could say a few things too, but I'm not going to.
I spent yesterday evening there listening to Rustem Hayroudinoff playing the socks off the complete Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninov. I've admired Rustem's playing for years and have always felt angry that he's not had the attention he deserves, except in a vote of confidence by Chandos, for which he's made three recordings (his Dvorak Concerto, with the BBC Philharmonic and Noseda, is just out).
What we heard last night was the performance of a mature and deep-thinking artist who understands Rachmaninov's mind as if from the inside and delivers his music in the finest Russian tradition with a huge, deep, beautiful tone and superb elan, which increased as the recital progressed. The great E flat minor number was an exceptional treat. What I loved most was that he did not shy away from Rachmaninov's big emotional issues. It's often seen as an asset to be 'cool' about such things and not accentuate the emotional content of such intensely romantic music. Rustem, thank heavens, doesn't seem to agree with that. He sounds as if he is confirming what I have come to feel too: that if you deny great feeling, you deny life, never mind music, its essential meaning. That doesn't mean that the playing was 'over the top', however - rather, it was profoundly felt and totally sincere.
Here's a nice review from The Classical Source.
I could say a few things too, but I'm not going to.
I spent yesterday evening there listening to Rustem Hayroudinoff playing the socks off the complete Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninov. I've admired Rustem's playing for years and have always felt angry that he's not had the attention he deserves, except in a vote of confidence by Chandos, for which he's made three recordings (his Dvorak Concerto, with the BBC Philharmonic and Noseda, is just out).
What we heard last night was the performance of a mature and deep-thinking artist who understands Rachmaninov's mind as if from the inside and delivers his music in the finest Russian tradition with a huge, deep, beautiful tone and superb elan, which increased as the recital progressed. The great E flat minor number was an exceptional treat. What I loved most was that he did not shy away from Rachmaninov's big emotional issues. It's often seen as an asset to be 'cool' about such things and not accentuate the emotional content of such intensely romantic music. Rustem, thank heavens, doesn't seem to agree with that. He sounds as if he is confirming what I have come to feel too: that if you deny great feeling, you deny life, never mind music, its essential meaning. That doesn't mean that the playing was 'over the top', however - rather, it was profoundly felt and totally sincere.
Here's a nice review from The Classical Source.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
It's all happening here...
So today I get a press release that says Paul Kildea is to leave the Wigmore Hall to concentrate on his conducting career. He's been artistic director for just two years. Now 'the Trustees are to consider the best way forward' for London's finest and most beloved chamber music venue.
Will report back on anything further I hear about this. Meanwhile I am off to...yes, the Wigmore Hall itself, where Rustem Hayroudinoff is about to play a great deal of Rachmaninov.
Will report back on anything further I hear about this. Meanwhile I am off to...yes, the Wigmore Hall itself, where Rustem Hayroudinoff is about to play a great deal of Rachmaninov.
Monday, May 23, 2005
"2005", the opera
My post about "1984" seems to have generated quite a noise (if a blog can be said to be noisy), not least from Clive Davis (hi Clive, I sense a kindred spirit there!), 'Pliable' at The Overgrown Path and Tim Worstall, who kindly credits me with a touch of class. Among other things, I find I've been praised for having the courage to change my view about this opera.
This got me thinking:
1. I didn't change my view, because I didn't have one. I'd read the libretto and thought it excellent; I'd ploughed through all the background material provided by the ROH, which told me that the team involved were thoroughly professional; but I had had no access to even a note of the music. So I didn't make a judgement in my Indy article, because I had nothing to judge.
2. That's the problem with writing about world premieres before they happen. Nobody can guarantee what they're going to sound like.
3. What really 'narked' me about some of the writing in the British press was that some of my respected colleagues decided to trash the thing BEFORE they'd heard a note, simply because a) Maazel was paying for some of it himself, b) he'd never written an opera before, c) some unnamed source in the ROH had told The Guardian that it was 'crap' (unnamed sources are so useful, aren't they?! I've only ever used one once - years ago, in a piece for The Guardian... Long story for another occasion). The tone of these writers were such that anyone would have thought Prince Charles had tried his hand at writing an opera - not someone who has been highly respected in the musical world for nearly half a century and is currently musical director of the NY Philharmonic. I seem to remember that once upon a time someone accused of a crime used to be innocent until proven guilty. That's a principle I like to uphold. OK, so the outcome wasn't so great, but it did look like it was worth giving the thing a chance.
