Catching up

I maintain my concert-going diary in a “table” in Word format. I have extracted from that nine concerts which have so far gone unremarked on this blog. In a burst of completism, I shall try to say something about each.

1. 21 7 SSO Pictures at an Exhibition

With some of the Dulwich Hill mob to this concert, featuring the incredibly youthful-looking Benjamin Beilmann playing the Higdon violin concerto. I really warmed to this. A few days later I came across it late at night on ABC”Classic” FM (which has taken to repeating its broadcasts much in the way that the TV station repeats its programs) without at first realising what it was other than that it was familiar. At times like this I like to play a little game trying to recognize the composer and work. My first stab at it, more a heuristic device than a definite claim, was Alban Berg – after all, I’ve heard his concerto a few times. Not really a good guess, but a kind of unwitting compliment.

2. 23 7 Musica Viva Joyce Yang

Lx of the DHG persuaded me to pick up a ticket for this, at Angel Place. We sat upstairs on the non-keyboard side which I’m beginning to think gives the best sound. The program was:

RACHMANINOFF Three Preludes
JANÁČEK Piano Sonata 1.X.1905
LISZT Spanish Rhapsody
Elizabeth YOUNAN Piano Sonata
LISZT Sonata in B minor

I would have preferred Schumann’s Carnaval which was the closer for Yang’s other program, but I had a semi-clash (something on that evening). Nor am I really keen on weekend afternoon concerts.

I wish I could say something more definite about the Younan as it was a fresh commission but I have left it too long to say other than that it was effective.

Lx thought the Liszt was terrific but I’m afraid I wasn’t quite in right space for it. I was probably a bit tired (it was a weeknight concert and I came straight from work).

3. 3 8 SSO Spanish Nights

Lx tipped me off that that the SSO had marked down lots of A Reserve seats to C reserve prices. The program also was particularly attractive:

Debussy: Gigues from Images
Julian Anderson: The Imaginary Museum Piano Concerto
Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain, for piano and orchestra
Debussy: Ibéria from Images

Not one concerto, but two! Well, maybe the Falla is not a concerto but it is still a concertante work. My seat, in Box C (which is the first upstairs box to the front of the orchestra on the non-keyboard side) gave a very favourable balance to the piano as well as a good vantage point for all orchestral detail.

In my mind’s eye I expected Steve Osborne to be a young Englishman with beautiful eyelashes. I realised straight away that that was Paul Lewis, for that matter, about 20 years ago. Osborne is Scottish. He could be a minor character in Taggart. It’s something to do with the set of his jaw.

I really liked the Julian Anderson. It’s too new for me to be able to listen to it again – you can hear about 2 minutes here..The whole program really hung together well, bookended with the two Debussy numbers. After all, it’s almost proverbial that the best Spanish music is French. (Actually that’s a more complicated question, for another day.)

4. 6 8 SSO Piano – S Osborne

This was the recital at Angel Place.  I don’t need to write much about this because I found myself next to Elizabeth whose blog contains a record of our meeting.  Having “unmasked” myself I felt a little self-conscious, but we have since sat together again (see 9 below [when I get around to it]) and I have got past that.

Despite my non-enthusiasm for spoken introductions, I enjoyed the recital.  As the SSO blurb put it, Osborne made  “a striking juxtaposition between the fragrant, exotic sonorities of Debussy and the propulsive vigour of Prokofiev’s mature sonatas.”  Actually, (he grudgingly admits) part of what Osborne said in his introduction gave an insight to this because he spoke of liking to make the quietest sound possible..  Debussy who famously said he wanted the piano to sound as though it did not have hammers.  In the back of my mind I know that the story about that quote is more complicated than the piano just being quiet. It’s as if  Osborne favours a kind of spikiness  at two ends of the pianistic musolect (my coinage from idiolect) for which Prokofiev and Debussy could well stand as avatars.  He’s not such a one for the – how shall I put it? –  a BMW drive down the Romantic middle of the road.

I enjoyed it.

5. 11 8 AE Hindson, Mozart, Brahms

That’s the Australia Ensemble.   The program was:

Matthew HINDSON | Septet (2009)

Anton REICHA | Wind quintet in E flat Op.88 no. 2 (1818)

Wolfgang MOZART | Piano trio in C K548 (1788)

Johannes BRAHMS | Clarinet Quintet Op. 115 (1891)

Delay has suppressed recollection other than that I remember how jolly the Reicha was.  He is sometimes known as the “father of the wind quintet” and this is his most famous one. I have a soft-spot for this sub-Beethoven/post-Classical/pre-Romantic period in music history – it can be so agreeable without being too demanding – embodying a kind of common practice/received pronunciation of Western music.

Unfortunately my main memory of this concert (other than of almost not making it because I went for a swim in the afternoon and sank into a sleep so deep that P, coming by as arranged to pick me up, was unable to rouse me to the front door) is of during the Brahms, when, at a point where I was brushing away tears in the slow movement, there was some terrible banging (there had already been a bit) from the rear of the hall.

When I looked around at the end of the concert, a couple with a small child, a lot of possessions and a set of crutches seemed to be the perpetrators though at the next concert someone told me it was someone (else) having a fit,  Either way, the musicians’ concentration was obviously affected.  Having made myself vulnerable, I felt bruised and assaulted in a way which is difficult to recover from.

I have survived and am quite recovered by now, but it cast a shadow over the evening.

6. 24 8 SSO Brahms 4

This was a great program, especially Alban Gerhardt playing the new Brett Dean cello concerto from memory.  I wish I’d arranged to see this twice.

I also enjoyed Brahms 4 – last time I heard it I was too tired.  It was a mistake though to try to count the variations in the last movement.  My new resolution for life is not to count the variations: go with the flow!  And you can always tell the end is coming if there is a fugue.  (Not that chaconnes end with fugues.)

As I listened I thought to myself “Robertson is a Brahms the progressive kind of guy.”   Sure enough there was a note in the program which confirmed this.  It’s the lean string sound which is the giveaway.  I still like Brahms the Romantic (fat string sound).  I’m just not so keen on Brahms the German Nationalist and composer of the Triumphlied.

7. 1 9 SSO Brahms

8. 15 9 AE

9. 17 9 SSO Piano

This post has gestated too long so I’ve decided to push it out into the world two-thirds formed.  Shades  of the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass (which I have always preferred to in Wonderland) expounding the need to run just to stay where you are.  Sometimes I just can’t  catch up.