Recent reading 5

A list, sometimes annotated, of books recently read:

  • Richard Bassett [2012]: Hitler’s Spy Chief. New York: Pegasus. A biography of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr. This book appears to be a reissue (also revised?) of a book first published in 2005. The subject and argument of the book are fascinating, but sadly this is not matched by the writing, which is just appalling.

    The first problem is with the status of the book. The inside cover pages say “copyright 2011”, and “First Pegasus Books hardcover edition 2012”, yet the Acknowledgements section is dated 2004. Various references to contemporary events throughout the book also indicate a date of writing of around 2003 or so. The front section contains a “Preface to the American Edition” which is undated, but cites letters written in 2008 and 2009. The author’s sloppiness with dates is manifest throughout the book, and it is often very hard for a reader to determine exactly which year events being described actually happened.

    A further great sloppiness concerns the use of names – many people, like citizens of Indonesia, appear only to have surnames. Later references will often find a first name attached to the surname – is this the same person, one wonders? It is as if the author assumes we know as much as he seems to know about minor Nazi officials, and temporary clerks in MI6.

    The book actually reads like the author’s narrative notes for a book rather than the book itself, with much background information missing or assumed to be known by the reader. Is this his first draft perhaps, ready for editing? How could one write on the topic of German foreign intelligence in WW II without discussion of the XX Committee, for example? Admittedly, the author does make one single reference to this operation (on page 280, out of 296 pages of text), but with no explanation of what the committee was doing or an evaluation of its work, and not even a listing in the index. And given the author’s argument that Canaris was an internal opponent of Hitler from before the start of WW II, then an analysis of the alleged success of the XX operations in outwitting Nazi intelligence is surely needed here. Was Canaris complicit in these operations, for example? Especially if, as the author believes, Canaris met with his British opposite number, Sir Stewart Menzies, during WW II.

    And like a person too eager to please, the author’s sentences run on and on and on, with clause after subordinate clause, each introducing a new topic or change or direction, or dropping yet another name, in some drunken word association game. Where were the editors when this book was submitted? On vacation? On strike? Reading the book requires a reader to fight past the author’s appalling prose style to reach the interesting content. Sadly, Admiral Canaris still awaits a good English-language biography.

    The book makes a very strong claim, which is not supported by the citation given by Bassett. On page 167, we read:

    “in Finland where the British forces sent to help the Finns against the Soviets in 1940 were actually assisted in their passage by the Germans. German air and land forces were instructed not to interfere with the progress of these British forces.”

    For this very bold claim, Bassett cites Frederick Winterbotham, The Nazi Connection, p. 164 (London 1978). But Winterbotham’s book seems to have nothing about the Winter War. Finland is not even in the index.

    Basset also cites Winterbotham for a claim that Luftwaffe General Milch visited the Royal Air Force in Britain before the war. However, none of the pages of Winterbotham’s book which mention Milch say this.

  • Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman [2012]:  Spies Against Armageddon:  Inside Israel’s Secret Wars. Levant Books.
  • Milton Bearden and James Risen [2004]: The Main Enemy:  The Insider Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB.  Presidio Press.
  • Natalie Dykstra [2012]:  Clover Adams:  A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.   An intelligent and sympathetic life of Marian (“Clover”) Hooper Adams (1843-1885), pioneer of art photography, wife of Henry Adams, and a daughter of transcendentalist poet, Ellen Sturgis Hooper.   She was a friend and muse to Henry James, and a distant relative of the step-family of George Santayana.
  • Archie Brown [2010]:  The Rise and Fall of Communism.  Vintage.
  • James Douglass [2008]:   JFK and the Unspeakable:  Why he Died and Why it Matters. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.
  • Sidney Ploss [2009]:  The Roots of Perestroika:  The Soviet Breakdown in Historical Context. McFarland and Company.
  • David Maraniss [2012]:  Barack Obama:  The Story.  Simon and Schuster.
  • Ben MacIntyre [2012]: Double Cross:  The True Story of the D-Day Spies.  London: Bloomsbury. Reviewed here.
  • Colin Eatock [2009]: Mendelssohn and Victorian England.  London: Ashgate.  A detailed and comprehensive account of Mendelssohn’s visits to England (and his one visit to Scotland), and his activities, musical and other, while there.
  • George Dyson [2012]:  Turing’s Cathedral:  The Origins of the Digital Universe.  Allen Lane.   A fascinating account of the involvement of the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) in Princeton, NJ, in the early development of scientific computing, led by that larger-than-life character, Johnnie von Neumann.
  • Gordon Brook-Shepherd [1988]: The Storm Birds:  Soviet Post-War Defectors.  Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
  • Neil Sheehan [2010]:  A Fiery Peace in a Cold War:  Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon. Vintage Books.  A fascinating history of the US inter-continental ballistic missile program in the 1950s, told through a biography of one of its parents, USAF General Bennie Schriever.    It is easy to forget how much practical expertise was needed for successful missile and satellite launches, as with any new and complex technology.   As a consequence, we forget how few of the early test launch attempts were successful.  The Vanguard 3 rocket, for example, launched just 3 satellites out of 11 attempts between December 1957 and September 1959. (Vanguard was a USN project.)

