Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff) to Mike Prince (Corey Stoll) in Billions, Season 7, Episode 6, minute 36:20:
Sometimes quitting isn’t capitulation. Sometimes it shows grit and wisdom.”
Author Archive for peter
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Concert Concat 2024
This post is one in a sequence which lists live music I have heard, as best my memory allows. I update this as time permits. In some cases, I am also motivated to write about what I heard.
Other posts in this collection can be found here.
- Juan Perez Floristan, piano recital at Wigmore Hall, Thursday 11 April 2024. The program was:
- Ligeti: Musica ricercata (1951-3)
- Alberto Ginastera: Danzas argentinas, Op. 2 (1937)
- Musorgsky: Pictures from an Exhibition (1874)
For an encore, Mr Floristan played one of Schubert’s Moment Musicaux. The hall was about three-quarters full. This was a powerful and emotional recital, with very fine playing, especially in the Musorgsky. The dances by Ginastera were short with a variety of moods and emotions; they would each make a fine encore piece.
- Elias String Quartet in the first of 4 concerts of the String Quartets of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Wigmore Hall, Sunday 7 April 2024.
- Felix Mendelssohn: Four Pieces for String Quartet, Op. 81 Posth. (1847, 1847, 1843 and 1827)
- Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E Flat (1834)
- Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor, Op. 80 (1847)
- Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment: Bach’s Easter Oratorio and two cantatas at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London, Wednesday 27 March 2024.
- Erfreut euch, ihr Herzen (Rejoice, you hearts), BWV 66
- Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden (Stay with us, for evening falls) BWV 6
- Oster-Oratorium, BWV 249
On ambition
Chuck Rhoades (Paul Giamatti) in Billions (Season 7, Episode 2, 11:45):
If a fella doesn’t have his eye on something, how’s he gonna know where he’s going?”
Loud Living in Cambridge
I was most fortunate this week to hear Jan Lisiecki in an outstanding recital at the West Road Concert Hall, Department of Music, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, on 26 February 2024, in a concert sponsored by Camerata Musica Cambridge. West Road Hall is a fine modern hall with very nice acoustics, and was fully packed. The hall management turned off the lights over the audience (as in a theatre), which should happen more often. Perhaps that darkness helped create the atmosphere of great seriousness this performance had. I later learnt that this recital was the twelfth time in the series that Mr Lisiecki had played the Preludes program.
Oratory at Nudgee
This is a short post to record for history a very fine speech by Mr Oscar Roati, School Captain of St Joseph’s Nudgee College, Brisbane, Australia, at the Investiture Ceremony for the 2024 Senior Class on 24 January 2024. Apparently, his father Alex Roati was a Vice-Captain and his two brothers were both Captains of Nudgee. The speech can be seen here, from minute 41:20.
Vale: Peter Schickele (1935-2024)
The composer and musician Peter Schickele, manager of that lesser-known last son of JS Bach, PDQ Bach, has just died. He was heavily influenced by Spike Jones, whose music was a strong presence in my household growing up. With the death last year of Barry Humphries, it feels like the 1950s may now just have ended.
From his obituary in The New York Times, Mr Schickele is quoted as having said in an interview with the Times in 2015:
“Years ago I used to watch Victor Borge, still concertizing in his 80s. And it never occurred to me that I would do the same. I’m amazed that P.D.Q. has gone on for 50 years.
It just goes to show: Some people never learn.”
Owning the day
Australian chef and restaurateur Bill Granger (1969-2023) died on Christmas Day of cancer. Although he did not invent avocado on toast, he certainly popularized the breakfast dish through his restaurants in Sydney, London and elsewhere. In an interview with the AFR earlier this year, he is reported to have said:
I grew up in Melbourne, and when I moved to Sydney, I was shocked by its morning life. People were on the beach, walking through the park, owning the day. It felt very Australian, very optimistic. I think avocado on toast is optimistic.”
Transcendent music
Some years ago, I compiled a list of purposes that may motivate composers, performers or listeners of music, under the heading What is music for?
An objective that may motivate many performers is that of reaching a transcendent state, as the Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, describes here. His blog post was written after he had performed all five Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Brussels Philharmonic (under Thierry Fischer) across three evenings, in February 2020 (blog entry of 18 February 2020):
The high point for me was No. 4, during which I experienced something which until now I’ve only felt while playing Russian music: a kind of floating, when your brain disengages or splits in two. One (small) part is alert and following the performance, and perhaps directs the musical flow a little bit, the other (much larger) part is completely sunk into the music, experiencing it in a kind of visceral, instinctive way which precludes logical thinking and seems wired directly to your deepest feelings, without any buffers or defenses. After that concerto I was drained, bewildered, exhilarated – a complete mess. But what an unforgettable night.”
Concert Concat 2
This post is one in a sequence which lists live music I have heard, as best my memory allows, from the Pandemic onwards. I will update this as time permits. In some cases, I am also motivated to write about what I heard.
Other posts in this collection can be found here.
- Ariel Lanyi – piano recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, 27 December 2023. The program was:
- Beethoven: Sonata #2 in A, Op 2 No 2 (1794-5)
- Franck: Prelude, Aria et Final (1887)
- R. Schumann: Etudes Symphoniques Op 13 (with posthumous etudes) (1834-7)
A very refined performance to a house about 3/4 full. Many people seemed to know each other. I was not able to stay for the Schumann.
Acknowledgments of Country
It has become commonplace in the last two decades for public meetings or gatherings in Australia or of Australians elsewhere in the world to open with an Acknowledgment of Country statement. This is a statement thanking the traditional indigenous community who inhabited the land on which the meeting is being held, and (usually) expressing respect to the traditional elders, past, present and emerging, of that community. Last night, for instance, a panel discussion held at King’s College London on the topic of the upcoming Voice Referendum began with such statements from several of the invited speakers acknowledging traditional custodians of parts of Australia where where they had grown up or studied. I have also witnessed such statements at private meetings and internal organizational meetings in Australia, even when these events were held online.
Continue reading ‘Acknowledgments of Country’