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Recent Reading 21

Published by peter on 2024-12-11 in Books, Concats and Recent Reading. Closed

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

  • Nikki Mark [2023]: Tommy’s Field: Love, Loss and the Goal of a Lifetime. Union Square. This is a moving account of the loss and aftermath of the author’s son, Tommy Mark, who died in his sleep in 2018 at the age of 12. Tommy Mark was apparently mature beyond his years and a gifted soccer player, and the family decided to honour his life and achievements by raising funds for a dedicated soccer pitch in a park in Westwood, their home suburb in Los Angeles. Despite the proposed field in the park being in poor condition and mostly unused, they faced intense opposition from some other people living near the park.

    Her son had played in teams in different parts of LA, in a sport which was more popular among young Spanish-speaking Americans than any other. From the comments she cites of opponents of the proposal, the opposition was strongly centred on the race of the children who would use the soccer field. The book gives a detailed and fascinating account of the local public consultation and lobbying of local government bodies she undertook, and the opposition she faced at every step. Ultimately, she was successful and Tommy’s Field was inaugurated in Westwood Recreation Center on 26 September 2021. It can be viewed here.

    The book is also an account of her transformation from a vague secular agnosticism to a strong overt belief in an after-life, underpinned by her frequent experiences and dreams of communication, direct and indirect, with spiritual entities. Of course, as I have argued before, any such experiences we have may be the result of delusion, and even self-delusion. But this is not how these experiences are felt by those who have them. Ms Mark’s account of her experiences is honest and strongly compelling. I was reminded of the account of Mary Le Beau (pen-name of Inez Travers Cunningham Stark Boulton) of her conversations with spirits of the dead published in 1956 (Beyond Doubt: A Record of Psychic Experience), which is also very compelling.

Concert Concat 2024

Published by peter on 2024-04-11 in Concats, Concert Concats, Concerts, Jazz and Music. Closed

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 his debut recital at Wigmore Hall, London, on Wednesday 4 December 2024. The program:
    • Rameau: Suite in G
    • Rachmaninoff: Sonata No 1 in D minor, Op. 28

    This was an outstanding mid-day recital on the Wigmore’s Steinway piano, to a hall about two-thirds full. Mr Mikužis played one encore, a short prelude by his fellow Lithuanian Mikalojus Čiurlionis. It is charming that Mr Mikužis so often plays the music of Čiurlionis, drawing our attention to this fine composer.

    I only heard the Rachmaninoff first Sonata for the first time a few weeks ago (played by Professor Dmitri Alexeev), and I was delighted to hear it again so soon. The work is intellectually and emotionally very challenging, with a great symphony’s worth of ideas, lines of development, moods, techniques, and effects. Mr Mikužis rose superbly to its many challenges and presented a powerful and coherent reading of this masterpiece.

    How immensely different this performance was to that other Opus 28 I have Mr Mikužis play several times this past year, Chopin’s collection of 24 Preludes. Chopin’s theme in that set was death and its presentiment, and Rachmaninoff’s here (at least initially) was the legend of Faust, a story which is also about death and how one should live one’s life in face of it. I wonder where this deep thread will take Mr Mikužis next!

  • Krius String Quartet to an audience of about 50 people in St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London on Friday 22 November 2024. The quartet comprises Alfie Weinberg (v), Louis Solon (v), Theo Hayward (va), and Frederick Carter (c), all students at the Royal Academy. The programme was:
    • Haydn: String Quartet, Op. 54 No. 2
    • Puccini: Crisantemi

    This was another very fine performance by this young quartet, sounding more confident and assured than they did just a few weeks ago at St Marylebone Church. For the audience, and perhaps also the performers, the acoustic of St Bride’s is far better than at St Marylebone (where the sound seemed to disappear upwards). As in the previous concert, the descant melody over the sombre chords of the second movement of the Haydn quartet was profoundly moving.

    This concert was a wonderful experience, and I look forward eagerly to hearing Krius play again. Their lightness of touch and tight co-ordination would make them ideal performers for the quartets of Cherubini and Arriaga.

