Nimble Tread

Chloë Cantabile

The last time I heard Mozart's G minor symphony was at the Royal Festival Hall in June, when it sprang from a wicked little cell phone possessed of a fine sense of mischief.  Entertaining as the experience was, it wasn't nearly so fulfilling as hearing the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields play it for real at the Barbican last night.  They're a tight band, and got the balance just right, particularly in the second and fourth movements, both of which shimmered with life as a show of gratitude.   Masterful as the orchestra's playing was, however, it couldn't save the other item on the menu, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, played by the soon-to-be-ex-wunderkinder, Chloë Hanslip. 

Ol' Op. 61 gets saddled up all the time, and I've observed it enduring its fair share of meddling, but I've never known so saccharine a rendition.  There's something to be said for the ability to produce clarion tones -- which Hanslip can certainly do -- but when those notes get stretched like taffy, and hover silvery and a-twinkle in the stage lights, well, a dollop of intervention is necessary.  While the first movement wasn't too badly affected in this regard, the second was hard hit, and would have been very well suited to the soundtrack of a Georgian costume piece.  (A good one, though -- maybe Northanger Abbey.)  Hanslip's gorgeous notes were a pleasure to contemplate independent of the score, but when heard in context they were far from musical.  The piece's transitions were thrown off kilter, and the music on the whole came dangerous close to bathos.  In fact, there were a couple of moments when I caught myself rolling my eyes as she played, which is something I'd have formerly declared impossible for Beethoven's V.C.  The most glaring break in flow came at the segue from the second movement to the third, which if played properly produces a real event, but in this instance offered a few stutter steps before shuffling off in a workaday dance.  It was disappointing, and quite frankly a bit surprising given Hanslip's abilities and schooling.  If anyone should know how to play a Concerto full of hazardous corners it's her. 

 

Programme Notes

The Proms are sure to keep most everyone busy, but if you'd like to escape the hubbub for a spell, consider a few concert options for the coming weeks:
The St. Anne's Church Bach 12th Bach Festival runs from July 22-28 and consists of a daily lunchtime concert at 1:10 and a couple of evening performances thrown in for good measure.  I'd particularly recommend Daniel-Ben Pienaar's exploration of the Six Partitas for Piano, which he'll divide into two concerts -- one lunch (BWV 825-827), one evening (BWV 828-830) -- over the course of the 24th.  There's also a gala concert at 7 on the July 28th, which looks like it's bound be fun.
Westminster Abbey's in the midst of its Summer Organ Festival, which still has four concerts left on its docket.  James O'Donnell will be performing a selection of Buxtehude, Franck, Elgar, Stanford, and Vierne on July 24th; Robert Quinney will tackle Mendelssohn, JS Bach, Watkins, Vierne, and Elgar on July 31st; Ashley Grote will feature JS Bach, Messiaen, Handel, Parry, and others on August 7th; and Alexander Fiseisky will take works by Mendelssohn, JS Bach, Franck, Tobias, and Lyapunov and try to make them tickety-boo on August 14th.  Music aside, the best thing about the Abbey organ concerts is that you get to enjoy the building's formidable space without elbowing your way through flocks of tourists.  Nice.
The Handel House Museum is weighing in with its usual number of concerts, some of which are more intriguing than their peers.   Harpsichordist Jane Clark will be appearing on August 14th, and will be playing a programme of music by Chambonnières, d’Anglebert, Dagincour, Forqueray, and the Couperins; a couple of days later, on August 16th, Cantilena will be performing pieces by Handel, Vivaldi, and Telemann that involve the lute, recorders, and baroque cellos; then on August 23rd, harpsichordist David Wright will take his audience through Bach's Goldberg Variations, which get played all the time, but have yet to be overplayed, at least in my opinion.  It's always fun to note that Handel and Jimi Hendrix were neighbours on Brook Street, and were time a more flexible entity, the two would doubtless have had a lot to talk about. 
The Barbican's involved in off-season programming as well, with Lisa Batiashvilli appearing with oboist Francois Leleux and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on July 27th.  They'll be performing Mozart's Don Giovanni Overture and Oboe Concerto, as well as Magnus Lindberg's Violin Concerto and Beethoven's Eroica symphony.  Not long after that, on July 29th, the Kronos Quartet will be on hand with Henryk Gorecki's String Quartet No 3 Piesni Spiewaja and Terry Riley's The Cusp of Magic, for pipa and string quartet, with Wu Man on the pipa.  (In case you were wondering, a pipa is perhaps better known as the Chinese lute, and looks like this.)  On August 2nd, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields will be at the Barbican to perform Mozart's Ave verum corpus and Solemn Vespers, as well as Fauré's Requiem, which aside from being the sunniest requiem I know, is one of the repertoire's most beautiful pieces of music. 
The Cadogan Hall's hosting the chamber music portion of the Proms, but is also offering all twelve of Charlie Chaplin short Mutual films, which will be screened in the Hall from August 15-18 with live accompaniment from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  If you're even a lightweight film wonk, these are not to be missed.  Details here.  Additionally, the Summer Serenades series will be taking place from August 22-25, with concerts by Chamber Soloists of the Royal Phil that will include music by Mozart, Brahms, Piazzola, Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Strauss, Ravel, Roussel, and others.   