Anyway, I'm not really a critic. I am now - oh yes yes yes - a NOVELIST! At the kitchen table I am currently surrounded by piles of pages from Novel No.1, just back from the copy-editor. I've got two weeks to finalise the text before it goes to be typeset. Anything I don't change now will outlive me on a shelf somewhere. In between wondering whether a reference to cafe latte has to be italicised, whether the cat really says 'miaow', not 'meow' and whether the Russian character is still too much like - oh, never mind who - I've been pinching myself and wondering how this happened at all. Someone has EDITED my NOVEL??? Someone actually agreed to publish it? I am dreaming, aren't I?
Perhaps one day it'll be a good source for an opera called "2005". If so, I shall choose the composer myself.
This got me thinking:
1. I didn't change my view, because I didn't have one. I'd read the libretto and thought it excellent; I'd ploughed through all the background material provided by the ROH, which told me that the team involved were thoroughly professional; but I had had no access to even a note of the music. So I didn't make a judgement in my Indy article, because I had nothing to judge.
2. That's the problem with writing about world premieres before they happen. Nobody can guarantee what they're going to sound like.
3. What really 'narked' me about some of the writing in the British press was that some of my respected colleagues decided to trash the thing BEFORE they'd heard a note, simply because a) Maazel was paying for some of it himself, b) he'd never written an opera before, c) some unnamed source in the ROH had told The Guardian that it was 'crap' (unnamed sources are so useful, aren't they?! I've only ever used one once - years ago, in a piece for The Guardian... Long story for another occasion). The tone of these writers were such that anyone would have thought Prince Charles had tried his hand at writing an opera - not someone who has been highly respected in the musical world for nearly half a century and is currently musical director of the NY Philharmonic. I seem to remember that once upon a time someone accused of a crime used to be innocent until proven guilty. That's a principle I like to uphold. OK, so the outcome wasn't so great, but it did look like it was worth giving the thing a chance.
Anyway, I'm not really a critic. I am now - oh yes yes yes - a NOVELIST! At the kitchen table I am currently surrounded by piles of pages from Novel No.1, just back from the copy-editor. I've got two weeks to finalise the text before it goes to be typeset. Anything I don't change now will outlive me on a shelf somewhere. In between wondering whether a reference to cafe latte has to be italicised, whether the cat really says 'miaow', not 'meow' and whether the Russian character is still too much like - oh, never mind who - I've been pinching myself and wondering how this happened at all. Someone has EDITED my NOVEL??? Someone actually agreed to publish it? I am dreaming, aren't I?
Perhaps one day it'll be a good source for an opera called "2005". If so, I shall choose the composer myself.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Don't give up the day job, Maestro
After interviewing Maazel about "1984" for the Indy and then reading the clutch of appalling reviews that followed the premiere, I wanted to give the poor thing a chance and make up my own mind. So Tom and I went to see it last night.
The staging was brilliant. The singing and acting were stunning. The orchestra sounded marvellous. The libretto is well written and well constructed and you could hear all the words, rendering the surtitles (yes, for an opera in English) redundant. We even had the voice of Jeremy Irons doing the telescreen propaganda. Yes, the quality of the performance and the production were absolutely world class, Royal Opera House at its very finest. But the music....oh deariedeariedear.
When I read the libretto, when writing that mega-article, I'd visualised the whole thing in my head and my ears. Unfortunately, what I imagined turned out to be rather more exciting and moving than the sounds that assailed us yesterday. A few of my gripes are that sensitivity to words was non-existant (silly repetitions, amateurish stresses, lack of imagination), colouristic imagination was equally lacking (one thing I liked - the single coloratura singer over a few phrases of the Big Brother chorus - but that was it), dramatic moments that should have been moving or at least touching were not, because the music was so ineffective, the pace never seemed to vary and when it did it was unbelievably crass (build up to climax of scene two by getting faster and raising the pitch. Yawn.) Etceteraetceteraetcetera.... I must concede that my various colleagues who panned this thing were dead right: it should NOT have been put on at Covent Garden.
Tom nodded off after the first 15 minutes. The only time he began to look interested was when he thought the leading lady was going to get her kit off, but she didn't.