Gallery concat

For the record, a listing of fine art galleries and museums I have visited (AFAIR), in alpha order:

  • 21er Haus, Vienna Austria
  • Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen Scotland UK
  • Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin Germany
  • Altes Museum, Berlin Germany
  • Altonaer Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Altona, Hamburg Germany
  • American Folk Art Museum, New York City NY USA
  • Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki Greece
  • Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington VA USA
  • Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
  • Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL USA
  • Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco CA USA
  • Asia Society Museum, New York City NY USA
  • Ateneum, Helsinki Finland
  • Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney Australia
  • Australian War Memorial, Canberra Australia
  • Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham UK
  • Barbican Gallery, London UK
  • Belvedere Museums, Vienna Austria
  • Bletchley Park Museum, Bletchley UK
  • Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool UK
  • Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton UK
  • Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands
  • BOZAR – Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels Belgium
  • Bribie Island Seaside Museum, Bribie Island, Moreton Bay, Queensland Australia
  • British Museum, London UK
  • Bury Art Museum, Bury Lancashire UK
  • Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris France
  • Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris France
  • Colegio del Patriarca, Valencia Spain
  • Communist History Museum, Moscow RF
  • Coptic Museum, Cairo Egypt
  • Courtauld Gallery, London UK
  • Cycladic Art Museum, Athens Greece
  • Musée National Eugène-Delacroix, Paris France
  • Dia: Beacon, Beacon NY USA
  • The Drawing Center, New York City NY USA
  • Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof, Kreuzberg, Berlin Germany
  • Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra Australia
  • Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London UK
  • Ethnological Museum of Berlin, Dahlem, Berlin Germany
  • Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge UK
  • Frank Lloyd Wright Gallery, Chicago IL USA
  • The Frick Collection, New York, USA
  • Frida Kahlo House, Mexico DF, Mexico
  • Fundacio Joan Miro, Barcelona Catalonia Spain
  • Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris France
  • Galleria Borghese, Rome Italy
  • Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Milano (GAM), Milan Italy
  • Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome Italy
  • Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Australia
  • Gallery Seomi, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • Gardiner Museum of Ceramics, Toronto Canada
  • Gemaldegalerie, Berlin Germany
  • Glypotek Museum, Copenhagen Denmark
  • Guggenheim Museum, New York City NY USA
  • Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich Switzerland
  • Hayward Gallery, London UK
  • Highgate Cemetary, London UK
  • Hofburg Palace, Vienna Austria
  • Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong PRC
  • Hortamuseum, Victor Horta House, Brussels Belgium
  • Hyde Park Barracks Museum, Sydney Australia
  • Imperial War Museum, Duxford UK
  • Imperial War Museum, London UK
  • ING Art Centre, Place Royale, Brussels Belgium
  • Insadong-gil galleries, Seoul Republic of Korea
  • International Slavery Museum, Liverpool UK
  • Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Eire
  • Izumo-taisha Shinto Shrine, Izumo-shi, Shimani Prefecture, Japan
  • Jewish Museum, Prague Czech Republic
  • Kiasma – Museum for Contemporary Art, Helsinki Finland
  • Kronborg Castle, Helsingor Denmark
  • Kunsten – Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg Denmark
  • Kunsthalle Hamburg und Galerie der Gegenwart, Hamburg Germany
  • KunstHausWien, Vienna Austria
  • Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Austria
  • Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight, Wirral UK
  • Lafcadio Hearn House, Matsue, Shimani Prefecture, Japan
  • Lancaster City Museum, Lancaster Lancashire UK
  • Landesmuseum, Zurich Switzerland
  • Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
  • Leopold Museum, Vienna Austria
  • Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek Denmark
  • Luton Hoo, Luton Bedfordshire UK
  • Manchester City Gallery, Manchester UK
  • Marc Chagall National Museum, Nice France
  • Martin Gropius Bau, Kreuzberg, Berlin Germany
  • Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MOCA), North Adams, MA USA
  • Matthew Flinders Art Gallery, Bribie Island Community Arts Centre, Bribie Island, Qld, Australia