  • Harp Chamber Music, by students from the Royal Academy of Music, at Regent Hall, London, Friday 15 November 2024. The programme was:
    • 1. Debussy (arranged Henk de Vlieger): Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune
    • 2. Christopher Gunning (1944-2023): Lament
    • 3. Britten: Folk Songs for High Voice
    • 4. Andre Jolivet (1905-1974): Chant de Linos

    Continue reading ‘Concert Concat 2024’

Concert Concat 2

Published by peter on 2023-11-16 in Concats, Concert Concats, Concerts and Music. Closed

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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.

    Continue reading ‘Concert Concat 2’

Recent Reading 20

Published by peter on 2023-07-15 in Books, Concats and Recent Reading. Closed

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

  • Peter Godwin [2024]: Exit Wounds: A Story of Love, Loss and Occasional Wars. Canongate Books. A very moving, well-written and intensely personal account of the death of the author’s mother and the break-up of his marriage. How poetically Godwin writes. The feeling of being sick for “home” on three continents – Zimbabwe (Chimanimani in the Eastern Highlands), Britain and the USA (Manhattan and his weekend house at Indian Orchard in north-western Connecticut) – is all too familiar to me.
  • Tim Tate [2024]: To Catch a Spy: How the Spycatcher Affair brought MI5 in from the Cold. Icon. A well-written reprise of what we now know (which still is not everything) of the Spycatcher Affair. Despite the assurances of this author and many others, I remain unconvinced that Roger Hollis was as innocent as he claimed of espionage for the Soviets.

    • Continue reading ‘Recent Reading 20’

Concert Halls

Published by peter on 2022-04-16 in Concats, Concerts and Music. Closed

Herewith a list of concert halls and music performance venues in which I have been fortunate to experience musical performances (excluding working Churches).

  • The Barbican Concert Hall, London
  • Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
  • Brisbane City Hall, Brisbane
  • Cadogan Hall, London
  • Casino Civic Hall, Casino, NSW
  • City Recital Hall, Sydney
  • Performance Space, College Building, City University of London, UK
  • Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of New South Wales, Sydney
  • Ballroom, Corinthia Hotel, London
  • Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
  • English National Opera, Covent Garden, London
  • Salle de Flagey, Brussels
  • Salle Gaveau, Paris
  • Hamburgische Staatsoper, Hamburg
  • Hamer Concert Hall, Melbourne
  • Ipswich Civic Hall, Ipswich, Queensland
  • King’s Place, London
  • Leggate Theatre, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
  • Leighton House, Holland Park, London
  • Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London
  • City Hall, Lismore, NSW
  • Llewellyn Hall, Canberra School of Music, Canberra, ACT
  • LSO St Luke’s, London
  • Auditorium, Maison de la Radio et de la Musique, Paris
  • Matthäuskirche, Munich, Germany
  • Melba Hall, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Melbourne
  • Milton Court Concert Hall, Guildhall School of Music, London
  • Old Museum Concert Hall, Brisbane
  • Studio 1, Old Museum Building, Brisbane
  • Auditorium, St Joseph’s Nudgee College, Nudgee, Brisbane
  • Pamoja Concert Hall, Sevenoaks School, Sevenoaks, Kent UK
  • Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London
  • Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London
  • Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Southbank, Brisbane
  • Regent Hall (Salvation Army Centre), Oxford Street, London
  • Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, London
  • Royal Albert Hall, London
  • Elgar Room, Royal Albert Hall, London
  • Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music, London
  • Carne Room (aka East Parry Room), Royal College of Music, London
  • Performance Hall, Royal College of Music, London
  • Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London
  • Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
  • Concert Hall, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
  • Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London
  • Golden Concert Room, St George’s Hall, Liverpool
  • Recital Hall, Seoul Arts Centre, Seoul
  • Seymour Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney
  • State Theatre, Sydney
  • Steinway Hall, London
  • Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
  • Opera Theatre, Sydney Opera House
  • Sydney Town Hall, Sydney
  • Tanglewood, MA
  • Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris
  • Tyalgum Literary Institute Hall, Tyalgum, NSW
  • Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney
  • Victoria Hall, Hanley, UK
  • West Road Concert Hall, Department of Music, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
  • Westminster Cathedral Hall, London
  • Wigmore Hall, London