This listing isn't meant to be comprehensive, but rather a loose guide, and a jumping-off point for further investigation.   That said, I think you'd be hard-pressed to go wrong with what's mentioned, and should you feel time weighing heavy on your hands, just mosey on over to the Royal Albert Hall and prom for all you're worth.  Happy listening, though, whatever you choose to do.

An Apple for Mr. Schiff

Andras Schiff spent some time at the Wigmore this past year doling out a series of lecture-recitals on Beethoven's piano sonatas, the recordings of which are on offer here.  I was in the audience for a couple of these and can tell you that they're a delight on both the musical and rhetorical fronts.  Schiff is in the midst of touring the complete sonata cycle, and is accordingly intimately acquainted with the pieces.  This knowledge allows him to speak about the music in an exceedingly comfortable idiom which, combined with his experience with Bach, Schubert, and Brahms, makes for some wonderful lectures.  The files are in mp3 format which means you can download them with the right kind of click.   Enjoy!

Prodigal Prokofiev

I've gotten back into Prokofiev's 1907-1914 Diary, which I find fascinating for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the young composer's unbridled confidence and spirited fickleness.  He embraces something one minute only to cast it aside the next, and the habit makes for some juicy reading.  Take for example what he has to say about the lovely Miss Tonya Tudavskaya on December 23, 1910:

I want to be quite clear about what sort of person Tonya Rudavskaya is.  Zakharov was wrong in describing her as a conventionally pretty girl.  Her beauty is of a different order, and a higher one.  It is not consistent from day to day: sometimes it is more, sometimes less, but at all times Tonya Rudavskaya is herself.  She is not obsessed by her beauty, doesn't flaunt it or use it to flirt with, and she doesn't use it as a weapon to bend people to her will.  There is not an ounce of coquetry in Tonya Rudavskaya, even when it could be very useful to her. 

A couple of months later, on February 22, 1911, Prokofiev took up his pen and paid tribute to the young lady with the following sonnet:

                    1
Tonya's face is beautiful,
But in between the ears
There's empty space.  It's laughable
Were it not too sad for tears.

                    2
Tonya's beauty can't conceal
The fact that she's an imbecile.

Good luck getting that out of your head.

Schnittke Scores!

Matthew Guerrieri has added a couple of doozies to Ethan Iverson's YouTube find, Lev Atamanov's Ballerina on a Boat.  The cartoon was scored by Alfred Schnittke, who also had a hand in a couple of other animated shorts, Andrei Khrzhanovskiy's Glass Harmonica (part 2's here) and Armoire.  All three are definitely worth a look, but I find the Glass Harmonica to be the stand out if for no other reason than its being completely unsettling.  And on a related note, here's a video of William Zeitler playing Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy on one of the more intriguing instruments, Benjamin Franklin's glass armonica. 