  • Mauritshuis, Den Haag, The Netherlands
  • Mayakovsky House, Moscow RF
  • Memento Communist Sculpture Park, Budapest Hungary
  • Mémorial de la France combattante, Mont Valérien, Suresnes, Paris France
  • Mendelssohn Gesellschaft, Berlin Germany
  • Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool UK
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City NY USA
  • Modern Art Oxford Gallery, Oxford UK
  • Moravian Museum of Bethlehem, Bethlehem PA USA
  • Musée Bourdelle de Paris, Paris France
  • Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris France
  • Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris France
  • Musée Libération Leclerc Moulin, Paris France
  • Musée du Louvre, Paris France
  • Musée Matisse, Nice France
  • Musée national de la Marine, Trocadero, Paris, France
  • Musée national Picasso, Paris France
  • Musei Vaticani, The Vatican
  • Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon Portugal
  • Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), Bologna Italy
  • Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico DF Mexico
  • Museo de Bellas Arts de Valencia, Valencia Spain
  • Museo di Strumenti Musicali dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome Italy
  • Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona Catalonia Spain
  • Museum Bahara – National Maritime Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta Indonesia
  • Museum of Asian Art, Berlin Germany
  • Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra Australia
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL USA
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Australia
  • Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo Egypt
  • Museum of Islamic Art,  Cairo Egypt
  • Museum of Modern Art, New York City NY USA
  • Museum of Popular Musical Instruments, Athens Greece
  • Museum of Portuguese Music, Casa Verdades de Faria, Monte Estoril Portugal
  • Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester UK
  • Museum Nasional Indonesia, Jakarta Indonesia
  • Musical Instrument Museum, Brussels Belgium
  • Musikinstrumenten Museum Berlin Germany
  • National Archeological Museum, Athens Greece
  • National Computer Museum of Great Britain, Bletchley UK
  • National Gallery, London UK
  • National Gallery of Art, Washington DC USA
  • National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Australia
  • National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Australia
  • National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare Zimbabwe
  • National Jewish Museum, Budapest Hungary
  • National Maritime Museum, Greenwich UK
  • National Museum of Australia, Canberra Australia
  • National Palace Museum, Taipei Taiwan RoC
  • Neues Museum, Berlin Germany
  • New Italy Museum, nr. Woodburn NSW Australia
  • Palace Museum, Forbidden City, Beijing PRC
  • Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bozar), Brussels Belgium
  • Pergamon Museum, Berlin Germany DDR
  • Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy
  • Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Australia
  • Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow RF
  • Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane Australia
  • Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre, Canberra Australia
  • Rose Seidler House, Wahroonga, Sydney Australia
  • Royal Academy of Arts, London UK
  • Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon Aerodrome, London UK
  • Saatchi Gallery, London UK
  • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA USA
  • Science Museum, London UK
  • Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Scotland UK
  • Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA USA
  • Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC USA
  • Sonoma Gallery of Shona Sculpture, Sonoma CA USA
  • State Historical Museum, Moscow RF
  • State Library of New South Wales, Sydney Australia
  • Sudley House Gallery, Liverpool UK
  • Tate Britain, London UK
  • Tate Liverpool, Liverpool UK
  • Tate Modern, London UK
  • Tenterfield School of Arts, Tenterfield NSW Australia
  • Trotsky House, Mexico DF Mexico
  • Unhyeongung – Unhyeon Palace, Jongno-gu, Seoul Republic of Korea
  • Verulamium Museum, St. Albans UK
  • Victoria and Albert Museum, London UK
  • Vikingeskibs Museet, Roskilde Denmark
  • Walker Gallery, Liverpool UK
  • The Wallace Collection, London UK
  • Whitechapel Gallery, London UK
  • Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City NY USA
  • Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester UK
  • Wiener Secessionsgebäude, Vienna Austria

Bands

Gripped as I seem to be by listmania, here is another:  of orchestras and ensembles I have seen perform live.   I omit chamber music groups, counting only ensembles large enough to need a conductor.

  • Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London
  • Aurora Orchestra, London
  • Australia Ensemble
  • Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
  • Australian Chamber Orchestra
  • Australian Youth Orchestra
  • BBC Philharmonic, Manchester
  • Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood
  • Brandenburg Baroque Soloists, London
  • Britten Sinfonia, London
  • Canberra Symphony Orchestra
  • Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  • Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
  • City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
  • Ensemble 10:10, Liverpool
  • Ensemble 11, Manchester
  • European Brandenburg Ensemble
  • Halle Orchestra, Manchester
  • Hamburger Symphoniker
  • Harare City Orchestra
  • Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Irving Symphony Orchestra
  • Isabella a Capella
  • Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
  • Lismore Regional Symphony Orchestra
  • London Philharmonic
  • London Sinfonietta
  • London Symphony Orchestra
  • Mahler Chamber Orchestra
  • Manchester Camerata
  • Medici Choir, London
  • Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
  • Merseyside Youth Orchestra
  • Moscow Soloists String Chamber Ensemble
  • Northern Sinfonia, Gateshead
  • Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London
  • Orchestra Mozart, Bologna
  • Orchestre Appassionato, Paris
  • Orchestre National de France
  • Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice
  • Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, London
  • Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lisbon
  • Patonga Orchestra
  • Queensland Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra
  • Queensland Symphony Orchestra
  • Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • RNCM Chamber Orchestra, Manchester
  • Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Siglo de Oro, London
  • Silk Road Ensemble
  • Solistes de Musique Ancienne, London
  • Soweto Symphony Orchestra
  • Sydney Symphony Orchestra
  • Vienna Chamber Orchestra
  • University of Liverpool Symphony Orchestra

 

Conductors

This is a list, as best I can recall, of the conductors I have seen in live performance. If memory serves, I also add the ensemble which I saw them direct.

  • Claudia Abbado, Orchestra Mozart Bologna
  • Thomas Ades, Britten Sinfonia, London
  • Yuri Bashmet, Moscow Soloists String Orchestra
  • Stuart Challender, Sydney Symphony Orchestra
  • Nicholas Collon, Aurora Orchestra
  • Matthew Coorey, RLPO and Halle Orchestra
  • Gustavo Dudamel, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Mark Elder, Halle Orchestra Manchester
  • John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, London
  • Edward Gardner, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London
  • John Gay, Soweto Symphony Orchestra and Maseru Singers
  • Richard Gill, Patonga Orchestra and Chorus
  • Reinhard Goebel, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
  • Hector Guzman, Irving Symphony Orchestra, Texas
  • Bernard Haitink, Sydney Symphony Orchestra
  • Mathieu Herzog, Orchestre Appassionato, Paris
  • Nicholas Kraemer, Manchester Camerata
  • Marcelo Lehninger, Boston Symphony Orchestra
  • Charles Mackerras, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields
  • Diego Matheuz, Orchestra Mozart/Mahler Chamber Orchestra
  • Michael Morgan, Queensland Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra
  • Joel Newsome, Solistes de Musique Ancienne
  • Gianandrea Noseda, BBC Philharmonic
  • Sakari Oramo, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
  • Libor Pesek, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Trevor Pinnock, European Brandenburg Ensemble
  • Simon Rattle, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
  • Gerard Schwarz, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • Aziz Shokhakimov, Orchestre National de France
  • Brian Stacey, Lismore Regional Symphony Orchestra
  • Marcus Stenz, Halle Orchestra Manchester
  • Patrick Thomas, Queensland Symphony Orchestra
  • Robin Ticciati, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
  • David Urquhart-Jones, Lismore Regional Symphony Orchestra.