Recent Reading 15

Published by peter on 2018-08-06 in Advertising, Books, Burney Family, Communism, Concats, Culture, Intelligence and Espionage, Politics and Recent Reading. Closed

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

  • Michael Ovitz [2018]: Who is Michael Ovitz? A Memoir. USA: WH Allen.  This is a fascinating and well-written autiobiography by the co-founder and driving force behind Creative Artists Agency. CAA grew from nothing to dominate the agency business in movies and TV, and then entered M&A consultancy and advertising.  I always admired the chutzpah of this strategy and marveled at its success.  The book explains how CAA’s creative bundling of the products of its writers, actors, musicians, directors and producers enabled it to grow as an agency, and also enabled the diversification:  the expertise gained in strategizing and financially evaluating creative bundles was used to value Hollywood studios (with their back catalogues) as potential acquisition targets. Likewise, the creativity in bundling and the access to diverse talent was used to design successful advertisements.  What surprised me reading this book was that the diversification ended after just two acquisition assignments and one advertising project (Coca Cola’s polar bears).  The key reason for this seems to have been the opposition of Mr Ovitz’s partners and colleagues at CAA, despite the handsome and arguably unearnt rewards his efforts brought many of them.  No good deed ever goes unpunished, it seems.  // The book also presents his experiences as President at Disney.  Although of course we only hear his side of that story, he does seem to have been undermined from before he even began work there. // Overall, the writing is articulate and reflective, and he seems to have grown personally through his career and his apparent failures.  I greatly admire his continued desire and willingness to learn new things – new skills, new businesses, new industries, new cultures, new hobbies.  Doing this requires rare, personal courage.  Few people in American business were as willing as he was to immerse themselves in Japanese culture when doing business in Japan, for instance.  One characteristic Mr Ovitz does not ever display is smugness, and this absence is admirable.

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Recent Reading 13

Published by peter on 2017-07-06 in Books, Communism, Concats, Economics, Fiction, Global Economic Crisis, History, Intelligence and Espionage, Literature, Politics and Recent Reading. Closed

The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books. The books are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recently-read book at the top.

  • Dan Shanahan [2017]: Camelot Eclipsed: Connecting the Dots.  Independently published.
  • China Mieville [2017]:  October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. UK:  Verso.
  • Joshua Rubenstein (Editor) [2007]: The KGB File of Andrei Sakharov. USA:  Yale University Press.
  • Henry Hemming [2017]: M: Maxwell Knight, MI5’s Greatest Spymaster.  UK:  Preface Publishing.
  • Evelyn Waugh [1935]:  Edmund Campion, Jesuit and Martyr. UK:  Longmans.
  • Alison Barrett [2015]:  View from my Tower: Letters from Prague, March 1985 – May 1988.   A fascinating series of letters from wife of the British Ambassador to members of her family about her time in Prague, in the period of stasis just before the Velvet Revolution.
  • John O Koehler [2008]:  Stasi:  The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police.  USA:  Basic Books.

    • Continue reading ‘Recent Reading 13’

Central London churches

Published by peter on 2016-09-03 in Concats, Places and Religion. 0 Comments

A list of some central London churches and their denominations, updated as I visit them:

