A perfect match

This much-loved piece  has this much-loved cover.

Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa

Cover 

The Orange Sail by Volcannah

Santa found alive and well

Santa found alive and well playing his didgeridoo in Dresden, accompanied by an Angel playing maracas.

The Cello Song - at last!

Iconoclastic as it may seem, especially coming from an ex-cellist, it's a relief to hear this dull piece of Bach brought to life for the first time.

Tomáš Kelar swaps tough UK music bizz climb with Mountaineers for mega (and tiny) crowds with Midi Lidi

Nice big article in Prague Post today

Tom Kelar on the left.

Beware the law!

This is Prague, baby! :D

It feels different with just the left hand

Listen to the music before reading his story at, for example, Wikipedia.

Two gigs in one week!

Now, this isn't bad either. Members of Brno Filharmaronie in Vankova, the very fine shopping centre that keeps shoppers in town rather than the centrifugal forces that mostly hurl them to the outskirts of towns. Back on topic, the essential players for the essential bits of Vltava, or as we call it in English (a.k.a. New German), Die Moldau.

All this culture - last night at the Husite church on Botanicka - superb choral performances by OctOpus +

A very fine gig indeed

One happy muso

A thorough sound check ensured that the sound in this
fairly intimate space was both lively and warm.   

DRUM AND PUB

PEKARSKA

BRNO

Friday
June 21, 2013

Just in case spring pokes its head around the corner

... we could do worse than a dose of Beethoven's Spring Sonata, to usher the season in. For sheer tone and recording quality, I've opted for Anne Sophie despite her wayward ta-fe-te-fes in the opening phrase. Another half dozen fiddler's performing in the same venue are quite precise. Her playing is not sloppy - she's too damned good to be unaware of what she's doing. I just think she's not chosen well. But that's between me, Anne Soph and LvB. Meanwhile, the western world is crumbling before our very ideas, North Korea is playing with fire (power) and with less care and far greater consequences than any ta-fe-te-fe could ever hope to exact, and the Palestinians are leading their miserable lives under the cruel occupation of a people who came home only to find that their old place had new inhabitants whom they didn't much care for or about.

Come on Sophie, cheer us up.

The last seat in the house

A couple of days ago, I got an auto-email from Vienna telling me of a concert that I desperately wanted to attend. Flying into the website without my seatbelt or nothing, I found that all the affordable tickets were long gone. In fact there was only one ticket left at the top price. See the green chair here? You fuckin' beauty, I thinks. We whips out the plastic and buys the ticket. Eureka. We checks the diary and find that we will be at a conference in Padova some kilometres away at the same time. Had either of them been one day apart ... I have to go through Vienna to get to Padova. I got a refund. Boo-hoo :-(

Used to be my favourite song

...turned up in a very fine film, Lonely Hearts Club, which kept me up on a Friday night way past my bedtime.

Perhaps this version of Top of the World is fitting mood music to mark the long awaited end of Vaclav Klaus' reign. He'll not be missed.

Water reflects music

El sistema blows my mind off the adjectival planet

La sistema must surely be the envy of the world. A generation of kids brought up with free music tuition across a nation far removed from the white first world where the music they play originates. But they are not polite young musicians - there is all the wild testosterone in their playing that clearly excites European audiences, who normally hear beautifully nuanced performances of The Repertoire by their (our?) orchestras. The Last Night of the Proms is a fair exception. But how about this: not a bad headline for these kids: Dudamel and Bolivar Orchestra spark an audience frenzy at Symphony Center – Chicago Classical Review. 

Now when they play for this TED talk, they really look like a bunch of kids before they start. The intellectual precision of their playing is astounding. It'd be impressive for Chicago or Berlin, but my god, these are kids, dressed up as kids. And the director of photography has unashamedly made the most of this. 

I don't want to sound like a big fat white snob, but those kids don't look the part. Youth orchestras are usually made up of clean skinned white elegant polite smart kids. When I played in Sydney Youth Orchestra, our principal violinist was brought to and from rehearsal by a chauffeur. Yes,  I know, egalitarian Australia - ha! The kids here look like they've been dragged up from somewhere. It suits my agenda very well to assume that these kids are exactly that. According to Wikipedia, 70 to 90% of the kids who play in the 125 youth orchestras across the country come from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Did you say 125 youth orchestras?