Didn't anyone tell Maazel how 'Oranges and Lemons, Say the Bells of St Clement's' goes? He could have got the correct tune from any ice-cream van. Or is it perhaps under copyright?
The staging was brilliant. The singing and acting were stunning. The orchestra sounded marvellous. The libretto is well written and well constructed and you could hear all the words, rendering the surtitles (yes, for an opera in English) redundant. We even had the voice of Jeremy Irons doing the telescreen propaganda. Yes, the quality of the performance and the production were absolutely world class, Royal Opera House at its very finest. But the music....oh deariedeariedear.
When I read the libretto, when writing that mega-article, I'd visualised the whole thing in my head and my ears. Unfortunately, what I imagined turned out to be rather more exciting and moving than the sounds that assailed us yesterday. A few of my gripes are that sensitivity to words was non-existant (silly repetitions, amateurish stresses, lack of imagination), colouristic imagination was equally lacking (one thing I liked - the single coloratura singer over a few phrases of the Big Brother chorus - but that was it), dramatic moments that should have been moving or at least touching were not, because the music was so ineffective, the pace never seemed to vary and when it did it was unbelievably crass (build up to climax of scene two by getting faster and raising the pitch. Yawn.) Etceteraetceteraetcetera.... I must concede that my various colleagues who panned this thing were dead right: it should NOT have been put on at Covent Garden.
Tom nodded off after the first 15 minutes. The only time he began to look interested was when he thought the leading lady was going to get her kit off, but she didn't.
Didn't anyone tell Maazel how 'Oranges and Lemons, Say the Bells of St Clement's' goes? He could have got the correct tune from any ice-cream van. Or is it perhaps under copyright?
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Old music never dies, it just loses its appeal...
Hyperion has lost its appeal against Sawkins and what this means for the future of musical copyright as we know it is currently anybody's guess. What is clear is that it's lawyers, not musicians, who stand to benefit the most; and music-lovers who will lose out.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Speed date
Have just seen an item on Newsnight about a policeman who's been let off speeding while merely trying out his new car, despite driving at over 150 miles an hour on the motorway. Apparently this was because the judge decided that he was 'like a concert pianist' who has to practise to stay perfect.
Does this mean I could drive at c150 mph coming back from our Elgar concert in Malvern on 1 June without fear of reprisal? I shall officially be a concert pianist that evening, after all - and we'd be home in an hour.
Does this mean I could drive at c150 mph coming back from our Elgar concert in Malvern on 1 June without fear of reprisal? I shall officially be a concert pianist that evening, after all - and we'd be home in an hour.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Mystery on the coast
The 'piano man' of Sheerness has been making waves in the news here. One of the most bizarre things anyone has ever heard of.
One cynical soul of my acquaintance pointed out the event's uncanny similarity to a wonderful British film called 'Ladies in Lavender' in which a handsome young Polish violinist is shipwrecked on a beach and rescued by Maggie Smith and Judy Dench, who then a) nurse him back to health, b) help him establish his career, c) fall in love with him, despite being 50 years his senior... If you were a pianist, says my pal (not that I am...), and you wanted publicity above everything else on earth and you'd seen that film, what would you do? I pointed out that the Piano Man, picked up on 7 April, has apparently not spoken at all and I don't think I could go for 5 weeks without saying a word. To which said pal remarked, "well, YOU wouldn't..." - which could, of course, mean a multitude of things.
Apparently the response to the BBC appeal has been immense, so the mystery may yet be unravelled. All of us in the blogosphere will be watching for developments with eagle eyes.
One cynical soul of my acquaintance pointed out the event's uncanny similarity to a wonderful British film called 'Ladies in Lavender' in which a handsome young Polish violinist is shipwrecked on a beach and rescued by Maggie Smith and Judy Dench, who then a) nurse him back to health, b) help him establish his career, c) fall in love with him, despite being 50 years his senior... If you were a pianist, says my pal (not that I am...), and you wanted publicity above everything else on earth and you'd seen that film, what would you do? I pointed out that the Piano Man, picked up on 7 April, has apparently not spoken at all and I don't think I could go for 5 weeks without saying a word. To which said pal remarked, "well, YOU wouldn't..." - which could, of course, mean a multitude of things.
Apparently the response to the BBC appeal has been immense, so the mystery may yet be unravelled. All of us in the blogosphere will be watching for developments with eagle eyes.