Pianists

As with violinists I have heard live, I thought it interesting to list the pianists I have heard perform (modulo the vagaries of memory):

  • Caroline Almonte – Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in Eb K365 (MSO, Melbourne 2009)
  • Louis-Victor Bak – (London 2023, recitals at St Mary-Le-Strand and at Steinway Hall)
  • Ksenia Bashmet – Bach’s D Minor Keyboard Concerto (BWV 1052) (Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble, London 2011)
  • Alessio Bax (RLPO, Liverpool. Grieg PC with Southbank Sinfonia, London, March 2024)
  • Alasdair Beatson  – Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings in D Minor (London 2011)
  • Richard Rodney Bennett (Canberra 1976, solo recital of show tunes and jazz standards)
  • Mikhail Bouzine, in a happening at Steinway Hall, London, 13 March 2024, on the theme of love.
  • Giulia Contaldo – Respighi, Wagner/Liszt and Debussy (recital at Famington Farm, 28 January 2024)
  • Imogen Cooper – Bach and Schubert (recital at Famington Farm, 28 January 2024)
  • Emmanuel Despax – Bach/Busoni’s Chaconne and Chopin’s 24 Preludes (solo recital at St John’s Church Waterloo, London, 26 November 2023)
  • Aleksandr Doronin – Ligeti’s Etudes #10 (Der Zauberlehrling) and #13 (L’escalier du diable) (London 2023, Drake Calleja Trust Scholars Concert, 4 November 2023)/ Brahms #1, (Sevenoaks SO, Sevenoaks, 19 May 2024)
  • François Dumont (Brussels 2018)
  • Kathryn Eves – Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto (Cheshire Sinfonia, Manchester 2008)
  • Jonathan Ferrucci playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations at King’s Place, London, 11 March 2024.
  • Juan Perez Floristan – in a solo recital at Wigmore Hall, London, 11 April 2024.
  • Nelson Freire – Mozart’s Piano Concerto #20 in D minor and Villa Lobos’ Momoprecoce, Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra (Boston Symphony Orchestra under Marcelo Lehninger at Tanglewood, 2012)
  • Alexander Gadjiev – Chopin’s Concerto No. 2 Opus 21 in F minor (Orchestre Appassionato under Mathieu Herzog, Paris, 13 April 2022)
  • Filippo Gorini – Bach’s The Art of Fugue (Wigmore Hall, London, 23 July 2023)
  • Angela Hewitt – The 48: A truly awesome feat of memory and physical performance, with superb touch and an integrity of interpretation. I don’t think rubato and the North German Baroque belong together but, so not an interpretation to my taste. (Manchester)
  • Rolf Hind (Birmingham, Liverpool, London 2013).  Hind’s masterful performance of John Coolidge Adams’ sublime Phrygian Gates in Liverpool was entrancing and unforgettable, and helped change my mind about minimalism.   I heard him play this again in London in 2013 – again sublime.
  • Stephen Hough (RLPO Liverpool; Manchester)
  • Leslie Howard (Wigmore Hall, London, 16 July 2024)
  • Lucas Jussen and Arthur Jussen – Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Wigmore Hall, London, 2023; Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris, 2023)
  • Elisabeth Klein (1911-2003) – selection of Ligeti’s Etudes (Music Department, University of Liverpool, November 2002). I heard Ms Klein, a student of Bela Bartok, in a recital at the age of 91, playing several of Ligeti’s etudes to an audience of about ten people. She became a public performer of modern piano music only in her sixth decade.
  • Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, 4-hands 1-piano recital, Wigmore Hall, London, 14 March 2024.
  • Pekka Kuusisto (Britten Sinfonia, London, 2012, playing piano part of Stravinsky’s Suites 1 & 2 for Small Orchestra)
  • Ariel Lanyi in a recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, 27 December 2023.
  • John Lill (RLPO, Liverpool)
  • Jan Lisiecki – a solo recital of Preludes, including Chopin’s Op 28 (West Road Concert Hall, Department of Music, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, on 26 February 2024 and again at Wigmore Hall in London, 18 July 2024)
  • Yvonne Loriod – Messiaen’s From the Canyon to the Stars (Australian Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Opera House, 1988).
  • Joanna MacGregor – Bach’s D Minor Concerto BWV 1052 (Manchester)
  • Stephen McIntyre – Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in Eb K365 (MSO, Melbourne 2009)
  • Brad Mehldau (Manchester)
  • Kasparas Mikužis (London 2023, accompanist in Drake Calleja Trust Scholars Concert, 4 November 2023. Sittingbourne, recital, 11 November 2023, recitals in Faversham, London and Famington Farm 2024, Rachmaninov PC2 London 9 February 2024)
  • Arsenii Moon (recital at Steinway Hall, London, 26 June 2024)
  • Olli Mustonen – Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #1 (BBC SO, with Sergei Nakariakov, London 2013)
  • Sophie Neeb (as part of Klavierduo Neeb, Munich, 13 July 2024)
  • Vincent Neeb (as part of Klavierduo Neeb, Munich, 13 July 2024)
  • Matan Porat in a recital programme of mostly Bach transcriptions at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, London, Friday February 2024.
  • Roberto Prosseda – UK premiere of Mendelssohn’s 3rd Piano Concerto in E minor (ca. 1840-42, unpublished, completed by Marcello Bufalini) (RLPO, Liverpool)
  • Lauma Skride – Mozart and Mendelssohn Violin Sonatas (London 2011)
  • Gabriele Sutkute – in a solo recital at St-Mary-Le-Strand, London, 23 November 2023.
  • Cedric Tiberghien (RLPO, Liverpool; recitals, London; Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, with Orchestre National de France under Aziz Shokhakimov, Paris 2022)
  • Simon Trpceski (RLPO, Liverpool).
  • Samson Tsoy and Pavel Kolesnikov, 4-hands 1-piano recital, Wigmore Hall, London, 14 March 2024.
  • Tom Zalmanov, Recital on the theme of The Wanderer at Steinway Hall, London, 15 May 2024

