Schubertiade

That is to say we went to the Wigmore Hall yesterday evening to hear Imogen Cooper do Schubert's last three piano sonatas: D958, D959 and D960.

I think that we thought about going to the same programme at the Festival Hall early last year, perhaps Mitsuko Uchida, but what with one thing and another we decided that it was too much in one evening. This year, encouraged by there being two intervals, none of this business (moaned about previously) of running them together to forestall clapping, we decided to give it a go. And very well it turned out too.

We were quite close, close enough to see that the pianist was very properly turned out, very suitably for someone of her age and station. It also meant that she at times seemed loud, perhaps too much pedal and perhaps too much  loud for this particular space, a lot smaller than her more usual South Bank. To the point where the odd stray sound seemed to escape from the piano, as if there was the occasional internal hiccup. But that is detail; the concert as a whole was very good, very emotional, albeit a little long with three serious sonatas at one sitting. Very impressed by how different they were, one from each other, despite clearly coming from the same hand at roughly the same time. Reminded at times of an organ and at other times of a song, with a strong melody line pointed up by accompaniment. Struck once again by what can be done with pauses - something I believe that more popular music does not go in for at all: perhaps pause does not work in that context.

Checking the blog today, I find that D960 is something of a favourite, with three performances recorded in the other place, one of then by Imogen Cooper again, on or about December 9th 2009. D958 another favourite with another three performances (no overlap with the first three) and just one of D959 earlier this year, so here rather than in the other place. Clearly a lot of it about. In the course of all this, I also lighted upon a YouTube version by Sviatoslav Richter against which someone has cunningly posted the score, the only catch being that the pages don't always seem to get turned at the right place. A good wheeze though, with the next step being to add a pointer to make sure you look at the right place at the right time. Something no doubt already offered by one of those fancy electric pianos from Yamaha.

Moved then to finish off 'Tiger Man' by Julian Duguid, a book from 1932 from the excellent Hall's of Tunbridge Wells (http://www.hallsbookshop.com/). A strange tale of a Lithuanian who spent many years in the wilds of Amazonia and beyond, making his living some of the time by repairing the (usually rusty) guns which were ubiquitous and some of the time by hunting tigers (more or less solo, apart from a few dogs), some of which were up to Indian size at 300lbs or more. He had the excuse that tigers were a serious pest as far as the cattle ranchers were concerned, but I don't think that that is why he did it. Very incorrect by today's standards.

Which takes my total of books about the strange goings on in this part of the world a hundred years or so ago to three, the other two being by T. Ybarra and C. Lévi-Strauss. That by P. Fleming (the brother of J. Bond) having succumbed to one of the culls over the years. One thing in common to them all seems to be the rather odd manners of the inhabitants of the wilder parts of South America: one the one had they show a strange old world punctilio, on the other they are quite apt to kill you in some rather savage way. So according to Duguid, calling someone a nigger is much worse than killing someone. Racialism of this sort in a very mixed race society is very much frowned upon by all decent people, but murder, particularly if in revenge for some slight (the sort of thing which might just earn you a blackball in TB), is more or less OK. Might have to leave town for a bit, just for form.