Just a few days of unseasonal sunlight and warmth seems to change the national psyche. I know the very idea of there being a national psyche is fictive but who cares on a day like this? People suddenly look different, not just burned, but more outgoing. Even strangers start talking to each other. brrrrr
I wonder what it would be like if we had a reliable 6 months of this weather every year?
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
From the door step
It is surprising what a few warm days do to people's mood and habits. Suddenly, the national mood is raised and I take to sitting out side of the house by the front door. People walking stop to talk, those driving sometimes wave and the value of the houses in the street do not fall by that much money.
The local version of the evening walk is quite swift but people do seem to like to stop and chat as well.
The local version of the evening walk is quite swift but people do seem to like to stop and chat as well.
Sunday, 25 March 2012
Two cities, two days, two operas
People ask sometimes, usually meaning to be sympathetic, "Do you get out much?" I try and be cheerful and tell them I do as much as I can. Friday, I was at Royal Opera in Covent Garden to see their new piece Miss Fortune. Well, notwithstanding a slating from the critics, it was not that bad. The singing was good, the sets were excellent, the orchestra as ever. Paul Daniels was in control, Emma Bell was the lead and the new rising star in the higher tenor range is Noah Stewart. NS is from Harlem, trained at the Julliard, loves his mother, gets lots of air time in the UK. Sang the best number in the show. Pity his kebab trailer goes up last summer's rioting flames. For me the only real problem was the break dancers. Oh what fun when the posh let their hair down (tip: don't). We had a meal afterwards at Les amis near by. Never again. Food mediocre, bill far too high. We ware joined by the delightful Noah. He is such good fun to be with. suspect we will be seeing a lot more of him Europe.
Saturday night, to Birmingam Community Opera doing a new Joanathan Dove Life is Dream. This really was opera perhaps because of it being done in a large, disused fo factory that stands as a monument to industrial britain now gone. This is the first visit to BCO although I have heard much of previous shows - especially Monteverdi.
I think last night was the best night at the opera I can ever remember. I kept getting reminded that the very word OPERA means 'the works' so here we were at a works having the works done before here eyes, Graham Vick directs. It is sometimes hard to know who is performer and who audience. Surreal surely but not to be missed,
Early warning, The same team are doing Stockhausen's unperformed six hour Mittwoch aus Licht (Wednesdsay from Light). This is the Olympic show piece by BCO but there are lots of events.
After all this a rest is indicated.
Saturday night, to Birmingam Community Opera doing a new Joanathan Dove Life is Dream. This really was opera perhaps because of it being done in a large, disused fo factory that stands as a monument to industrial britain now gone. This is the first visit to BCO although I have heard much of previous shows - especially Monteverdi.
I think last night was the best night at the opera I can ever remember. I kept getting reminded that the very word OPERA means 'the works' so here we were at a works having the works done before here eyes, Graham Vick directs. It is sometimes hard to know who is performer and who audience. Surreal surely but not to be missed,
Early warning, The same team are doing Stockhausen's unperformed six hour Mittwoch aus Licht (Wednesdsay from Light). This is the Olympic show piece by BCO but there are lots of events.
After all this a rest is indicated.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
End of season of Thursday lunchtime concerts in Leicester
Those who think that first-rate high culture stops at the M25 or, worse, is confined to single digit London post codes zone one on the Tube, it must come as a terrible shock to learn that for under a tenner the very best of chamber music is available in Leicester. Leicester is just over an hour from St Pancras with four trains an hour. The Queen came visiting last week to start her Jubilee tour and saying yes to this multi racial reasonably harmonious city, by going to Church for a multi faith service, by visiting the increasingly impressive De Montfort University and by meeting the (elected) major, Sir Peter Soulsby, with the citizens and denizens gathered in the streets to greet her.
To return to music. The Leicester International Music Festival provides us with the Thursday lunchtime concerts, summer celeb recitals and every September a long weekend of non-stop chamber music. Nicholas Daniels, recently honoured by the Queen, directs the whole and brings the best of the rising generation up here.
One of the special treats of the concerts are the intelligent programme notes (Mr Wheeler, step forward and thanks for the extended internet version) and the pithy intros by Mr Mike Baker.
Many concerts now sell out and the queues are to behold. Hint: get the value season tickets. The season ended today with the triumphant return of the Sitkovetsky trio playing Haydn's piano trio in C major Hob. XV: 27 and Beethoven's Archduke trio Op.97. I thought the speed of the last movement of the Haydn was possibly reckless but all worked out well in the end. The Archduke was, er, er, archducal. Very moving and authoritatively played. I thought I knew both trios well but this so gifted group of musicians brought altogether new insights to me.
One suggestion for improvement: in a city with such a rich cultural heritage as Leicester it really is a pity that some efforts are not made by the organisers to include at least some of Indian classical music. All it needs is the same bravery shown by them in including contemporary western classical music. The other sad lack is jazz. Yet when one recent performer shifted from the classical canon into jazz the audience seem to love it. This audience is up for stretching I think. As Alex Ross shows in his ground breaking book 'The rest is noise' the categories (of classical, jazz, folk, popular) that used to separate increasingly fall to bits in one's hands when examined carefully. Pragmatically, although I do not know if the Festival gets City Council funding, but if it does, it really does need to think about the wisdom of not including some classical music from the non western traditions. This is not just to appease those who check the demographics of any publicly funded event (old, bourgeois and white mainly) but a wish to widen the audience for nonwestern classical music. I realise we are someway from having a Leicester Gamelan but if we can have a Fazioli piano up at the DMH, why not think big.
