Concert Concat 2025

This post is one in a sequence which lists (mostly) live music I have heard, as best as memory allows. I write to have a record of my musical experiences and these entries are intended as postcards from me to my future self. All opinions are personal, although music historians from the 25th Century may find some of them of interest.

Other posts in this collection can be found here. The most recent prior post in this sequence is here.

  • Kasparas Mikužis in a recital at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London on Friday 14 February 2025. The program was:
    • Beethoven: “Moonlight” Sonata, op. 27, no. 2
    • Chopin: Nocturne op. 55 no. 2
    • Chopin: Ballade no. 3, op. 47
    • Chopin: Preludes op. 28, no. 17-24
    • Interval
    • Rachmaninoff: Sonata op. 28, no. 1

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The Year 2025

The year 2025 is a square number, since 2025 = 45 * 45. The adjacent years which are also squares are 1936 = 44 * 44 and 2116 = 46 * 46. There will be people who are alive for two of these three years, but nobody for all three (unless human lifespans increase dramatically for people born before 1937).

A Harshad number (aka a Niven number) is a number which is evenly divisible by the sum of its digits, eg, the number 24 is evenly divisible by 6, the sum of 2 + 4. The number 2025 is evenly divisible by 9 (the sum of 2 + 0 + 2 + 5), so it is a Harshad number. Likewise, the past three years are all evenly divisible by the sum of their respective digits: 2022, 2023 and 2024.

A sequence of four Harshad years in a row like this (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) is quite rare. The last time this happened was a millenium ago, in the year 1014, and the next time it will happen will be in the year 3030, a millenium ahead of us.

I feel privileged to be alive at this particular time to witness this sequence!

The sequence of numbers which begin four Harshad numbers in a row are shown at the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences here.

Recent Reading 21

The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books, listed in reverse chronological order.

  • Patricia Ludgate [2016] Butterflies of a Brief Summer: Memoires – Les souvenirs sont faits de tels moments. MoshPit Publishing. This is a very personal memoir by the wife of pianist Roger Woodward, who traveled the world, mostly as a member of the Australian diplomatic corps. The detail of the narrative in places could only be possible if she had kept a diary at the time, but there are large gaps in the story and much is omitted. For example, how exactly did she come to join the Foreign Service? Is it really true that she just wrote a cold letter to the Department of Foreign Affairs and the next thing was being posted overseas? I wonder if she had some intelligence role. I had not realized until reading her account that even junior Australian foreign service officers traveled first class when flying on business.

    When I read Mr Woodward’s memoir, I was disappointed that he had said so little about his relationship with Ms Ludgate, but her account has too much information about her relationships. I would have preferred she had said less.

  • Roger Woodward [2014]: Beyond Black and White. ABC Books. This book is in two parts, with the first being a memoir of the author’s fascinating life as a concert pianist. Not many Australians spent the decade from 1964 in Poland, for example. The second part of the book – and just as interesting to me – is an account of his relationships with various contemporary composers. These accounts are riveting, even though the author tries to be fair in his recounting of events.

    Mr Woodward does, it seems, like a good list, an affinity I fully share. The editing might have been better (eg, we find composer Pascal Dusapin listed twice in one list).

  • Tess Livingstone [2024]: George Cardinal Pell: Pax Invictis, A Biography. Ignatius Press, Second edition (originally published in 2002), revised. Kindle Edition. Foreword by George Weigel.

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