Friday, May 13, 2005
What one learns...
Yesterday was what one could term 'instructive'.
Stephen Kovacevich had very kindly offered to let us do a 'play in' at his place to help us prepare for our recitals in June. It's one thing to play in your front room for the neighbours, quite another to play in an unfamiliar room on an unfamiliar piano in front of a group of frighteningly musical friends: one step further towards the Real Concert Setting. So along we went.
Oh, the things one learns...
Strange how after just two days the programme came out sounding entirely different. The Elgar Sonata went like a dream - it came together as never before and said everything we wanted it to say. The Delius Legende now goes faster than it used to; one friend who particularly loves it thinks we should slow it down again. There was much to be pleased with in the Faure A major sonata (and yesterday was Faure's 160th birthday!). But one notices other matters in this context that were never apparent before.
This is particularly true of energy and pacing - applying not only to the music but to oneself. Mistake number one: practising and rehearsing for three or four hours in the morning, then practising at Stephen's place for an hour and a half before the 'performance'. We were, obviously, knackered before we began... As for the flow of energy in the music, our programme involved two high-emotion sonatas with the Delius as a breather in between; and we thought that finishing with three short Debussy numbers and two Elgar salon pieces would work after the Faure. But the Faure is such a high-energy piece that after it the pace simply sagged and we felt we never got off the ground again. With the help of two clever and experienced friends at the end, we've decided to lose all the Debussy except possibly La plus que lente, to drop Elgar's Sospiri and to finish with the Faure. (Fine with me - as long as I don't have to start the entire programme with the ant-heap of a piano solo that begins that sonata, anything is OK.)
It was afterwards that the weird things started happening. Notably, Tom collapsed. Why? The hot room? The exhaustion? Something he'd eaten? First he started feeling odd and turned a greenish shade of white. Then he cut his finger on somethingorother and there was rather a lot of blood, which made me come over queer too (I'm idiotically squeamish about blood), then he went to the bathroom and fainted briefly, and I sat in the kitchen with my head down trying not to faint in sympathy; then someone bandaged up Tom's finger, after which he lay on the landing with his feet up saying he felt better and then he had to go and be sick and then somehow we got him out of the house, into the car and home. Stephen was marvellous about it...poor guy, I wonder if that will be the last time he offers to let friends perform at his home......
Whatever we learned yesterday, I'm glad that we learned it at a 'dress rehearsal' rather than the 'real' concerts. Hopefully in two weeks' time, we will have sorted out the programme and will be able to keep away from our instruments for the better part of the day. And I hope that finally the end will justify the means.
Stephen Kovacevich had very kindly offered to let us do a 'play in' at his place to help us prepare for our recitals in June. It's one thing to play in your front room for the neighbours, quite another to play in an unfamiliar room on an unfamiliar piano in front of a group of frighteningly musical friends: one step further towards the Real Concert Setting. So along we went.
Oh, the things one learns...
Strange how after just two days the programme came out sounding entirely different. The Elgar Sonata went like a dream - it came together as never before and said everything we wanted it to say. The Delius Legende now goes faster than it used to; one friend who particularly loves it thinks we should slow it down again. There was much to be pleased with in the Faure A major sonata (and yesterday was Faure's 160th birthday!). But one notices other matters in this context that were never apparent before.
This is particularly true of energy and pacing - applying not only to the music but to oneself. Mistake number one: practising and rehearsing for three or four hours in the morning, then practising at Stephen's place for an hour and a half before the 'performance'. We were, obviously, knackered before we began... As for the flow of energy in the music, our programme involved two high-emotion sonatas with the Delius as a breather in between; and we thought that finishing with three short Debussy numbers and two Elgar salon pieces would work after the Faure. But the Faure is such a high-energy piece that after it the pace simply sagged and we felt we never got off the ground again. With the help of two clever and experienced friends at the end, we've decided to lose all the Debussy except possibly La plus que lente, to drop Elgar's Sospiri and to finish with the Faure. (Fine with me - as long as I don't have to start the entire programme with the ant-heap of a piano solo that begins that sonata, anything is OK.)