  • All Hallows by the Tower, Tower Hill / Anglican
  • All Saints Cathedral, Camden / Greek Orthodox, originally Anglican
  • Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Bloomsbury / Baptist
  • Chapel of King’s College London / Anglican
  • Chapel of Hospital of St John and St. Elizabeth, St John’s Wood / Roman Catholic
  • Chapel of St. Thomas’ Hospital, Lambeth / Anglican
  • Christ Church, Spitalfields / Anglican
  • Christ-the-King, Gordon Square / Catholic Apostolic
  • Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden / Roman Catholic
  • St Cyprian’s Church, Clarence Gate / High Church Anglican
  • Emmanuel Temple, Westminster / Evangelical Christian
  • Finchley Quaker Meeting House / Society of Friends
  • Friends House, Euston / Society of Friends
  • St George’s, Hanover Square / Anglican
  • Holy Trinity, Marylebone / Anglican
  • Holy Trinity, Sloane Square / Anglican
  • The Little Oratory Chapel, Kensington / Roman Catholic
  • Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy / Anglican
  • St Andrew Undershaft, St Mary Axe / Anglican
  • St Anselm and St Cecilia, Holborn / Roman Catholic
  • St Bride’s, Fleet Street (the Journalists’ Church) / Anglican
  • St Clement Danes / Anglican (the home church of the RAF)
  • St Clement’s Eastcheap / Anglican
  • St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street / Anglican and Romanian Orthodox
  • St Etheldreda’s, Ely Place, Holborn / Roman Catholic
  • St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican / Anglican
  • St Giles-in-the-Fields / Anglican
  • Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Mayfair / Jesuit, Roman Catholic
  • St James, Piccadilly / Anglican
  • St John’s, Smith Square / formerly Anglican
  • St John’s, Waterloo /Anglican
  • St John’s Wood Church / Anglican
  • St Katherine Cree, Leadenhall / Anglican
  • St Luke’s, Old Street / formerly Anglican
  • St Magnus the Martyr, Monument / Anglican
  • St Margaret, Lothbury / Anglican
  • St Margaret’s Putney / Anglican
  • St Martin, Ludgate (the Guild Church of St Martin-within-Ludgate) / Anglican
  • St Mary Abbots, Kensington / Anglican
  • St Mary Aldermary / Anglican
  • St Mary, Finchley East / Roman Catholic
  • St Marylebone, Marylebone / Anglican
  • St Mary-le-Bow / Anglican
  • St Mary-le-Strand / Anglican
  • St Mary Moorfields / Roman Catholic
  • St Mary Woolnoth / Anglican
  • St Pancras New Church, Euston / Anglican
  • St Pancras Old Church, Somers Town / Anglican
  • St Paul’s, Hammersmith / Anglican
  • St Paul’s Cathedral / Anglican
  • St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden (the Actors’ Church) / Anglican
  • St Peter’s Church on Eaton Square / Anglican
  • St Peter’s Italian Church, Holborn / Roman Catholic
  • St Sepulchre-without-Newgate / Anglican
  • St Stephen’s Church, Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead / formerly Anglican
  • St Stephen Walbrook / Anglican
  • Temple Church / Anglican
  • Wesley’s Chapel, Finsbury / Methodist
  • Westminster Cathedral / Roman Catholic
  • Westminster Quaker Meeting House / Society of Friends

Musical Instrument Museums

Published by peter on 2015-09-06 in Art, Concats, Culture and Music. 0 Comments

For reasons of record, here is a list of musical instrument museums, ordered by their location:

  • Athens, Greece: Museum of Popular Musical Instruments
  • Berlin, Germany: Musikinstrumenten Museum
  • Brussels, Belgium: Musical Instrument Museum
  • Monte Estoril, Portugal: Museum of Portuguese Music, Casa Verdades de Faria
  • New York, NY, USA: Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Phoenix, AZ, USA: Musical Instrument Museum
  • Rome, Italy: Museo di Strumenti Musicali dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
  • Vermillion, SD, USA: National Music Museum, University of South Dakota
  • Vienna, Austria: Collection of Historic Musical Instruments, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Recent Reading 10

Published by peter on 2013-12-22 in Books, Concats, Fiction, Literature and Recent Reading. 0 Comments

The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books.
David Eagleman [2010]: Sum: Tales from the Afterlives.  (London, UK:  Canongate).  A superb collection of very short stories, each premised on the assumption that something (our bodies, our souls, our names, our molecules, etc) lives beyond death. Superbly fascinating.  One will blow your mind!  (HT: WPN).
A. C. Grayling [2013]:  Friendship.  (New Haven, CT and London, UK:  Yale University Press).
Andrew Sullivan [1998]:  Love Undetectable:  Reflections on Friendship, Sex and Survival.  (London, UK: Vintage, 1999).
Michael Blakemore [2013]: Stage Blood. (London, UK: Faber & Faber).  A riveting account of Blakemore’s time at the National Theatre in London.
Continue reading ‘Recent Reading 10’