Maris and his Mahler

A packed Musikverein, Maris Janssons, his Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mahler's 7th, as always a monumental piece with a huge orchestra, with 5 movements. The podium was tightly packed, and those poor audience members sitting at the top of the rostrum had to peer round the double basses.

I must admit to not knowing this symphony very well, though there were moments that I recognized. I was also thinking about what makes Mahler distinctive, apart from his monumental scores, and very long pieces. Decided that it's his use of Austrian motifs, both rhythmic and in terms of intervals, and his heavy use of trills, often from the clarinet, but also the upper strings (maybe they are supposed to remind of a zither??). Don't think anyone else after the Baroque period uses them quite so often.

It's funny how often his second movements are quite relaxing, after very tortuous and heavy first movements, often with rural dances or well-known tunes - that's the case in the second, seventh and ninth symphonies, as far as I can remember, and which one is the one with 'Frere Jacques'? Apparently this symphony describes the journey from night to day. I wish I had read the wikipedia entry before the concert...

Janssons has a delightful way of conducting, very active, dancing around on the rostrum, sometimes both feet flat on the floor but more often not, often smiling at his players - it must be a joy to play for him, at least in a concert. But it takes it out of him, and he needs quite long rests between movements to catch his breath.

It was a wonderful performance, full of energy, with Janssons drawing the sound out of his orchestra by his fingertips, massaging the music. The double basses really drove the music on and supported everything. The violas had some beautiful solos, and especially one long passsage together with the cellos was oozing with chocolate. Some of the instruments were almost inaudible, though, such as the lute and guitar in the fourth movement, and the cowbells which we could see but not hear. Perhaps some of the Austrian moments could have been a little more Austrian, but you may have to have that in your blood. Overall it was a fantastic evening, and I know now which seat to buy next time I go to the Musikverein.....

Stört Ihnen das?

One of the many things I love about coming to Vienna is the difference in language between German German and Austrian German. Not only are there specific words, but sometimes they change grammar, too. Much like British English and American, really, divided by a common language. Eg

die Ecke (German German) ; der Eck (Austrian German) ; corner
die Sch**sse (GG); der Sch**ss (AG); sh*t
Ausverkauf (GG); Abverkauf (AG); sale
die Treppe; Stiege; stairs

Having said that, the German Germans, even educated ones, can be pretty rough on grammar, as I noticed in Berlin recently.

Today's saying (see headline) is cringingly, toothachingly, eyewateringly ungrammatical. It should be 'Stört Sie das?', using accusative rather than dative. It translates directly as 'Does it disturb to you?', and came out of the mouth of an extremely elegant and smart looking middle-aged lady in the similarly elegant Wiener Musikverein. I nearly wet myself! She was temporarily disabled due to an injured foot, which was sticking out of the wheelchair she was using, and might have been in someone's sightline (don't ask, and don't try to imagine it... takes too long to explain). Funnily, then the lady addressed then answered, 'Nein, ich übersehe es einfach' - which can be translated both as 'no, I'm simply going to look over it', as well as 'no, I'm simply going to overlook it'.

Sequins and Sequelae

wow, read this book in less than a day - not only is it unputdownable, but also a hardback which I don't want to shlep in the luggage.

Ruth Thomas' first novel 'Things to make and mend' is a brilliant book, also reviewed here. Thanks, Mum for sending me the TLS review of it - and never realised you can read that online! It drifts between now and the 70s, when the two main protagonists were 15 and the best of friends; but this does not last for long. Teenage life in the 1970s in East Grinstead in Sussex, as well as 'today's' Edinburgh, is described extremely well, from the scholarship girl at the posh school, the girls having needlework lessons, to the traumas of teenage life, in one case being rather more traumatic than average. Actually, the book is also very funny, though under the circumstances it might easily not have been. After the two friends fall out they only reconnect when 28 years later they accidentally meet in Edinburgh. Nothing is what it seems, and every time you think you have worked out what has happened to whom, another unexpected turn appears.