I live in the Czech Republic, a country with a pretty good history of music- think Smetana, Dvorak, Martinu and Janacek for a start. And Venezuela with c 30 mill inhabitants has three times the population. And yet how many extraordinary youth orchestras does CR sport? One third of 125? Not on your nellie. 

It is interesting watching the audience in LA's response to the "incredible high school musicians from Venezuala" as the Ted Talk production is entitled. They look as though they are applauding an orchestra which is playing well. But they do not get what is behind it. If they did, they would be in tears, or silent. Or someone would say something. I don't think they don't get it. 

Here is someone who gets it: 

From Chile, I have the pleasure and orgasm of present you the Great Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra with The National Youth Choir of Great Britain, ...

commenting on  Dudamel conducting the Bolivar Orch in Mahler 2nd at the Proms.

OMG.

International artists pay for tapestry in Vaclav Havel's honour

Musicians Bono, The Edge, Peter Gabriel, Sting and Yoko Ono have paid for a large tapestry in honour of the late Czech president Vaclav Havel which will be unveiled at Prague's Vaclav Havel Airport next month, a spokeswoman for the airport said. The tapestry, designed by Czech artist Petr Sis, cost CZK 1.5 million, or USD 75,000. The artists have been invited for the unveiling which will take place on December 9, the spokeswoman said but it's not clear if they'll arrive for the occasion. The former Czech president, playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel passed away on December 18, 2011, at the age of 75.

This news story, as usual, comes from Cesky rozhlas this very day. It is interesting that the story cannot be found on their website in Czech of in English. The story comes to me in my daily English email, and it was not in today's Czech email. Apparently someone thinks that this story is of interest only to speakers of English, many of whom may well be Czech.

Rusalka bombed

Remind you of the Met?

Well not exactly. But this evening, the performance of Rusalka at the Janacek Opera House (pictured) in Brno had to be cancelled because of a bomb threat made shortly before 5 pm (from Brno.iDnes news website). 

A bomb threat in Brno! To an opera house! To the Janacek Opera House! The greatest work in the Czech operatic repertoire! Has the world gone completely mad? I hope it was not that teenager from Breclav who fell off his balcony, and who didn't get beaten up by gypsies, as he claimed so his mum wouldn't be cross.

I was in that very theatre last night watching a spectacular performance of an unspectacular work, Mahler's Seventh, about which I wax lyrical here.

See Boris Klepal's article with lots of pretty pictures of Brno's Rusalka, which alas we might have to wait to some time to see again.

Excellent ado about a huge nothing. Brno wins!

Last night: brilliant performance by Brno Philharmonic of Mahler's least spectacular symphony, his 7th. It had its premiere in Prague in 1908, conducted by the composer. And shortly after in Munich and Holland. It confused the public and critics alike then. And me now. I had been wondering why I hadn't heard it before, as 1 2 3 4 5 and 6 are amongst my favourites of the entire repertoire. Everyone else in the world loves 8 except me. But 7 is much ado about nothing - almost down there with Bruckner.

The orchestra was outstanding. What a noise they made. And quite beautifully phrased and everything. But for what? One of the violinists told me afterwards that it took a whole week of rehearsals and this second performance before she felt it made any sense to her at all.

The audience on Thursday night roared and stamped and cheered. The audience last night stood and applauded at great length. Aleksander Markovich, our resident conductor, appeared deeply moved by the reception.  And well he might.

Does it not declare the sophistication of a city? That two full houses pay quite a lot for tickets to a concert with one long work only, and are moved to express such appreciation. This speaks very loudly for mature society.

Self-taught flautist

This young man has taught himself to play the flute. I just heard him say so on a BBC World Service piece on the Iraqi Youth Orchestra. The same we heard about a double bass player and a cellist.
What extraordinary obstacles they have overcome to be what they are and, at the moment, where they are: the Bonn Beethoven Festival. Deutsche Welle story here.