Gripes apart this is written by a punter who is deeply grateful for what we get. Special thanks to Catherine and Tim Watt for the care they provide for the disabled. Much appreciated.
The man in the red hoodie with a yellow chaise roulant says thanks.
To return to music. The Leicester International Music Festival provides us with the Thursday lunchtime concerts, summer celeb recitals and every September a long weekend of non-stop chamber music. Nicholas Daniels, recently honoured by the Queen, directs the whole and brings the best of the rising generation up here.
One of the special treats of the concerts are the intelligent programme notes (Mr Wheeler, step forward and thanks for the extended internet version) and the pithy intros by Mr Mike Baker.
Many concerts now sell out and the queues are to behold. Hint: get the value season tickets. The season ended today with the triumphant return of the Sitkovetsky trio playing Haydn's piano trio in C major Hob. XV: 27 and Beethoven's Archduke trio Op.97. I thought the speed of the last movement of the Haydn was possibly reckless but all worked out well in the end. The Archduke was, er, er, archducal. Very moving and authoritatively played. I thought I knew both trios well but this so gifted group of musicians brought altogether new insights to me.
One suggestion for improvement: in a city with such a rich cultural heritage as Leicester it really is a pity that some efforts are not made by the organisers to include at least some of Indian classical music. All it needs is the same bravery shown by them in including contemporary western classical music. The other sad lack is jazz. Yet when one recent performer shifted from the classical canon into jazz the audience seem to love it. This audience is up for stretching I think. As Alex Ross shows in his ground breaking book 'The rest is noise' the categories (of classical, jazz, folk, popular) that used to separate increasingly fall to bits in one's hands when examined carefully. Pragmatically, although I do not know if the Festival gets City Council funding, but if it does, it really does need to think about the wisdom of not including some classical music from the non western traditions. This is not just to appease those who check the demographics of any publicly funded event (old, bourgeois and white mainly) but a wish to widen the audience for nonwestern classical music. I realise we are someway from having a Leicester Gamelan but if we can have a Fazioli piano up at the DMH, why not think big.
Gripes apart this is written by a punter who is deeply grateful for what we get. Special thanks to Catherine and Tim Watt for the care they provide for the disabled. Much appreciated.
The man in the red hoodie with a yellow chaise roulant says thanks.
Quite the best so far
Robert Shrimsley in last weekend's FT on how the Catholic is ruining his marriage:
My marriage is under threat; its very existence is being undermined. I know this because the Catholic Church says so. I’m not Catholic myself, you understand, but if there’s one thing those priests know about, it’s marriage. Similar warnings are coming from other faith-leaders and the rightwing commentators.
And it’s all because of those pesky gays.
It turns out that the very foundations of our union will be irrevocably eroded if gays are allowed to marry. No less an authority than Rick Santorum, currently running second for the Republican presidential nomination, says redefining wedlock to include gays could “cheapen marriage… make it something less valuable, special”. Scotland’s leading Catholic bishop appears to argue that if gay marriage is legalised, the clamour will start for polygamy to be similarly blessed. But it’s not just marriage at stake. The Pope says that allowing gays to call themselves married is one of a number of threats to “the future of humanity itself”. Yikes.
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ROBERT SHRIMSLEY
Marriage, according to our religious leaders is less a robust, timeless institution than a precious, delicate thing – a dandelion in the wind, easily blown away by others you’ve never met enjoying the same benefits. It’s like being a member of an elite club and then finding out that Katie Price has joined. You wonder if you still belong.
I understand where they are coming from. I recently bought an espresso machine to which I was hugely attached until I noticed Whittard was selling the same model to gays. Suddenly my macchiato seemed cheapened; and questioned my commitment to the morning shot. Now the Illy languishes untouched and I have begun dallying with an old jar of Maxwell House I was once close to. We’d fallen out of touch after I’d committed to proper coffee but recently reconnected via Facebook. So I’m wise to the dangers of gay marriage. We all saw what happened when homosexuality was legalised. Crime rates soared, obviously because people felt their previous law-abiding status had been devalued by the decision to stop treating gays as criminals.
My wife and I are resigned to our fate if the government presses ahead with reform and have already begun discussing custody arrangements. It’s a pity; because we’ve been happy together. But it’s clear that at the first glimpse of Boy George at the altar I’ll abandon my family and move out to small flat above a Pizza Hut. Across the nation, young couples will cancel their engagements, put off by the weddings of other adults who love each other and increased competition for wedding venues from gays and polygamists.
When otherwise intelligent people rely on such specious arguments, you have to wonder whether it isn’t because they daren’t say what they truly believe – that gays are lesser human beings who should be denied the same rights as others. It would be wrong to tar everyone in this way, but it is striking how many of the most vociferous objections come from those with a less-than-stellar record on gay rights.
Where opponents of gay marriage have a point is in noting that there seem to be few benefits not already secured by civil partnerships. But like any excluded minority, it is natural for gays to rail against exclusion. It is hard to believe that all those Jews who used to campaign against their exclusion from elite golf clubs actually wanted to join them. I don’t think there’s ever been a great Jewish golfer and it’s a long walk to the club house if you get hungry. But when someone takes the trouble to bar you, well, a chap can take that kind of thing personally.
One of the most striking (and heartwarming) social developments of the past decade is just how quickly civil partnerships have become entirely unremarkable. It is hard to believe the same would not be true of gay marriage. But maybe this easy acceptance is what is really driving the increasingly apocalyptic warnings. Perhaps, what worries opponents is not that marriage and society will be disastrously undermined by this reform, but that they won’t.
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