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Going back over old territory here, but by chance I found a film I made when I was rehearsing for my ATCL Diploma recital last winter with my page turner (who also happens to be a very good friend of mine, and one of my piano students). I’ve edited it into a more watchable programme. The pieces are played in the order in which I performed them in the exam recital on 14th December 2011
Canadian pianist (and sometime composer) Marc-André Hamelin can play anything, you know…….
Or so it appeared last night as he wowed the Wigmore audience with a programme of radical and adventurous repertoire. Read my review for Bachtrack here
Thanks, again, to my blogging colleague Somewhere Boy for inspiring this meme. As he says in the preamble to his own post (I’ve also ‘borrowed’ his title), the meme is “a socially sanctioned excuse for theft”. It’s also the opportunity for a ramble before I have to get on with some reality tasks.
Top 3 concerts: 2011 was a busy year for me, as my new job as reviewer for Bachtrack.com enabled me to enjoy even more live music (a trend I hope to continue in 2012). Hard to select a ‘top three’ as I heard so much fine music in 2011, from an extraordinarily talented young cellist giving her first London recital at St John’s Smith Square to Marc-André Hamelin’s superb late-night Liszt Prom.
Maurizio Pollini at Royal Festival Hall. Truly a concert which took my breath away, especially his exhilarating performance of Boulez’s Piano Sonata No.2, a piece I did not know. In this concert, the last of Pollini’s 2011 residency at RFH, he demonstrated true virtuosity, in the very best sense of the word: a pianist who can tackle any repertoire with great skill, conviction, fidelity and flair. A very memorable and special event (review here).
Ian Bostridge at Wigmore Hall. I adore Ian Bostridge and have been known, in the past, to prostrate myself before him in my devotion (only to be hastily dragged away by a friend!). He has a beautiful voice, clear and pure, lacking that heavy vibrato of old-school tenors, and is even able to make German sound attractive when sung. For two hours I sat in rapt adulation. And then went home and wrote this review.
Mahan Esfahani at Cadogan Hall. A double first for the Proms: the debut of young Iranian harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and the first ever solo harpsichord recital at the Proms. Esfahani brought the ‘Goldberg Variations’ to life in new, exciting and unexpected ways, and left the entire Cadogan Hall audience utterly spellbound by his performance (review here).
Top 3 books: I sort of ‘gave up’ reading during the second half of 2011, and temporarily left my bookclub (which I established in 2005) as I simply did not have time to read anything much as I was studying for my performance Diploma (anyone who thinks that is just “playing the piano” should come and see me for a fuller explanation!). It occurred to me, when I (previously a voracious reader) hadn’t actually opened a novel for about two months that reading is a little like piano practice: you need to do it regularly. Once in a routine, it is easy to read every day. Instead, I caught up with some reading during two holidays in France. In no particular order…..
The Hand that First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell. I loved O’Farrell’s first novel, After You’d Gone, and have enjoyed most of her subsequent books. This is her most recent, and as usual she cleverly interweaves several narratives, sensitively and evocatively. A moving and absorbing story of lives connected across the decades.
A Single Man – Christopher Isherwood. I read some Isherwood as a teenager and then forgot about him. Then I saw the film ‘A Single Man’ starring Colin Firth in a Tom Ford suit. The film was exquisite, the book even more so (of course). Beautifully observed, poignant, painful, funny, warm, and ultimately hopeful.
The Musicians’ Way – Gerald Klickstein. I’d been following the blog of the same title for some time before I purchased the book. It arrived at exactly the right time when I was fully immersed in my Diploma preparations. An excellent volume full of sound advice on how to practice effectively and deeply, preparation for performance, dealing with performance anxiety. A great handbook for musicians everywhere, professional and amateur, accessible and easy to absorb.
Top 3 CDs/Downloads: I rarely buy CDs these days, as I tend to download albums or single tracks from iTunes, or listen to things via Spotify where I “borrow” them before deciding if I’d like to own them.