It was afterwards that the weird things started happening. Notably, Tom collapsed. Why? The hot room? The exhaustion? Something he'd eaten? First he started feeling odd and turned a greenish shade of white. Then he cut his finger on somethingorother and there was rather a lot of blood, which made me come over queer too (I'm idiotically squeamish about blood), then he went to the bathroom and fainted briefly, and I sat in the kitchen with my head down trying not to faint in sympathy; then someone bandaged up Tom's finger, after which he lay on the landing with his feet up saying he felt better and then he had to go and be sick and then somehow we got him out of the house, into the car and home. Stephen was marvellous about it...poor guy, I wonder if that will be the last time he offers to let friends perform at his home......
Whatever we learned yesterday, I'm glad that we learned it at a 'dress rehearsal' rather than the 'real' concerts. Hopefully in two weeks' time, we will have sorted out the programme and will be able to keep away from our instruments for the better part of the day. And I hope that finally the end will justify the means.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Turn again, kitty
I share a blogger design template with someone extremely important in this neck of the south west London woods: Whittington, the diary-keeping cat of our new Lib Dem MP, Susan Kramer. Solti (who is, of course, orange by nature) is dead impressed.
In fact, Solti is planning to write to Whittington to ask him to intercede with his eminent keeper to the following effect. Since cats are the best de-stressers in Britain, they make an invaluable contribution to their owners' quality of life and therefore to the country's economy. Spend between 15 and 30 minutes a day playing with and cuddling your kittycat and you will feel like a new individual. Your mood and therefore your work can only improve as a result. Therefore, argues Solti, all cat-keeping costs - including vet bills, reduced-calorie-formula cat food, scratching posts, sheepskin kitty beds and catnip mice - should be made available tax-free. And self-employed cat owners should be able to tax-deduct the lot. Please, Whittington, he meows, ask Susan to present this to Tony at the first possible opportunity?
The runthrough, by the way, ran. Another one tomorrow...
In fact, Solti is planning to write to Whittington to ask him to intercede with his eminent keeper to the following effect. Since cats are the best de-stressers in Britain, they make an invaluable contribution to their owners' quality of life and therefore to the country's economy. Spend between 15 and 30 minutes a day playing with and cuddling your kittycat and you will feel like a new individual. Your mood and therefore your work can only improve as a result. Therefore, argues Solti, all cat-keeping costs - including vet bills, reduced-calorie-formula cat food, scratching posts, sheepskin kitty beds and catnip mice - should be made available tax-free. And self-employed cat owners should be able to tax-deduct the lot. Please, Whittington, he meows, ask Susan to present this to Tony at the first possible opportunity?
The runthrough, by the way, ran. Another one tomorrow...
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
If I were a real pianist....
...I would be one of the ones who doesn't show up. I would cancel any concert for any excuse. I wouldn't want to do them.
So guess why I'm not a (real) pianist? That's why.
Tom and I have our first runthrough of our Entente Cordiale programme tonight. It's an enormous source of stress for me, but of absolutely no significance to anyone else because we're just playing to a bunch of terribly obliging neighbours in our front room! Nevertheless, it's had me practising all morning, then lying in bed with churning stomach all afternoon, eating far too much chocolate, breaking out in those patches of dry skin that I get on my face and hands when I'm stressed, and, worse, having to tell my editor at the Indy that actually no, I can't turn round the piece he wants me to do by the end of tomorrow. (He's nice. He's letting me do it next week instead. Thank heavens.)
Of course every musician undergoes stress over their concerts, but the proportion of reward to anguish has to be such that it's worth it. Even 40% stress and 60% reward would tip the balance in favour. What I undergo is 80% stress and 20% reward - and the latter only if things go well. If I make stupid mistakes, that proportion goes down. All I can say today is that it seemed a good idea at the time, when we planned it all last autumn, but now that the season is upon us, I would rather be doing ANYTHING but this. But until the end of 10 June, I am a prisoner to my piano.
"It is the three-legged monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on..." as Shakespeare might well have said.
So guess why I'm not a (real) pianist? That's why.
Tom and I have our first runthrough of our Entente Cordiale programme tonight. It's an enormous source of stress for me, but of absolutely no significance to anyone else because we're just playing to a bunch of terribly obliging neighbours in our front room! Nevertheless, it's had me practising all morning, then lying in bed with churning stomach all afternoon, eating far too much chocolate, breaking out in those patches of dry skin that I get on my face and hands when I'm stressed, and, worse, having to tell my editor at the Indy that actually no, I can't turn round the piece he wants me to do by the end of tomorrow. (He's nice. He's letting me do it next week instead. Thank heavens.)
