Two out of three

Many years ago we heard Szymon Goldberg and Radu Lupu do the Mozart violin sonatas at the QEH, three or four concerts at an interval of one or two weeks, and very good they were too. I have had a soft spot for these sonatas ever since. I do not recall ever seeing the whole lot being done in this way again, but this year the QEH did offer Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley doing the Beethovnic equivalent in three concerts over four days.

Attractive, but a bit of a big dose to swallow, so we settled for just two out of the three, the Friday and Sunday. Performed in chronological order, I had the sense of moving from the serene sonatas of Mozart to the chiaroscuro of the romantics, a sense rather belied by the fact the Beethoven produced all bar the last sonata in a five year spurt around the year 1800.

But I get ahead of myself. We arrived at QEH on Friday to find some event or other just packing up in the foyer, a relatively new practice but one about I regularly moan. Worse, when one got into the auditorium there was a huge white powerpoint display above the usual backing screen - a yellow wood affair, maybe eight feet high - a display telling us in very large letters what concert we were at. Visually irritating and only turned off at the very last minute, detracting considerably from the mise-en-scène. I thought maybe the output of some busy young stage manageress, fresh out of stage management school and champing at the bit to use all the toys now available to her - with no-one with any sense bothering, or having the time & energy to rein her in. I associate to the world of work where we once had such a person in charge of something called message of the day, which used to irritate us all when we turned our computers on for the day. There were more displays in the foyer, but at least these were of much more modest size and one did not have to look at them.

Auditorium maybe half full on Friday, much fuller and very enthusiastic on Sunday afternoon. A lot more people of working age than would be the case at the Wigmore Hall. Quite a lot of ladies were dressed up for the occasion. Quite a lot of French people had come to hear their chaps, at least near us. Quite a lot of Chinese and Japanese. Quite a lot of children, presumably trainee musicians, some in fancy suits (presumably French). Unusually, quite a sprinkling of black people, unusual at such concerts, in our experience at least. No telephonic interruptions that I heard at all, also unusual these days.

Terrific performances, with the second getting me going in a way which is very unusual for me. The body languages of the two performers nicely complemented each other. There was quite a bit of one handed playing on the piano, which allowed the pianist to go in for hand flourishing, seemingly, in part, a device to stop his hands locking up, while the violinist went in for almost dancing on the spot. The pianist appeared to be actually reading his music, while the violinist, while turning his pages, did not appear to be reading his, with his focus appearing to be on the contact between bow and string. In any event, if he was reading, he must have had very good eyesight, given the distance and the way that he was moving about. They were also a sort of counter-example to my theory that while pianists often play without music, violinists rarely do so. The pianist often glanced at the violinist, to check where he was at, continuing to play the while. To the point where on one occasion it looked for a few seconds as if both pianist and page turner were mesmerised by the violinist.

The page turner, who reminded me of Chief Superintendent Innocent from Lewis, had an interesting action which involved turning the corner of the page down diagonally a few seconds before she flipped the page over. I think the idea was that her hanging arm was hanging slightly to the left of where it would otherwise be, and so less distracting for the pianist. Perhaps each pianist has his own views about such matters.

The other reminder was a young member of the audience who reminded me of Sarah Miles.

The strongest Kreutzer that I have ever heard, albeit taken very fast, at least it seemed so to me. So fast, that some of the subordinate violin playing seemed almost to dissolve into a mush. Perhaps the older ear has trouble keeping up with the younger playing. I had wondered, before the concert, about the placing of the Kreutzer in the middle of the concert, but in the event it worked OK followed by the later & last Op. 96 (last heard on or about 31st October 2011 and offered this morning on YouTube by Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis).

There was just the one programme for all three concerts, in a new-to-me format. In addition to biographies of the people involved and the timetable you got, for each piece, some notes on the piece and then some notes on how to listen to it. And then, at the end, some suggestions for further reading/listening. All very educational, perhaps all part of the South Bank Centre's accessibility drive, the same drive which gives us all the computer display screens. And unusually advertisement lite; no glossy advertisements for restaurants, pianos or anything much else.

PS: we were amused to read in the free Standard on the way home from the Friday concert about how we can marvel again at a musical genius, there being a centrefold puff for these very concerts from one James Rhodes, classical pianist. A gentleman whose web site - http://www.jamesrhodes.tv/ - appears to be chasing youth.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=kreutzer.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=kreutzer.

Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Ax+and+Kavakos. As it happens, Ax is almost my exact contemporary and he also spent time in Winnipeg, having moved there as a child from Lvov. One wonders whether being born in Poland was adequate preparation for the grim winters to be found in Winnipeg.