Nimble Tread

Way to go Warren!

Enough can't be said about Warren Buffett's decision to give the bulk of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and to join the couple as the Foundation's trustees.  If Berkshire Hathaway share value climbs even modestly, the donation will be in excess of $32 billion, which is just incredible.  As interesting as I find the news, I find Buffett's rationale even more intriguing.  For someone living in Europe, where the aristocracy is still alive, and the memory of its glory days relatively fresh in everyone's mind, it seems almost inconceivable that someone who's spent the bulk of his lifetime amassing one of history's largest fortunes is foregoing familial legacy for societal benefit.  As a non-European, though, I get it, and also get the point he's trying to make regarding meritocracies and their obligation to the common good.  His comments, which can be found here and I'm sure countless other places, speak to the incompatibility of a pseudo-aristocracy with the notion of the American Dream and the ideas expounded by the US's founding fathers.  It seems unlikely that the small community of America's mega-rich will follow in Buffett's footsteps, but his having thrown down the gauntlet will at least make them think about it a little more seriously, and that's something. 

On an entirely different note, I've just spent a very pleasant hour listening to the dream team of David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Ricther, and Slava Rostropovich playing Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan's baton.  The disc was released by EMI several years ago, and also includes Brahms' Double Concerto for violin and cello played by Oistrakh and Slava along with the Cleveland Orchestra and George Szell.  Really good stuff. 

I'm off to Tosca tonight, which I had to skip last week owing to my plague.  It's had mixed reviews, though virtually everyone I've spoken to whose opinion I trust claims it's well sung.  Many of the reviewers seem to have swivelled their thumbs down owing to Angela Gheorghiu's voice, which they claim is feeble.  OK.  Why the surprise?  Anyone who's ever heard Gheorghiu sing knows she has a small voice.  That's why she can barely clear the stalls at the Met, even standing on her tiptoes.  The fact of the matter, though, is that she has a beautiful sound, and is a wonderful technician; Covent Garden, with its relatively modest auditorium size and generally singer-friendly acoustics, is a great venue for her, and that's why she's been so popular in London for the last few years.  It's true that she isn't the greatest actress in the world, and will hardly pose a threat to Callas' Tosca, but still, I'm expecting a solid performance, and with Bryn Terfel and Marcello Alvarez in her camp, how bad can it be?

Brain of Clay

I feel absolutely God awful today, and, aside from an ill-advised trip to Queen's Park this morning, haven't left my bed, let alone the house, all day.  I feel too foggy to write, or even read much, so I've arranged a film festival for myself, complete with little entr'acts of some favourite music.  So far it's been: An Ideal Husband -- Milstein playing Paganiniana -- Harold Lloyd's An Eastern Westerner -- Leon Fleischer's disc Two Hands -- Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy -- an attempt at cooking to the baseball edition of Bob Dylan's radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour (he sings "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."  Great stuff!) that turned into listening to the first five minutes, and then eating a grapefruit -- Lloyd's From Hand to Mouth.   My eyes are burning, and my body's aching, but between you and me, I'm secretly having a good time.  It's like being home sick from school. 
If it's true that there's no such thing as a victimless crime, it must also be true that there's no such thing as a perpetrator-less crime.  (I was going to come up with a working syllogism to prove that, but I just don't have it in me today.)  In my case, the perp is that homeopathic wonderdrug, Oscillococcinum, which, if taken three times a day for three days, eradicates any maladie known to mankind.  A month ago it cured me of the virus that plagues me once a year, and I was about to build a monument to trumpet its virtues.  Monument plans cancelled.  It turns out that Oscillococcinum works like a charm at first, but, according to my theory at any rate, it does't fully wipe out the virus, but rather suppresses it for a while, giving the bug time to formulate a new, more potent strategy of attack and devastation.  Accordingly, I'm going Oscillo-free this time around.  It's gonna be a mano a mano, Queensbury rules style bloodbath, which I hope to win.  I have a four-pronged attack plan that's sure to bring home a sound victory: movies, grapefruits, soup, and Advil.  It hasn't failed yet.

Guillem & Maliphant Revisited

I was at Sadler's Wells last night for a repeat of last year's Push, choreographed by Russell Maliphant and starring him and Sylvie Guillem, who at forty and change looks as lithe as ever, and still has that singular twinkle in her eye.  I wrote about last year's performance here, and given that this year's was just as good, I won't really go into much detail.  I will, however, mention that Guillem seemed to have lost a bit of her crackle, which makes me think that the rumors of retirement that have long swirled around her like vaporous tendrils are finally solidifying into fact.  She's still dancing amazingly well, and looks fit beyond belief -- there was a dearth of clothing in Push, and I could see individual muscle fibres in practically every part of her body -- but I think the end is near.  I hate to be the Get-Ready Man (more on that in a minute), but if you have any interest in terpsichorean matters and/or a soft spot in your heart for Miss Guillem, I'd make haste and see her while you can.
Bonus: Fellow James Thurber nuts will have no trouble whatever with my Get-Ready Man remark, so I attach the following for my less refined readership:

The boy's I went to school with used to be able to identify every car as it passed by: Thomas Flyer, Firestone-Columbus, Stevens Duryea, Rambler, Winton, White Steamer, etc.  I never could.  The only car I was really interested in was the one that the Get-Ready Man, as we used to call him, rode around town in: a big Red Devil with a door in the back.  The Get-Ready Man wa a lank unkempt elderly gentleman with wild eyes and a deep voice who used to go about shouting at people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of the world.  "GET READY! GET READ-Y!" he would bellow.  "THE WORLLLLD IS COMING TO AN END!"  His startling exhortations would come up, like summer thunder, at the most unexpected times and in the most suprising places.  I remember once during Mantell's production of "King Lear" at the Colonial Theatre, that the Get-Ready Man added his bawlings to the squealing of Edgar and the ranting of the King and the mouthing of the Fool, rising from somewhere in the balcony to join in.  The theatre was in absolute darkness and there were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning offstage.  neither father nor I, who were there, ever completely got over the scene, which went something like this:
Edgar: Tom's a-cold. --O, do de, do de, do de! -- Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking...the foul fiend vexes!
                                                                        (Thunder off.)
Lear: What!  Have his daughters brought him to this pass? --
Get-Ready Man: Get ready! Get Ready!
Edgar: Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:--
                                                                         Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!
                                                                         (Lightning flashes.)
Get-Ready Man: The Worllld is com-ing to an End!
Fool: This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen!
Edgar: Take heed o' the fool fiend: obey thy paren------
Get-Ready Man: Get Rea-dy!
Edgar: Tom's a-cold!
Get-Ready Man: The Worr-uld is coming to an end!...

They found him finally, and ejected him, still shouting.  The Theatre, in our time, has known few such moments.

                         --From James Thurber's The Car We Had to Push.

Time Out

If you've been longing to see a video of György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes, you need long no longer.  A quick click here will take you to The Standing Room's memorial tribute to Ligeti, which is built upon a video of what may well be his best known work.  I got a kick out of the video as it reminded me of the "avant-garde" art films I had to watch in college.  Compared to Warhol's Haircut, this is a bagatelle.
More fun can be found at ionarts, where Charles Downey and Jens Laurson get their jollies by critiquing the performance captured in the video.  And should that not suffice, have a look here for the piece's score.  Alex Ross tells that they'll be performing the Poème on the steps at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam on the 17th.  Be there or be square.

Bon Voyage

The curtain came down the other night on the Royal Ballet's 2006 home season, which the company capped with a cast-of-thousands mixed bill featuring The Rake's Progress, Divertissements, and Homage to the Queen.  It was a fairly disappointing night, though through no fault of the dancers who were all in fine form.  In fact, that was just the problem: the pieces just couldn't accommodate everyone, and I was bugged by the degree to which many of the principals were underused.  Kobborg made a couple of appearances -- one with Cojocaru -- but hardly broke a sweat as the debauched Rake, and hardly had a chance to get his soles warm in Homage to the Queen; Bonelli, Bolle, Avis, Lamb -- each stuck around for only a wink before ducking back into the wings; worst of all though was Zenaida Yanowsky, who was given, almost insultingly, a thirty-second solo in Divertissements that showcased her hair more than her dancing, and left me shaking my head. 
The evening was Darcy Bussell's, as I suppose it should have been, since she's the most prominent of this season's retirees, and she danced extraordinarily well with Roberto Bolle in Divertissements, which got me wondering whether or not she was rushing the retirement a bit.  But then was up to her old tricks in the more classical Homage to the Queen, and I relaxed a bit.  Perhaps she'll follow Sylvie Guillem's lead and take up modern dance as a hobby.  I think she'd be good at it. 
The most exciting part of the night was the curtain call, where the dancers were forced to pay the price for the audience's adulation by dodging a hail of flowers chucked down on them by House staffers hidden in the listening slips.  Cojocaru took a couple of solid shots to the head; so did Bussell, who almost had her eye skewered by a fast-flying rose.  Courteous and meek for most of the year, the staff suddenly became a squad of Nolan Ryans, pitching flowers for all they were worth, filling ballerinas' hearts with terror and the stage with corsages.  After that kind of farewell, dancing their way around the world will seem a breeze.

Yobbos of the World Unite

This being my first World Cup experience as a resident European, I figured it would be downright ungentlemanly of me to refrain from wishing my adopted country's football squad the best of luck in the tournament.  As a non-football fan myself, I don't have much emotional currency riding on the outcome of the team's matches, though I will admit a certain guilty pleasure in walking past a pub overflowing with spirit-soaked supporters and, for a few cheerful minutes, joining their number and rooting for England to wipe the pitch with those pesky Paraguayans. 
The city is awash with St. George crosses: they festoon balconies, and shoot skyward from car windows and antennae, sometimes joined by flags of countries not participating in the World Cup.  I've yet to see any sign of Canada's presence in these matters, which suits me fine, and anyway, on a day as nice as today, why tie yourself down with national allegiance.  You're better off on the Heath, where geographical provenance is given about as much thought as the grime lurking in the depths of the bathing ponds.  It's true, both might factor into your life at some point, but surely not today.

Homecoming

I'm back in the UK, and couldn't be happier to be home.  After a long week in Montreal, and a round of fitful sleep on the plane, I'm easing back into life with the help of some music therapy.  On the ol' phonograph today are:
Billy Bragg and Wilco: Mermaid Avenue I & II
Borodin Quartet  playing Shostakovich's 2nd string quartet
Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel played by Daniel Hope
Georges Enescu and Yehudi Menuhin doing Bach's Double Violin Concerto
Don Kosakenchor Russland: Greatest Hits
Gidon Kremer playing Brahms' violin concerto Op. 77
Joyce DiDonato & Patrizia Ciofi: Handel Operatic Duets
An Evening With George Shearing and Mel Torme
Mstislav Rostropovich & Benjamin Britten in Recital
...and a touch of Ella F. and Louis A..."I was doin' alright, till you came by."