LISZT Années de pèlerinage: Deuxième Année, Italie (complete). Première Année: Au la de Wallenstadt; Au bord d’une source. Troisième Année: Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este • Christine Stevenson. One of many wonderful contributions to the Liszt bicentenary celebrations in 2011, this recording by pianist and fellow-blogger (Notes from a Pianist) contains much to delight the ears and mind. Christine spent 2011 playing and writing about Liszt’s music, and her deep involvement in his music, both physically and intellectually, is evident in her thoughtful and detailed reading of these works.
50 Words for Snow – Kate Bush. After years of waiting for a new album by Kate Bush, we get two in one year: Director’s Cut, a satisfying and enjoyable reworking of songs from her albums The Red Shoes and The Sensual World, and 50 Words for Snow, a completely new album, which proves that Kate has still ‘got it’, with her unerring ability to reinvent herself every time she releases a new album. In her early 50s now, her voice has mellowed, it’s rich and warm. Lyrically strong, musically inventive, nevermind that the ubiquitous Stephen Fry is on the title track – he’s a lot better than I feared, and I love the different words for snow (‘ankle breaker” being my favourite!).
‘O Radiant Dawn’ from the Strathclyde Motets – James Macmillan. Discovered this very morning thanks to Radio Three’s Breakfast show. A piece of spine-tingling beauty and purity. I’m “borrowing” the entire album (performed by the matchless Sixteen with Harry Christophers) from Spotify so I can explore it further.
The Sixteen – Strathclyde Motets: O Radiant Dawn
3 blogs I follow. A bit nebulous and entirely subjective this category….and not music-related. Actually, I visit so many blogs that it’s impossible to select a “top 3″, so here are three of my favourites, for different reasons.
Betty Herbert. Betty blogs on sex and sex-related issues so this site is NSFW. She also blogs about trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, books, food, film, and invites guest posts or ‘Whispers’. Open, honest, funny, poignant, comforting, friendly, this is the blog equivalent of having coffee with your best girlfriend.
Cook Eat Live Vegetarian. I discovered this wonderful food blog by accident while searching for a recipe for Tikka Halloumi. If you thought vegetarian food was dull and tasteless, think again! Natalie’s recipes are imaginative and colourful, and are accompanied by the most gorgeous, mouth-watering photographs. She lives in Spain, the lucky girl!
The Kitten Covers. Sounds like a sex site? It’s not. It’s a joke. Silly and fun. Album sleeves reworked with cats and kittens. Love it.
Khatia Buniatishvili
Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili played an absorbing programme of works by Liszt, Chopin and Prokofiev to a sold-out Wigmore Hall on the evening of 6th December 2011.
Read my review for Bachtrack here
Till Fellner © Ben Ealovega
Austrian pianist Till Fellner played a selection of well-known and well-loved piano music by Haydn, Schumann and Liszt in an engaging lunchtime recital at London’s Wigmore Hall. Read my review for Bachtrack.com here
As English as Earl Grey tea, wasps at a picnic, warm beer, wet summers, Rupert Brooke, and Andy Murray not getting past the semis at Wimbledon, the Last Night of the Proms is a fine tradition and a much-loved national treasure.
Music snobs and cynics may criticise the Last Night (and indeed other programmes in the Proms season) for “dumbing down” classical music. Others may regard all the flag-waving and singing of Rule Britannia! as rampant jingoism verging on unpleasant nationalism – and if the Prommers were skinheads and card-carrying BNP members, maybe that would be true. But in fact, watching the Last Night on television on Saturday night, the overriding sense is of a wonderful shared experience and a real celebration of music and music making. And not all the flags were Union Jacks, not by any means…..
Photo credit: BBC
The Proms has grown, from its relatively humble origins at the Queen’s Hall in London at the end of the nineteenth century, to an internationally renowned music festival. When the Proms were first conceived, the motivation was to bring classical music to a wider public and to encourage those who might not normally go to classical music concerts to attend. This is still the Proms’ USP, and something it is clearly doing right, given the record attendance figures this year. Latterly, the Proms has become more populist: this year we’ve had a Horrible Histories Prom, a Comedy Prom and a Spaghetti Western Prom, but alongside these more popular programmes we’ve also had many premiers of new works, fine orchestras and soloists from all around the world, and night after night of fantastic music. I have been to four Proms, reviewing for Bachtrack, and have enjoyed every single one of them. After the stuffy, hidebound, reverential atmosphere of the Wigmore Hall, with its (mostly) snooty, superannuated audience, the Royal Albert Hall is a breath of fresh air. At each Prom I attended, there was a wonderful sense of people coming together to enjoy and celebrate music.