Concert Concat 1

As part of the diverse mental attic that this blog is, this post simply lists live music I have heard, as best my memory serves, up until the pandemic. In some cases, I am also motivated to write about what I heard.

Other posts in this series are listed here.

  • Gulce Sevgen, piano, in a concert at the Gesellschaft fur Musiktheatre, Turkenstrasse 19, Vienna 1090, Austria, 15 November 2018.   This venue turned out to be a small room holding 48 seats in a converted apartment.  There were 20 people present to hear Ms Sevgen play JS Bach’s Chromatic Fantasie & Fugue in d-minor BWV903, Beethoven’s Pastorale Sonata, excerpts from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Mendelssohn’s Variations Serieuses, Op. 54, and Liszt’s Concert Etude E/M A218 and Zweite Ballade, E/M A181.  Ms Sevgen’s performance throughout was from memory, a quite remarkable feat.  Her playing was perhaps too loud for the size of the room, even with the piano lid half-down. The Bach, Beethoven and Mendelssohn were all excellent.  I have remarked before that I do not “get” the music of Prokofiev.  His music for Romeo and Juliet is a prime example:  the famous dance with its large-footed stomping bassline conjures up, for me, Norwegian trolls not feuding Italian merchant families, as if the composer had read a different play altogether. (Mendelssohn’s and Shostakovich’s incidental music to Shakespeare, by contrast, both make perfect sense.)  The playing of the Liszt works was fluent and articulate, but devoid of any meaning; it is perhaps unfair to ask performers to add meaning where there was none, since these are simply show-off pieces, all style and no substance.  But it is not unfair to ask performers not to play such vapid, meaningless music in public.
  • Continue reading ‘Concert Concat 1’

Classical Violinists

Hearing a concert by Vadim Repin, the second time I have heard him play, I thought to list all the classical solo violinists I have heard perform live (in alpha order, with the music where recalled):

  • Alena Baeva – Mendelssohn’s D minor Concerto (Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble, London 2011)
  • Joshua Bell – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (London), Mozart Concertos (Manchester), and the Concerto of Behzad Ranjbaran (world premiere, Liverpool)
  • James Ehnes (Manchester)
  • Konrad Elias-Trostmann -Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (Sinfonia d’Amici, London, April 2014)
  • Thomas Gould – e-Violin Concerto of Nico Muhly (world premiere, London)
  • Giovanni Guzzo – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (L’Orchestre du Monde, under Janusz Piotrowicz,  Cadogan Hall, London, May 2014)
  • Simon Hewitt Jones (Liverpool)
  • Daniel Hope – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (both the standard and the original versions, London)
  • Alina Ibragimova – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (London, 2012);  Schumann’s Concerto, with the London Symphony Orchestra (London, 2014).  Schumann wrote his concerto for Joachim (pictured), who never performed it publicly, and tried to keep it out of print for a long time.   Pity that Joachim did not succeed.
  • Cameron Jamieson – Mozart’s 5th Violin Concerto (Brisbane 2011)
  • Sergey Khachatryan (Manchester)
  • So Ock Kim – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (London)
  • Gidon Kremer (Copenhagen)
  • Pekka Kuusisto – Concerto for Violin by Thomas Ades (Britten Sinfonia, London, 2012); Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (RCM Chamber Orchestra and Sacconi Quartet, Folkestone, May 2014); Bach’s D Minor Partita (Improvisation with Teemu Korpipaa, Folkestone, May 2014).
  • Tasmin Little – Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto (Liverpool 2003),  and (Manchester)
  • Jonathan Morton – Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Piano, Violin and Strings in D Minor (London 2011)
  • Rachel Podger – Bach Double in D min (Manchester)
  • Vadim Repin – Sibelius’ Concerto (Barcelona) and Prokofiev’s Concerto #1 (Bologna 2011)
  • Linus Roth (Liverpool)
  • Baiba Skride – Mozart and Mendelssohn Sonatas (London 2011)
  • Valeriy Sokolov – Sibelius’ Concerto (Manchester)
  • Christian Tetzlaff – Bach Partita #2 in Dm & Sonata #3 in C, and Beethoven Concerto (London 2015)
  • Richard Tognetti (Sydney, Brisbane 2009)
  • Nikolaj Znaider – Tchaikovsky Concerto (London 2015)

