Mozart and others

On Wednesday back the Wigmore Hall to hear the new to us Alexandre Tharaud do Mozart, Mahler and Schubert, this last in the form of the D899 impromptus.

All very good, plus a short encore, only very slightly marred by two people failing to turn their mobile phones off - but at least one of them got a good ear public bashing from his wife. Quite right too. And, it is a small enough hall in which to collar offenders, so maybe they should get blacklisted.

Also by the pianist liking to rather run things together, I think to make sure that there was no unwanted clapping. As I have said here in the past, why on earth can't he ask the management to make an announcement to that effect and then allow a decent interval between the pieces? See, for example, 8th February and 19th April 2013.

I notice that on the first of these occasions I commented on the loss of the sacred & sublime. Contrariwise, on this occasion, I was struck how like a church service, like a mass it all was. One had a church shaped hall - a nave - and a respectful audience. One had the music, perhaps hundreds of years old, serving as the liturgy and the pianist serving as the celebrant. (I rather like the way the French word interprète subordinates the player to the composer). All part of why hearing the stuff live is so much better than hearing it in one's sitting room.

Also at how well the music, the pianist and the piano seemed to fit together on this occasion. The Wigmore Steinway seemed to be in particularly good form, particularly for the first and last sections of the concert. Regarding this last, I was reminded by the impromptus of reading fairly recently about how one can never recover the first time one is with a work of art. This is not always true for me, as it often takes me several goes to get into something, the first few times around are no more than rehearsals and one would not want to recover them. But the impromptus are not like that; while they still work, they have lost some of their impact (see December 9th 2009 in the other place) with repetition.

There was also the minor point that the page turner did well. Quiet in turnout and comportment, self effacing. No question of her trying to compete with the pianist for our attention. All as it should be.

Overall, very good, and we shall look out for this pianist. Read all about him at http://www.alexandretharaud.com/.