It’s hard to get a ticket to the Last Night: like Wimbledon, tickets are allocated by ballot and you have to submit your request months in advance. Thus, the sense of occasion is even greater, if you are one of the lucky ones to be there. Even if you are not, the tv and radio coverage is so good these days that you can join in the festivities from your living room, as I did last night. Or attend a Prom in the Park, a relatively new innovation which aims to bring music to an even wider audience.
The programme started seriously enough with a new work by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, followed by some lively, spiky Bartok, before the first Main Event of the evening, Susan Bullock singing Brunhilde’s self-immolation scene from Wagner’s Ring cycle. I can live without Wagner, though certain friends insist that I can’t, and while I admired Susan Bullock’s performance – and her striking scarlet dress – I found the extreme vibrato in her voice obscured the music. She’s clearly a popular performer, and interviewed afterwards by Katie Derham, she admitted that the atmosphere in the hall was remarkable.
Next up was Chinese posterboy rockstar pianist Lang Lang. He’d dashed from the Prom in the Park across the road in Hyde Park, where he’d played the most ridiculously flashy account of Liszt’s ‘La Campanella’ I have ever heard, to perform more Liszt, the First Piano Concerto, in the main hall. I admit I have very little patience with performers like Lang Lang. Sure, he’s a fine technician, but there’s no real substance nor depth to his playing – and this was more than evident in the Liszt Concerto, which he reduced to another display of unnecessary piano pyrotechnics. Added to that, his gurning and grinning, his affected gestures, and his Liberace-like smiles at the camera…. He’s a big crowd-pleaser and received rousing and sustained applause. He returned after the interval to wreck Chopin’s ‘Grande Polonaise Brillante’, more schmaltz and sugar plums, before offering the most sycophantic, sentimental Liszt (the ‘Consolation’ No. 3) as an encore.
Next, Britten’s ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’, a welcome relief after Lang Lang’s extreme attention-seeking, with Jenny Agutter reading a rather toe-curling new version of the text written by poet Wendy Cope. The rest of the programme is, traditionally, devoted to the massed singalong, beginning this year with ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’ (from The Sound of Music) and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, Susan Bullock returning to the stage in a vivid electric blue gown, to lead the singing. Then it was Elgar, twice, the audience urged by conductor Edward Gardner (the youngest conductor to conduct at the Last Night) to sing up and drown the piccolo. And finally, Rule Britannia!, sung by Susan Bullock, wearing a hilarious parody of Britannia’s costume, complete with flashing daffodils on her breastplate, and Jerusalem. All good wholesome fun, and entirely uplifting.
So, the Proms is over for another year, yet predictions are already being made about next year’s programme. I’ve heard rumours that Barenboim will conduct all nine of Beethoven’s Symphonies, and, being the Olympic year, the 2012 season is likely to be really special. I’m looking forward to it already!
Meanwhile, the autumn season at the Wigmore Hall has just begun, and I have a full diary of concerts to look forward to, beginning tomorrow lunchtime with young French ‘piano babe’ Lise de la Salle. Other highlights include Robert Levin playing Mozart with the OAE, Garrick Ohlsson, Louis Lortie, Peter Donohoe and Mitsuko Uchida. You can find links to all my reviews for Bachtrack on this blog, as well as plenty of other piano-musings. And don’t forget to check out Bachtrack’s listings for concerts, opera and ballet around the world (click on the graphic on the left).
The Old Vicarage, Grantchester by Rupert Brooke (spot the quote which inspired this post!!)
I thought it would be worthwhile posting other reviews of Marc-André Hamelin’s stunning all-Liszt recital at the Proms on 24th August. The general consensus is that it was a superb evening: it certainly continues to resonate with me as I have discussed it with friends and colleagues, and listened to the concert again, via the BBC iPlayer.
I would also like to thank those people who have contacted me following the concert to comment on my review. Such positive feedback is always very welcome, and I am delighted that people enjoy my writing.