Mahler's 3rd (slow movement)

So, as I was saying in the previous twit-twat, I knew that walking from the Union bar back to Constable Terrace last night was in no way enough time to conduct the whole 25 min movement. My high octane dosage of beverages which had been going on with Sarah and family for all but 12 hrs, let us say 10, wisely chose a part of the pedestrian flyovers to stand and conduct the masterpiece to its glorious concluding moment.

In need of beverage to celebrate Mahler's magnificent closure, I was forced to open a bottle of a colleague's rose in the communal kitchen's fridge - no idea whose. Awaking this morning, I didn't remember drinking any wine in my room until my olfactory senses betrayed me whilst rinsing the glass. Oh dear!

It transpired during the day that the husband of a colleague had bought said bottle for his student party. I duly promised to replace said wine. After work this very day, Gavin and I went for an early pint, then dinner. And on the way, I bought replacement rose as well as a bottle of Casillero del Diablo rewarding the good self.

We waited hours (24.5 mins) for a 25 bus on Unthank Road to ferry us and said wine back to campus just in time for said student party. No sooner had the bus pulled out of our stop when I says to Gav, I do believe the wine reamins at said bus stop. I pulled the trigger but the bus sailed through to the stop afteer that and it was clearly too far to go back.

I rings me friend Sarah, to laugh my excellent dorkishness away. She says, I'm just round the corner. I'll go and see if it's there. Half an hour a later, Gavin, Jamie and I are sitting on the steps outside said Union pub having another last beer, when lo! Sarah turns up with my bag of wines!

We had a laugh.

God bless England. I now REALLY hope the sun shines for the WHOLE Olympics.

Opera composer sings pop songs on opera stage

Rufus sings a capella totally alone

It finished very, very well with a couple of numbers a capella. But it started rough. Didn't get right into it. Having performed the night before at another festival in another country might be reasons tabled. Mr Wainright couldn't even really talk at the beginning - all uhms and aahs and sentences restarted. It augured not well. 

There were two songs for his fiance, Jorn Weisbrodt, the worst songs of the evening. The first was a rickety ole thing in a tired and tiring 12/8. The second was no better and fortunately segued into another number so we didn't have to not applaud. Only about a quarter, maybe a third of the numbers were familiar to me. 

It was wonderful to hear Going to a Town live. And dedicated to Mit Romney! It was wonderful to hear his voice not only live, but older. Not nearly as reedy. It's matured very well. And he has an active range of over two octaves without resorting to falsetto. It was wonderful to hear him sing songs by his parents. And numbers dedicated to his daughter (sic) about which I know nothing and have neither time nor interest in pursuing. Probably safe to say, see Wikipedia. But the family thing did get a bit much. Even the musical director, playing bass, is the brother-in-law. 


 If you do visit him in Wikipedia, at the time of writing you'll find 20 refs to opera. A queer fish.

And it was wonderful to hear other solo singers - both of the backing vocalists and the lead guitarist had solos. They were all outstanding, and better voices than RW. Technically.

It was silly to flop, bog and fop his hair around. It was like, this is what we do to show how much we're in to doing what we're doing. It so didn't work.

His references to Vienna were glorious. Anecdotes about his trips to Vienna, things he'd seen live on the very stage on which he was performing, and as if he'd read my mind, he really wasn't sure that a pop singer in jazz festival on an opera stage was going to work.

It did. Can you see the roar of the crowd. We loved it.

Zinc

An extraordinary love scene - making love

I was watching Bent, a rather stark chamber piece with some beautiful dialogue - reminded me of Waiting for Godot at times. The music is by Phillip Glass - reminded me of everything else he's written. The cast - well this Clive Owen ain't bad, and Lothar Bouteau, Mick Jagger, Ian McKellan and Jude Law. I don't know how Ewan McGregor missed out on this film - tis right up his street.

There was a scene that reminded me of an encounter I once had, and the lad concerned happened to be online, so we chatted briefly, and he told me about this extraordinary online scoring software, Noteflight, which I am now using to create a piece I'm calling Zinc as I was just reading Wikipedia about this metal more as a "vitamin" since my trainer recommend I take 15 mg a day which started yesterday. To hear Zinc, click the little black and red play button at the top left.




Yep, it's not much, but it was fun to learn the software, and composing a wee something after 20 years was its own fun. Kept me out of trouble on a Saturday night, what's more!