Temper

On Saturday to the Wigmore to hear Pierre-Laurent Aimard play Book 1 of Bach's 'The Well-tempered Clavier', the first time that I have heard either this pianist or this work, not counting my ex-Tavistock Oxfam recording made by Svjatoslav Richter way back in 1970. A very proper sequel to the concert & caprices noticed at http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/pied-piper.html.

Most of the time Bach eschewed the gymnastics favoured by some later composers, perhaps in part because the work was intended for students. But while I was very taken with, impressed with the performance as a whole, I had little sense of the structure of any particular prelude or fugue and no organised sense of the contrast between the major and minor keys, let alone that between an A key and a B key. So while the work was entirely accessible, maybe it does even more for someone who both plays the piano and understands the theory. Maybe the older chap in the back stalls with what looked like a fairly new score was one - not something one sees as often as I recall from my youth. One of those paper backed scores in A4 format which can be used to play from although the pages usually need to be held open and Aimard preferred loose sheets, one per prelude or fugue. Just pick up the one just played, put it on the growing pile aside and play the next one. The only catch being that on this occasion one went missing and he had to nip back stage to recover it. He recovered well from the interruption. How many of us would have noticed if he had just carried on, missing one out? Not me, for certain.

Aimard seemed to have such an abundance of nervous energy that he had to let it blow off in his face. That is to say his face, particularly his lower jaw, was working away throughout the performance. The piano, for once a Yamaha rather than the usual Steinway, sounded more like a harpiscord than is usual: was that a function of the music, the tuning of the piano or what? The programme notes said that the claviers of Bach's day would probably not have been tuned to modern equal temperament, but would this piano have been tuned back in time for this concert? The one time I asked at the Wigmore the answer was no (see http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/back-to-wiggers.html). Coincidentally, I get an invitation this morning to go along to Yamaha to try out their pianos at Wardour Street. Would I like to book a private session in their historic piano hall with one of their chaps?

Audience mainly well behaved and not one phone went off. One chap who may well have been French kept his white cheesecutter hat on (it matched his jacket) during the concert and the smart young family next to me, who spoke French and may well also have been French, left at half time. I dare say they thought that their young son, very smartly dressed, would not have gone the distance. But there was one couple a couple of rows in front of me who were perhaps in the wrong place. The gent. had the long hair and beard of the seventies although he was perhaps in his late twenties and his lady was dressed rather elaborately, including a little hat and the sort of gloves that are half black netting and half black something else. She spent most of the concert whispering in his ear, paddling in his neck (see Hamlet, Act III, scene IV, line 185: 'or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers'), playing with the seams of her gloves and looking around at the rest of the audience. Or if she was really stuck, at the ceiling.

For a change, discovered the merits of the Cock & Lion (http://www.cockandlion.co.uk/pages/home.html) in the interval.

Entertained on the way home by a couple of Chinese couples. One of the ladies was pretty and slender, the other rather less so. But first lady had a fascinating way of talking to second lady, mainly by means of her eyebrows, supplemented by other facial moves. All terribly expressive and did not seem to need the addition of much in the way of words. Kept me entertained all the way to Vauxhall.

Stopped off at Earlsfield to see how its latest refurb. had gone (it doesn't seem very long since it was last done. Clearly making too much money out of us). Busy, but for my purposes marred by the removal of the clock, on which one used to be able to keep an eye on the time. As it was I was moved to leave rather quicker than I might have otherwise.

Reference 1: http://www.pierrelaurentaimard.com/.