Hear the concert via the BBC iPlayer here
And here’s Hamelin playing the same Liszt Sonetto (123) that I performed in my students’ concert in July:
This time last year I wrote a piece for this blog arguing for a change of venue for the Proms, London’s two-month summer classical music festival. We’re a fortnight into the current season, and I have already attended two Prom concerts, courtesy of Bachtrack. One was at Cadogan Hall, a lovely venue just off Sloane Square, with comfy seats, a great view of the stage wherever you sit, a fine acoustic (it’s a converted church), and a champagne bar. Here I heard the young harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani give an exquisite and at times idiosyncratic performance of Bach’s iconic Goldberg Variations (read my review for Bachtrack here). And then, last Friday, I attended the Proms ‘proper’, if you will, for a lively evening of Franco-Hispanic music by Debussy, Ravel and de Falla: from Bach’s Baroque world in microcosm to a sweeping panorama of Spain evoked in lively and atmospheric orchestral music.
As a child and teenager, I used to go to the Proms every year with my parents, who would pour over the programme as soon as it was published (this, of course, many years pre-internet, and the Proms booklet would be for sale in WH Smith). There wasn’t such competition for tickets then, although tickets for the First and Last nights were allocated by ballot. I heard a wide variety of music, and sometimes we would sit in the choir stalls behind the stage, affording one a wonderful view of the orchestra at work. About 10 years ago, I heard Lang Lang, playing Tchaikovsky, before he shot to superstar status, and before that Evgeny Kissin. The last time I was at the Proms, before last Friday, we sat high up in the vertiginous upper circle, where we sweltered, and from where Stephen Hough, the soloist, was but a speck on the stage, and Rach Three was rather lost in the vastness of the Albert Hall. In the interval we drank warm white wine out of plastic glasses and had to sit on the stairs near the ladies’ loo. Not especially enjoyable. The whole experience was rather tiring, fraught and effortful. After that, I decided I would avoid the Proms.
The Proms have not always been resident at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert series was pioneered by a Mr Robert Newman, and its first home was the Queen’s Hall. In those early days, the programmes were far more varied, and somewhat eccentric or lacking in coherence (a trawl through the BBC Proms Archive site reveals some interesting programmes, cram full with a huge variety of music in one single concert), and often included unscheduled musical offerings. For example, the violinist Fritz Kreisler liked to warm up both himself and the audience with an unprogrammed “appetiser” such as his own ‘Praeludium’. Robert Newman conceived the Proms to encourage an audience who would not normally attend classical music concerts, enticing them with the low ticket prices and more informal atmosphere. From the earliest days, promenading was permitted, as was eating and drinking. Smoking was also allowed, though patrons were requested “not to strike matches between movements or during quiet passages”. After Newman’s sudden death in 1926, Henry Wood took over the directorship of the concert series. The Proms took up residence at the Royal Albert Hall in 1942 after the destruction of Queen’s Hall, though they moved again during the war to Bedford Corn Exchange, home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 1941, and remained at this venue until the end of the war.
What is so wonderful about the Proms is that the original spirit in which they were conceived continues today. Even as we approached the hall last Friday (I went with a friend who had never been to a Prom before), there was a buzz of excited expectancy amongst the people milling around the hall, queuing to “promenade” (pay a fiver and stand in the arena, or up in the gods), or for returns at the box office. It was a fine summer evening, the Albert Memorial gleamed in the setting sun, the park was still full of people enjoying the last warmth of the day, lovers strolling hand in hand, children running across the grass, a patient queue at the bus stop.
After picking up the tickets at the Press Office, we had a drink in the bar near door 9 and at the appointed hour drifted into the hall where we had excellent seats in the circle. Inside, the hall vibrated with the hum of 5000 people in that special state of eager expectation a few minutes ahead of the start of a concert. The orchestra were taking their places, the ‘prommers’ claiming their ‘pitch’ in the arena. Above the stage, a plush red and gold velvet swag proclaimed that these were the ‘BBC Proms’. Then the formalities began, first with the arrival of the assistant leader of the orchestra, then the leader, and finally the ‘master of ceremonies’, conductor Juanjo Mena (who takes over as principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in September). With the raise of his baton, the evening’s entertainment was underway.