Ebb and Flow

This is an odd time of year in London in that seasons are both coming to an end and leaping to action all at once.  The Wigmore called it quits for the summer after lunch yesterday, and the Royal Opera will soon follow suit.  Orchestras are on leave or on tour, and with much of the action having migrated to the country, those of us who remain in the Metrop are left working a bit harder than usual to find the cultural spoils to which we've grown accustomed.  That said, there's still an incredible amount on offer.  The Proms are of course the most notable, or rather high profile, but let's not forget the smaller venues and lesser-known performers.  I'm going to make an effort over the next week or so to put together a list of what's going to be on offer this summer, and will get the ball rolling with a nod to the LSO Discovery series, which is presenting a conducting masterclass at St. Luke's Jerwood Hall tonight.  Sir Colin will be working with Matthew Wood, Pavel Kotla, and Robert Tuohy, all of whom are young conductors and have bios posted on the LSO's site.  Tickets are free, so if you've lost a bundle on the ponies this season, you needn't worry.   If, however, you cleaned up at the track, you might want to consider a trip to the Royal Albert Hall, where Tony Pappano and the Academy of Santa Cecilia will be joining forces with Emma Bell, Joyce DiDonato, Colin Lee, and Ildar Abdrazakov to present Berio's Sinfonia and Rossini's Stabat mater.  And remember, all you prommers out there, it's only number 4, so pace yourselves, there's still a long way to go.     

Pitfalls

If you've ever wondered what life is like in an orchestra pit, the folks at Polyphonic.org have gone some way towards providing an explanation.   Ann Drinin and Robert Levine have moderated a discussion  between several musicians who play in ballet and opera orchestras in the States, and for whom life is the pits, even when it's good.   The posts were divided over five days and offered a variety of themes, some of which include the perils of stage props gone astray, the hazards of malfunctioning pneumatic lifts, and the worryingly high decibel levels swirling around the pit.  There's also some attention paid to the threat of ballet orchestras being replaced by canned music, which has already happened in some cities -- Atlanta, for instance -- and the steps being taken to prevent such an awful thing from happening far and wide.  And if that weren't enough, you can also read about, and find a link to, a streaming audio clip of the "infamous Edmonton bum wiggling concert."   I imagine some of the magic will be lost thanks to the clip not having a video component, but such is life.  Besides, I think it's unlikely that whatever wiggling actually took place could have been as richly comic as what we imagine happened.  We are, after all, talking about Edmonton here.

Les Bicyclettes

The Tour de France got its wheels rolling in London this year, and I thought I'd plonk myself down in Hyde Park to observe the goings-on.  The atmosphere surrounding the race was surprisingly low-key and, given the host city, surprisingly Gallic.  It isn't every day one sees a fleet of promotional vehicles driving along the Serpentine, and it's an even rarer occurrence to see French girls perched on their surfaces, chucking candy and sunhats into the crowd.  French voices boomed over loudspeakers, and I distinctly recall a mock-bishop hanging off a van drunkenly singing "Allelujah" and anointing the spectators with bottled water.  The convoy eventually gave way to the competitors, who spent an hour-or-so zipping around the streets as a warm-up for the race itself.   And by zipping I mean flying.  These guys were averaging nearly 60 km/h around the course, which to put things in perspective, meant that they were able to make it from the Houses of Parliament to the Albert Memorial in less than five minutes.  I can tell you from past experience that it's more impressive to see these cyclists go uphill, but watching them take corners through Hyde Park was an exciting experience.  I snapped a ton of pictures, got a bit of sun, and briefly flirted with the idea of driving to the Pyrenees to watch a later stage of the race.  Maybe next year.