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.”
Concert Concat 2024
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.
- A concert to launch a scholarship for musicians from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in memory of the late Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir in the Swiss Church, Endell Street, London on Saturday 21 December 2024. The Foundation sponsoring this event was hosting a similar event simultaneously in Paris, two days later in Berlin and Amsterdam, and two days later again (on 25 December 2024) in Tel Aviv.
The London Swiss Church serves both French-speaking and German-speaking Protestant communities, and perhaps both because of its Protestantism and its dual nature, the Church has a very austere interior. The building has recently been redecorated, apparently. The altar appeared to be just a wooden writing desk raised on a single step, and next to it on the step was a simple nativity scene. There was no chair for the pastor nor even a pulpit. A grand piano stood in front of the raised step.
This event was a very very moving mix of words and music. The music were various of Chopin’s Mazurkas performed by three young Russian pianists:Maya Irgalina, Elena Toponogova and Petr Limonov. The words were excerpts from the unpublished writings of Mr Kushnir, each excerpt a commentary on the Mazurkas we then heard played.
An audience of about 120 people filled the seats layed out, and heard some very fine performances. The acoustic turned out to be very good for the music, despite the high roof and mostly bare walls, but not as good for the spoken words. The speaker was very sincere, but did not seem practiced in projecting his voice; perhaps an actor or preacher would have been heard more easily by the audience.
The playing by all three pianists was excellent, and none played from memory. When Mr Limonov started to play, there was a noticeable change in mood. This was due firstly to his practice of just starting immediately, without the slight pause or settling-down at the keyboard that most musicians do. This demonstrated an impressive confidence and an impatience to communicate to us. Secondly, Mr Limonov applied considerably extra force to the piano than had his two colleagues: He was performing for an audience of 2000, not 120.
I am not sure what I think of the change in mood that Mr Limonov effected. Initially, it forced the audience to pay more attention. But after some time, it seemed less appropriate, as if his piano were shouting to us when ordinary speech or even whispering would have been just fine. I find it indicative of this remarkable evening that the different moods created by the three pianists and by the speaker were all appropriate to the different ways one could think about the brave life and tragic end of Mr Kushnir. He himself may not have thought his life was tragic.
- 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
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
set
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’