I am well aware of the limitations of the Albert Hall as a music venue: small scale, chamber and solo recitals are often lost in its vast space, and its dodgy acoustic can give the sense that the music is being heard from a next door room. Even the full-size orchestra last Friday struggled at times to be heard, especially in the quieter passages of the opening piece (Debussy’s ‘Gigues’ from his Images for orchestra), but at other times, the woodwind and brass sections (who were particularly fine throughout the concert) sang through perfectly, clear, bright, melodious and mellow, while the strings were silky and translucent.
(c) BBC Proms
“Where are they off to?” my friend asked after the applause for Ravel’s wonderful Rhapsodie Espagnole and the orchestra started to drift off the stage. I pointed out it was the interval and therefore time for another glass of perfectly chilled rosé in the bar. Nick expressed his delight at being there, spoke intelligently about what he had heard and what we would hear in the second half. He seemed intrigued by the idea that I could have come to any Prom I care to, courtesy of Bachtrack. Around us people chatted and laughed; the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Afterwards, walking back to the tube station along the tunnel at South Ken, we overhead other people’s responses to what they had heard (always useful grist to the reviewer’s mill!). We talked all the way home on the train and agreed that we’d had a great night out.
And this, to me, is what the Proms is all about. Too often people are put off attending classical music because they perceive it as stuffy, elitist and populated by (largely) snooty octogenarians who demand hushed reverence. The Wigmore audience is perhaps the very worst example of this, although it doesn’t bother me any more, and without those people the Wigmore probably wouldn’t exist. But at the Proms, everyone is welcome. In recent years, the programmes have definitely become more “populist”, with themed concerts such as a Dr Who Prom, and, this year, a Human Planet prom and forthcoming Horrible Histories and Spaghetti Western proms. Music snobs and critics may throw their hands up at this, but I think these concerts are a great way of introducing classical music to people who may have no previous knowledge or experience of it. The atmosphere inside the Albert Hall is very friendly and good-natured, with its special Prom traditions: the Prommers always yell “heave-ho!” as the piano lid is raised, for example. And if people applaud during movements, so what? To me, it’s a spontaneous, instant response to something they have enjoyed, and should not be sneered at as ignorance of “concert etiquette”. (The habit of not applauding between movements had not existed before the twentieth century.) So, hip hip hooray for the Proms and all they stand for, and long may they continue. You can be guaranteed a huge variety of music, from new commissions to old favourites, works on a vast scale (Havergal Brian’s monumental Gothic Symphony), to intimate chamber music and solo miniatures.
I am back at the Proms towards the end of August for a late-night recital of Liszt, including the beautiful Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude, performed by Marc-André Hamelin. I am not sure how Liszt’s solo piano works will fare in the vastness of the Royal Albert Hall, but I have little doubt that this is the kind of venue, and concert experience, of which Liszt himself would have thoroughly approved.
For more information about the Proms click here
Bachtrack.com – international concert listings site
Say “Glenn Gould”, and most people will reply “Bach”. Horowitz? Liszt. Schnabel? Beethoven. Lipatti? Chopin. Many great pianists (and even some lesser ones!) have become associated with one particular composer, and this “composer connection” still prevails today: Mitsuko Uchida and Maria Joao Pires are noted for their interpretations of Mozart, Evgeny Kissin for Chopin, Alfred Brendel for the great Austro-German triumvirate of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (though there are far better interpreters of these composers’ music than Brendel!).
So, why is it that certain pianists become so closely associated with a particular composer, or group of composers? A definitive recording, a well-received concert tour, the praise of respected critics, all these factors contribute. Some pianists choose to devote their life to playing and recording the entire Chopin Etudes and Preludes, or the complete Beethoven piano sonatas (Brendel – three times, Barenboim – twice), while others prefer to play more wide-ranging repertoire. The great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter seemed able to turn his hand to anything, from Bach to Britten, Handel to Hindemith (he claimed he had enough repertoire for “around eighty programmes”). Claudio Arrau is another noted all-rounder, along with Maurizio Pollini, who is also a champion of the sort of late twentieth-century repertoire many modern pianists of a similar stature won’t touch (‘The Pollini Project’, his personal survey of piano music from Bach to Boulez, draws to a close next Tuesday).
