dreadful (but contains a lovely painting)

It’s dreadful, and I’m sorry. It’s been ages since my last post on here. I’ve no excuses, except being busy with gigs, travelling and studying. But here I am again, with a quick update.

I’ve written a blog post which I’ll post very soon about Kleiber and Musin – I just want to be happy with it first. They’re both huge names, and I hate the idea of writing controversial cr#p – which people read – and it not being the way I like it.

Also, I’ve some photos coming of recent gigs, soloists, dressing rooms (oh I’m sure you can’t wait for those!) and maybe a little cat. Or two.

In the meantime, there’s this… After my concert last night with de Havilland Philharmonic http://ow.ly/4iz5B, friend and regular collaborator James Mayhew visited my dressing room. He’s an author and illustrator, and came to one of my Berlioz rehearsals to make some sketches. James presented me with this beautiful painting (below). If you look carefully, you’ll see there are many references to all kinds of musical works – Peter and the Wolf, Firebird, Danse Macabre, Baba Yaga, and more – they’re all there. (Plus some odd-looking guy with a stick, near the middle.) These have been pivotal pieces in our work together, as part of our hugely successful family concerts at the Weston Auditorium, Hertfordshire: http://www.writeaway.org.uk/content/stories-ballet-childrens-classical-concert

So, yes, James popped in and gave me this great picture. It’s a lot better than a photo of my cats, taken on a shaky iphone, I’m sure you’ll agree (although that’ll probably be my next post)

Bless you James. And here’s to many future concerts together – showing the youngsters of this world how amazing live music can be!

getting scared late at night

I know the novelty may soon wear off, but I really must get out of this late-night blogging habit. It’s addictive, for one thing. And I need my sleep, as I’m now back rehearsing every day, and (should be) studying every day. But also because I’m liable to talk b+ll+cks and dribble on about nonsense. Like now.

But hear me out.

We all get scared, not only at night. And we all get scared doing our jobs. Especially if we’re firemen, say, maybe a spy, or someone who works* with John Galliano. [*edit: "worked"]

And conductors get scared too – screaming brass players, or screamingly empty diaries. Maybe a wayward soloist, with a death wish, hell-bent on finishing first. And certain pieces terrify us. Ok, me – they terrify me. Eroica is one of them. But that’s a whole blog on its own.

Debussy scares me. There, I’ve said it. Let me try to explain why. Or, rather, I’ll ask you why – because I really don’t know. And this is where I’m curious to get some feedback here, some comments below (go on, you can click the links, or the tabs or the thingamabobs, it’s dead easy.)

Today I spent a long while working on his Nocturnes, both at my desk and with one of my orchestras (http://wimso.org/wso_concerts.html). I still feel a bit scared. Unsettled. So let’s cascade. Why does Robin find Debussy scary?

1. His music is amazingly good, achingly well-crafted, beautiful, poignant, not one note or even a slightly-perfumed-gesture in the wrong place…

2. His music is very tricky to play well, or to prepare well enough – there are difficulties of balance, texture, tuning, colour, nuance. Plus some of the most subtle, sophisticatedly supple, rhythmical details in music. And heaven help you if you even slightly misjudge the interplay of tempi. Check out one of the truly greatest Debussy conductors – Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht – if you’re interested in hearing the music flow like it should…

3. His harmonic language is unsettled, or unsettling. Deliberately so in places. Many places.

Nope. That’s not it. None of these things.

Don’t get me wrong – I love it, and admire it hugely. It’s in 3D. Surround-sound music: even looking at the flat pages of a score, you see it in colours, with the details in relief.  When you’re lucky enough to conduct it, it’s like swimming around within liquid chords, like standing in a billowing wind-tunnel of whole-tones.

But it still scares me. Not like war, or bald tyres on wet road kind of scary. Nor weak lager, bland curry or American sitcoms kind of scary. But like clowns, chill-up-the-neck kind of scary. Is it just me? Probably. I wonder what it is. No other music has that effect. Fêtes – 2nd movement from the Nocturnes – scares the ____ out of me, for example. (It probably has that effect on the wind players, but for slightly different reasons.)

Ok, enough of me on the analyst’s couch. Sorry for hijacking the blog for some counselling. I’m genuinely curious. And I’ll stop now, before I start hallucinating. Now that would be scary

PS Did I mention Inghelbrecht? http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=68795

the joys of twitter

I was planning a little review of Haitink’s Alpine Symphony (at the RCM) from the other night. But I was ill, and couldn’t make it. I realise that many proper reviewers (far more proper than I) haven’t let such trivia as not actually being there stand in the way of a review over the years, but I really think that I ought to at least be there myself before writing something. Particularly for my very first post masquerading as a concert review. In truth, I might say one or two bits about Haitink and his, well, overwhelming Haitinkness, in due course. All in good time.

So, I wasn’t going to write anything at all. Spare you all the nonsense and non-entities of nothing-really-to-say. And just then, a teeny pairing of tweets flitted across my screen. As they’re perfect in their succinctness, I’ll leave them to speak for themselves. (Bear in mind I’ve cut and pasted, but you shouldn’t need to be fluent in your @#tags and whatnot to translate).

Posted by Tom Service – Dan Harding with me on tomorrow’s @MusicMattersR3: the secret to great conducting. Revealed! At last.

Reply from Evan Tucker – @tomservice @djharding @MusicMattersR3 secret to great conducting is simple: don’t fuck up what other people are doing.

Never thought it’d be Smetana

Maybe I knew I’d start a blog one day. Maybe I imagined it’d be bright and brilliant, full of erudite observations. And followed dutifully, bootifully by hoardes of admirers. Maybe I thought I’d post the odd video of someone conducting something. But, you know, I never ever dreamt that my first video post would be Vltava, from Smetana’s Ma Vlast. (It is, by the way, if I get that far – this isn’t a red herring).

Maybe it would’ve been some Mahler, or some Carlos Kleiber, in my imaginary pre-blog blog. Or Tennstedt. Or Jeff Buckley.

Then, for all sorts of reasons, I was reminded today of this incredible musician, this poet with his hands (and, in rehearsal, an alchemist of words and imagery). Straight away, it was obvious what my first video would be – Ferenc Fricsay, one of the most extraordinary conductors. He makes this music sound almost unbearably alive. Achingly full of character, dance, and – excuse the pun – flow. His spirit and energy are still convincing today. Infectious! Even in monoaural monochrome.

Such a tragedy his life was cut short. And that there aren’t more conductors around today to take these kind of risks…

the delights of iTunes

Fanfares, Fancies and Fugues

Well, well, well. iTunes is unfeasibly memory-hungry, not to mention energy-sapping. And I also find it a little pesky to navigate. I realise that’s just me, and not the problem of those Apple folks, but still.

So I have double the reason to express surprise at finding one of my CDs on iTunes just now (I was searching for something else, honest – and if you don’t believe me, I refer you back to the previous paragraph).

Bless them, how kind and sweet. Still not sure who’ll buy it, mind, but it’s the thought that counts

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/fanfares-fancies-and-fugues/id343083781

Mravinsky, Arthur Bliss & Schmoo

Ok, ok – I promise this is the last test. And the last cat. Probably. I can never resist a cat on a piano stool, especially with a Colour Symphony score in the background (does anyone know this? I’m considering it for later this year…)

Another test, this time with a cat

I guess this is pretty self-explanatory. Not sure what my cat Schmoo has to do with blogs and dressing rooms. But, like all cats, he knows deep down – to the bottom of his paws – what is his purpose in life. I wish we all did.

Nice one Schmoo