Of course every musician undergoes stress over their concerts, but the proportion of reward to anguish has to be such that it's worth it. Even 40% stress and 60% reward would tip the balance in favour. What I undergo is 80% stress and 20% reward - and the latter only if things go well. If I make stupid mistakes, that proportion goes down. All I can say today is that it seemed a good idea at the time, when we planned it all last autumn, but now that the season is upon us, I would rather be doing ANYTHING but this. But until the end of 10 June, I am a prisoner to my piano.
"It is the three-legged monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on..." as Shakespeare might well have said.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Beethoven and the Ghost of Hampton Court
A very happy experience yesterday at the Kingston Readers Festival, which is currently one of the best things about life in south-west London. They'd asked me to do an open interview with the American pianist Robert Taub, who's currently in the middle of playing all the Beethoven sonatas at Hampton Court Palace and has written an extremely good book about them. He's also a fantastic guy and a great communicator. The whole evening went with quite a swing: we were in a superb studio in Kingston University, the audience asked lots of interesting questions, Bob gave expert demonstrations throughout and we managed to encompass matters from the evolution of pianos to the evolution of Beethoven's thinking to the time that Bob got locked inside Hampton Court after one recital and was mistaken for the place's resident ghost!
Thanks to this festival, there's a feast for book-lovers in Kingston this month. My agent is among a number of publishing professionals taking part in a discussion on May 9th called 'Writing: a suitable job for a woman?' [answer as I see it: it's not a suitable job for anybody, but we do it because we just have to do it...'] and novelist Maggie O'Farrell is among the literary luminaries, on May 25th. Full details at the website.
Meanwhile, I've discovered a blog for pianophiles: Pianophilia written by Bart Collins. Bart has a plethora of interesting stuff up there, including the complete list of contestants for the Van Cliburn Competition, links to the forthcoming Chopin Competition in Warsaw and a fab story about how the new Pope's piano couldn't get into the papal apartment on the Vatican top floor! Adding you to blogroll right away, Bart.
The sun is shining and Labour has been re-elected, but with a vastly reduced majority. Our local Lib Dem candidate, Susan Kramer, won comfortably in this constituency. Tom had the appropriate orange sticker on his violin case and I was extremely tempted to scrub out 'Susan' and write 'Gidon' instead (and alter the appropriate A to E, of course). But - aren't I good? - I didn't do it.
Thanks to this festival, there's a feast for book-lovers in Kingston this month. My agent is among a number of publishing professionals taking part in a discussion on May 9th called 'Writing: a suitable job for a woman?' [answer as I see it: it's not a suitable job for anybody, but we do it because we just have to do it...'] and novelist Maggie O'Farrell is among the literary luminaries, on May 25th. Full details at the website.
Meanwhile, I've discovered a blog for pianophiles: Pianophilia written by Bart Collins. Bart has a plethora of interesting stuff up there, including the complete list of contestants for the Van Cliburn Competition, links to the forthcoming Chopin Competition in Warsaw and a fab story about how the new Pope's piano couldn't get into the papal apartment on the Vatican top floor! Adding you to blogroll right away, Bart.
The sun is shining and Labour has been re-elected, but with a vastly reduced majority. Our local Lib Dem candidate, Susan Kramer, won comfortably in this constituency. Tom had the appropriate orange sticker on his violin case and I was extremely tempted to scrub out 'Susan' and write 'Gidon' instead (and alter the appropriate A to E, of course). But - aren't I good? - I didn't do it.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Votes count
Here in the UK it is Election Day. In this general election campaign, many of the words that matter to me - the arts, Europe, the environment and transport improvement - have barely been heard from any politicians' lips. Of course we're all upset about Iraq. BUT STILL, I URGE EVERY UK CITIZEN: DO NOT STAY AT HOME TODAY. Get out there and place your X on that page! Don't you remember what Britain was like under the Tories? You wanna let THEM get back in? You want the man who introduced the Poll Tax to be our prime minister? No, of course you don't! So for goodness' sake, go and vote. And if you don't feel any of the parties truly reflect your thinking, then simply vote for whoever, in your area, is most likely to defeat the Tory candidate outright! If it's Labour, bite the bullet and accept them as the lesser of those particular evils - after all, the Tories would have dispatched those troops to Iraq faster than you can say "UN resolution". Allowing them to win simply to protest at Blair's actions would be the ultimate in cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Remember, my sisters, that Mrs Pankhurst and her comrades used to chain themselves to railings, and worse, for the sake of winning women the right to vote. Now you must use that right, or else democracy is dead.