But is it also perhaps that some pianists choose to immerse themselves in one particular composer, or composers, because the music reveals something about their own personality? We talk of so-and-so having an “affinity” for, say, Bach, or Debussy. The word “affinity” originates from the Middle English affinite and the Latin affinitas which is defined as “connection by marriage”. This suggests an even more intimate connection between musician and composer, and perhaps it is that very intimacy which enables some interpreters to really get to the heart, and soul, of the music?
This sounds fanciful: of course, musicians pick up repertoire because they like it, not because they want to marry it! Why learn something you dislike, or because you feel you should? Even at the most junior level, with my students, I would never force them to learn music they do not like: it is wholly unproductive. I have clear memories from my childhood piano lessons of being confronted with the same dreary page of score week after week, my piano teacher insistent that I learn the damn thing. As a teenager, and, admittedly, a rather tiresome, smug, academic teenager, I claimed to love the music of Bach. I’d only scratched the surface of his oeuvre, but there was something about the tight construction of his music that appealed to my intellect. And still does. While at 16, learning a Chopin Nocturne (Op 37, no. 1) for Grade 8, I loathed what I considered its overblown sentiment. Now, I can’t get enough of Chopin, and studying and learning his music is an enormous, if difficult, pleasure (and, no, I don’t consider his music to be full of overblown sentiment any more!). Liszt has been another revelation – a composer I refused to touch until this year, for the same reason as my dislike of Chopin my teens. Again, I was wrong. Meanwhile, much as I love his music, Mozart remains a tricky option, the words of Schnabel never far from my mind “too easy for children and too difficult for artists”, and I’m not convinced I have the mindset for Mozart.
One of my adult students, a rather stiff, anxious woman, had a breakthrough recently learning Bartok (the Quasi Adagio from For Children, which is part of the ABRSM Grade 1 syllabus this year). While other students have struggled with the simple yet highly emotional nature of this piece, this lady has reveled in it, creating the right nuances and shadings, despite her inexperience, and bringing a plaintive poignancy to the tiny piece. So then we looked at ‘Kummer’ (‘Grief’) by Alexander Gedike (ABRSM Grade 1 2009-10 syllabus), and the same wonderful thing happened. She admitted that the sorrowful, minor-key nature of these pieces suited her personality, and it’s true that she plays both extremely well. So, maybe this is an example of the music “fitting” the personality of the performer?
Performers need to balance their own personality with the expression of the composer’s ego: there is, for me, nothing worse than going to a performance where it is all about the performer (Lang Lang, Fazil Say). It just gets in the way of the music and is, in my opinion, hugely egocentric. The best performances are those where the performer stands back from the music a little, with a “passionate detachment”, a little deferential, thus allowing the music (and its composer) to speak for itself. As conductor Mark Wrigglesworth says in his article which, in part, inspired this post, “the best results are of course when the personalities of both the piece and its performer lie in perfect harmony”. The one notable exception to this is perhaps Glenn Gould, whose personality is, in many ways, all over the music in his muttering and humming. Some people can’t bear this, but to me it’s a sign of Gould’s total engagement with the music, and his enjoyment of it too.
Richter playing the opening movement of his favourite Schubert sonata (G major, D894).
Glenn Gould – French Suite No. 2 in C minor, BWV 813/I. Allemande
I’m reblogging a link to this wonderful video of Martha Argerich playing Liszt from Notes from a Pianist. Even if you don’t like, or know the music of Liszt (and if you don’t, this is the year to discover his music), this is fascinating viewing for it gives a close up of the pianist’s hands in action. Look out for the left hand thumb and hammer-like little finger in the opening measures which creates that extraordinary muffled tolling bell motif. And later, the sheer power in her hands in the ‘cavalry charge’.
The piece, the seventh from the suite Harmonies poetiques et religieuses, is an elegy written in 1849 in response to the suppression of the Hungarian uprising of 1848 by the Hapsburgs.
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