How do I know that today's Edinburgh is described extremely well? When someone mentions street names and the relationships between hills and streets, describes the bronze pigeons sitting on the ground at the top of Leith Walk (very close to the best Scottish, if not UK-wide, Italian deli Valvona and Crolla, incidentally), has a taxi driver asking one of the protagonists, on the way from the airport, 'Ken Embra*?', describes the bungalow on the way in from the airport (I stayed in one in the first few weeks when living in Edinburgh), then I think she has a grip on Edinburgh (the Scottish Arts Council grant for the writing of this book helped, too, I suspect).

The two characters speak, roughly, alternately, although one has more to say. Interestingly, one tells her story in the third person, the other in the first person; often it is written as if they are chatting to you directly, or writing their own autobiography. It's quite an easy read, and totally fascinating, including also the small quotes from, it seems, needlework instructions from the classroom and embroidery details which I am very unlikely to ever come across.

Highly, highly recommendable - the only problem is, it's too quick a read - but it's just the right length for the content.

*'Ken Embra' = 'Are you already acquainted with Edinburgh?'

Rhythm is it!

I can now ruin my reputation completely and state that I had a few breakfasts with one of this week's soloists and that I cavorted almost naked with one of the composers! But no worries, wives of the affected, honour, virtue and fidelity were preserved.

Last night's concert at the Filharmonija was totally different from last week's Beethoven and Brahms. For a start, we were in the 20th and 21st centuries. And the hall was much fuller - but since one of the soloists was a big band, there might have been many mums and dads, aunts and uncles (as we used to say, when our Ayrshire Symphony Orchestra did concerts with children's choirs - I see they played the 'Snowman' again!!! last year).

The concert went on by chronological order of the compositions, starting with Geoffrey Bush's 1949 overture 'Yorick'. It was a typically English piece, of its period, and I could imagine it as the opening music for a black and white film, especially with the little oboe theme which sounds like some monks scuttling around their cloisters. Then there is the inevitable bright trumpet sound, and fanfares, much loved by English composers of that period. Reminded me a bit of that Elgar overture (Cockaigne?) which we also played lots, and also of the 'Gollywog's cakewalk'. In fact it is a tribute to the comic Tommy Handley, well before my time. It makes me wonder how the Lithuanian conductor related to the piece at all, but they did well.

Rolf Liebermann is a Swiss composer, who worked and studied with Hermmann Scherchen in Budapest and Vienna, where Scherchen ran the 'Musica Viva' orchestra employing mainly Jewish refugees from Germany (until....). From 1957 he lived in Germany, running at one point the Hamburg Staatsoper, and some time later running the Paris opera. Much of his music is kept in the Paul Sacher Archive, itself a fascinating subject for an article. It was Liebermann's concerto for Big Band and orchestra, written in 1954, which we heard next - you would not normally expect that from a Swiss guy? The band was crammed in behind the orchestra, and the piece was quite interesting, with some very big bandy kind of pieces, and some more orchestral pieces. In one of the 8 movements, played without interruption, only the band played, and in another only the orchestra played. The final movement, a mambo, was brilliant and the orchestra rocked, though the conductor did not. It could probably have been played with much more of a swing, but it needs to be conducted that way, and in a big band way, those playing solos could have stood up which would have made it much more fun.

In the second half we had two pieces by Arvydas Malcys, a cellist in the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, who in the last two years has had many of his pieces performed. Not surprisingly, generally they are kind on the orchestra. The first was a VIOLA concerto (1997), played in one movement, and performed by Hartmut Rohde, a well-known German violist, who looks younger every time I see him. The concerto started at what must be the highest note of the viola and eventually drifted back to almost that note. There were moments of minimalism with the same little motifs repeated over and over again, then rather fiendishly slowing down, but also nice slow expressive moments which used well the low pitch of the viola. There was no clear tempo structure, with fast and slow moments appearing interchangeably. The piece ended on such a slow moment, where the orchestra played long extended, and unchanging notes - it sounded good but was dead boring for the musicians, as you could see with the number of closed eyes! Rohde's viola was well audible throughout the hall - at the beginning I thought he had serious issues of sound and intonation, but things settled down after a brief period.

