Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Piano notes
Back to the Wigmore Hall last night for our first concert of the new season, not having been to the place since around 25th January to hear Elisabeth Leonskaja playing Schubert, last heard at St. Luke's last November (see 18th November) playing Beethoven. I was able to guess her age about right, her turning out to be just about 4 years older than myself.
Started the evening with a visit to Ponti's at the corner of Great Castle Street and John Princes Street, another place we have not been to for a while, for coffee and cake. Fine place, good service and good cake. In my case, their take on tiramisu which was both substantial and very good. Made rather in the way of our trifle rather than a slab of cake that you cut into oblongs to serve. BH had a warm yellow cake made of polenta. We were also entertained by a continental couple of middling years - maybe 30-40 - who had the temerity to neck inside the restaurant and smoke outside. Can't think when I last saw public necking of this sort so early in the evening, that is to say around 1900.
Started the concert itself with D557, which I found rather playful. A good opener. Followed by two half sonatas - D566 and D840 - of rather more tempestuous tone. At this point I was finding Leonskaja a touch fast. Not bothered by the loud - which did, however, bother the fidgety gentleman sitting next to us who was quite, and rather unecessarily, rude about it. Then in front of us we had what I took to be a foreign family, homely looking (in a good sense that it) wife, adolescent son and a serious looking father with a neatly trimmed beard. The wife did solitaire on her phone during the interval and both father & son appeared to fall asleep during the second half, the latter with head nestling on the maternal shoulder.
The second half was the much grander and later D958, justly popular. Followed by two nicely chosen encores, probably both movements from one or other of the other two late sonatas.
All in all, an excellent return to the world of metropolitan concerts.
PS: odd illusion at one point. The bit of the hall which contains the performers is apsed, with what looked like dressed marble blocks (they might actually have been more akin to veneer than blocks) on the front of the spherical bit, running around the vertical, semi circular edge and with heavenly mosaic facing up the body of the apse. Now the front face of the dressed stone was stable enough, but the other edge, the one actually facing down, sometimes seemed to be facing down and sometimes seemed to facing out, for the all the world like one of those trick paintings of perspective, although on much simpler lines than those by Escher. Furthermore, when the facing down edge was facing out, the apse, which was quite real enough, looked even more real. With more depth, as if the sky part of the mosaic really was sky. Maybe I had overdosed on the tiramisu.
Started the evening with a visit to Ponti's at the corner of Great Castle Street and John Princes Street, another place we have not been to for a while, for coffee and cake. Fine place, good service and good cake. In my case, their take on tiramisu which was both substantial and very good. Made rather in the way of our trifle rather than a slab of cake that you cut into oblongs to serve. BH had a warm yellow cake made of polenta. We were also entertained by a continental couple of middling years - maybe 30-40 - who had the temerity to neck inside the restaurant and smoke outside. Can't think when I last saw public necking of this sort so early in the evening, that is to say around 1900.
Started the concert itself with D557, which I found rather playful. A good opener. Followed by two half sonatas - D566 and D840 - of rather more tempestuous tone. At this point I was finding Leonskaja a touch fast. Not bothered by the loud - which did, however, bother the fidgety gentleman sitting next to us who was quite, and rather unecessarily, rude about it. Then in front of us we had what I took to be a foreign family, homely looking (in a good sense that it) wife, adolescent son and a serious looking father with a neatly trimmed beard. The wife did solitaire on her phone during the interval and both father & son appeared to fall asleep during the second half, the latter with head nestling on the maternal shoulder.
The second half was the much grander and later D958, justly popular. Followed by two nicely chosen encores, probably both movements from one or other of the other two late sonatas.
All in all, an excellent return to the world of metropolitan concerts.
PS: odd illusion at one point. The bit of the hall which contains the performers is apsed, with what looked like dressed marble blocks (they might actually have been more akin to veneer than blocks) on the front of the spherical bit, running around the vertical, semi circular edge and with heavenly mosaic facing up the body of the apse. Now the front face of the dressed stone was stable enough, but the other edge, the one actually facing down, sometimes seemed to be facing down and sometimes seemed to facing out, for the all the world like one of those trick paintings of perspective, although on much simpler lines than those by Escher. Furthermore, when the facing down edge was facing out, the apse, which was quite real enough, looked even more real. With more depth, as if the sky part of the mosaic really was sky. Maybe I had overdosed on the tiramisu.
# posted by Jim @ 6:33 AM 