Remember, my sisters, that Mrs Pankhurst and her comrades used to chain themselves to railings, and worse, for the sake of winning women the right to vote. Now you must use that right, or else democracy is dead.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Big Brother is listening to you...or not
Here's the Guardian's take on 1984 at Covent Garden, which has been less than well reviewed today. The gist of this report is that the whole thing is basically a vanity project because Maazel has put his own money into it and that someone (unnamed) within the ROH has described the opera as 'crap'. The cost to the ROH has been about £500,000, the cost of a normal opera like Rigoletto, or half of a normal 'non vanity' premiere.
I can't help reflecting that the vast majority of new operas are actually crap. As they always have been. The immortal strains of La Boheme, Die Meistersinger and even Don Giovanni were always the tip of the iceberg. For every successful and enduring opera, there must be at least 20 that bite the dust the minute they are aired. As they say, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince, and you have to listen to a lot of contemporary crap before you find something that really is worth the money that its company has devoted to it. Tom Ades's operas do so well that I've never yet been able to get into one, so I can't judge them. But in the meantime, I was less than thrilled by Nicholas Maw's 'Sophie's Choice', a Covent Garden commission which had its moments but which I would be quite happy never to hear again. As for Birtwistle - well, really, the amount of money that must have gone into HIS operas really doesn't bear thinking about. Critics love them, for some reason best known to themselves; but I have never yet met one member of the general public who regarded them as anything but 'crap'. Other works I remember sitting through include 'Golem' by John Casken (at the QEH, admittedly) and Robin Holloway's 'Clarissa', hampered by a fearful production at ENO donkey's years ago; both could usefully have been left in peace in someone's bottom drawer. All of these together must have cost the public purse a lot more than £0.5m and frankly Maazel's work has as good a chance as any of them of making an impact or, more likely, not. Does the Guardian really think that it's better to have Covent Garden fork out the full subsidised whack for officially approved, establishment-accepted crap? Crap is still crap, whoever foots the bill.
Meanwhile Andrew Lovett writes to me from Cambridge about his new opera with digital video, 'Abraham on Trial' , which DOES sound interesting. World premiere is at The Junction, Cambridge, on 20 May. Full details here. As usual, the really creative stuff does not take place within the establishment heartlands.
I can't help reflecting that the vast majority of new operas are actually crap. As they always have been. The immortal strains of La Boheme, Die Meistersinger and even Don Giovanni were always the tip of the iceberg. For every successful and enduring opera, there must be at least 20 that bite the dust the minute they are aired. As they say, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince, and you have to listen to a lot of contemporary crap before you find something that really is worth the money that its company has devoted to it. Tom Ades's operas do so well that I've never yet been able to get into one, so I can't judge them. But in the meantime, I was less than thrilled by Nicholas Maw's 'Sophie's Choice', a Covent Garden commission which had its moments but which I would be quite happy never to hear again. As for Birtwistle - well, really, the amount of money that must have gone into HIS operas really doesn't bear thinking about. Critics love them, for some reason best known to themselves; but I have never yet met one member of the general public who regarded them as anything but 'crap'. Other works I remember sitting through include 'Golem' by John Casken (at the QEH, admittedly) and Robin Holloway's 'Clarissa', hampered by a fearful production at ENO donkey's years ago; both could usefully have been left in peace in someone's bottom drawer. All of these together must have cost the public purse a lot more than £0.5m and frankly Maazel's work has as good a chance as any of them of making an impact or, more likely, not. Does the Guardian really think that it's better to have Covent Garden fork out the full subsidised whack for officially approved, establishment-accepted crap? Crap is still crap, whoever foots the bill.
Meanwhile Andrew Lovett writes to me from Cambridge about his new opera with digital video, 'Abraham on Trial' , which DOES sound interesting. World premiere is at The Junction, Cambridge, on 20 May. Full details here. As usual, the really creative stuff does not take place within the establishment heartlands.
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