The drawing is Adoph Menzel’s 1853 drawing of Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), famously a pupil of Mendelssohn and a cousin of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s grandmother.   Joachim taught Jeno Hubay (1858-1937), who taught Leo Birsen (1902-1992), with whom I had some lessons.

Concat: The crisis in macroeconomic policy execution

During the Great Depression, as the Bank of England and British banks were attempting to renegotiate the terms of their loans from the USA, the British sent Sir Otto Niemeyer to Australia to prevent Australia doing the same for its loans from Britain.    The injustice and unabashed hypocrisy of this – where you stood on the issue of debt repayment clearly depending on where you sat – always angered me.    Had I been around in 1932, I would have supported New South Wales Premier Jack Lang’s refusal to hand over moneys from the NSW State Government owed to the Australian Commonwealth Government for its payment of interest on NSW foreign debts.
We seem to be in for more hypocrisy and hard times, as the share-owning class, having received bailouts from western taxpayers for their investments in failed and paralyzed banks, now raise a wacka wacka huna kuna against public sector debt.    The plain people of Ireland, for example, will now be paying for the malfeasance and incompetence of their richer compatriots.
Two illuminating posts from Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman on our failed western political system, which seems unable to fix our failed economy, despite us knowing what should be done:

And here is Barry Eichengreen on the Irish bailout:

Some older articles on the crisis:

 
 
 

Concat 3: On writing

For procrastinators among you writing the Great American Novel, here are some links with advice on writing:

  • Hilary Mantel [2010]:  The joys of stationeryThe Guardian, 2010-03-06. On why writers need to keep loose-leaf notebooks.  An excerpt:

That said, le vrai moleskine and its mythology irritate me. Chatwin, Hemingway: has the earth ever held two greater posers? The magic has surely gone out of the little black tablet now that you can buy it everywhere, and in pastel pink, and even get it from Amazon – if they believe your address exists. The trouble with the Moleskine is that you can’t easily pick it apart. This may have its advantages for glamorous itinerants, who tend to be of careless habit and do not have my access to self-assembly beech and maple-effect storage solutions – though, as some cabinets run on castors, I don’t see what stopped them filing as they travelled. But surely the whole point of a notebook is to pull it apart, and distribute pieces among your various projects? There is a serious issue here. Perforation is vital – more vital than vodka, more essential to a novel’s success than a spellchecker and an agent.
I often sense the disappointment when trusting beginners ask me how to go about it, and I tell them it’s all about ring binders.”

  • Rachel Cusk [2010]: Can creative writing ever be taught? The Guardian, 2010-01-30.  A moving discussion on teaching creative writing, and the relationship between writing  and therapy.

Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.
At the start of last term, I asked my students a question: “How did you become the person you are?” They answered in turn, long answers of such startling candour that the ­photographer who had come in to take a couple of quick pictures for the ­university magazine ended up staying for the whole session, mesmerised. I had asked them to write down three or four words before they spoke, each word indicating a formative aspect of experience, and to tell me what the words were. They were mostly simple words, such as “father” and “school” and “Catherine”. To me they represented a regression to the first encounter with language; they represented a chance to reconfigure the link between the mellifluity of self and the concreteness of utterance. It felt as though this was a good thing for even the most accomplished writer to do. Were the students learning anything? I suppose not exactly. I’d prefer to think of it as relearning. Relearning how to write; remembering how.