The concert ended with Malcys' concerto for saxophone and orchestra (2004), with Liudas Mockunas as the soloist. Seems to me it was a soprano sax since it did not look that different to a clarinet. Mockunas is a jazz musician, and gee, what a display! Virtuosity? You've never heard anything like it! I wonder what he might have been like as a violinist or viola player. This was quite a jazz concerto constantly changing beats and rhythms which resulted in the conductor's hands almost in a knot; the structure of the concerto was relatively traditional, though. The piece seemed to start on a children's song (I don't know many Lithuanian songs) and then developed into an explosion, a fireworks of sound. I can't believe that the composer wrote all those notes! Especially in the cadenzas which were just a blur of fingers and notes all over the place! Even the orchestra was agog, although they must have heard this during rehearsals. Here the orchestra parts seemed a bit more interesting.

Afterwards there was a huge reception type do, funded by the German ambassador, who, like his predecessor, and his colleague in Tbilisi, is a great patron of the arts in Vilnius - you see him and his wife at all events. Why can't we Brits make them like that? Never mind the nosh, it would be nice if they simply turned up at some cultural events - it's good for them, and in countries where culture is still valued highly, good for the image of the UK.

Proving something I am not

For the signing of a legal document here in Lithuania the notary tells me, after a quick perusal of my passport, that I need to have a document from my country of birth to prove that I am not married. Leaving aside the fact that my country of birth is not my country of citizenship, just how does a Brit do that?

They suggest a barrister. We don't have those in Scotland, but here I'm nitpicking again. Luckily I've once or twice bought houses in Scotland, so I dealt with a solicitor for that. I've asked him - let's see what he says. But doesn't he also only know what I tell him? The Lithuanian notary tells me there must be some authority at which people are registered. Well, Mrs, there ain't. Even though in the UK we are the most supervised nation in the world, we don't actually have to tell the state where we live or who we live with, unless we want benefits or something. In other European countries there is a great requirement for people to register their address, and even, in Lithuania, you need to spell out your educational level when you ask for a loan or a residence permit.

So I've now contacted the General Register Office in Scotland, who apparently can give me a chit, for a fee, to show that I have never got married. In Scotland. My passport is UK. Will the notary understand about devolution? She did not seem to be of the listening persuasion. The National Insurance computer, covering the whole of the UK, probably does not have these details, and all those I knew from that organisation are now retired. But how will they in Lithuania know whether I have a husband anywhere else? Strangely, they don't need such a certificate from the Lithuanian authorities, after 6 years' residence here. Which is strange, because last time I signed such a document, I had to get the document from the Lithuanian authorities, rather than the Scottish ones.

Considering that for the last almost 30 years I have had to, as an unmarried mother, listen to all that vitriol about us from British governments of both flavours, this is really a bit ironic.

The earth has been moving...

..it seems, in Kent. The BBC reports that Paul Smye-Rumsby, who lives in Dover, said: "It was about 08.15 when suddenly the bed shook violently.

"I thought my wife had got cramp or something but then I saw the curtains were moving and the whole house was shaking. It lasted about 1.5 seconds."

Just how do people deal with cramp?

Ah'm offski then - that's 'o' 'f' 'f' - 'aff'

as the late Ricky Fulton would say on Scottish TV every Hogmanay night. Actually, this is the approximate translation into Scottish of the title of Hape Kerkeling's book 'Ich bin dann mal weg'. This is extremely unlikely to be translated into English, since - who is Hape Kerkeling? It would appear that he is a German comic - yes, apparently they do do them. He is supposed to be on German TV all the time, and famous. Not so I've noticed but maybe I don't watch the right channels; I'm also inclined to change channels after a glimpse or two of most comics or other 'Promis' (celebrities). So what am I doing reading a book by this guy?

Actually, I was given it, and thought I'd take a look. Since it's a hardback it's not one I care to shlep with me to Georgia (having said that someone has just given me a copy of the huge tome of Grout's 'A history of Western Music' which is as we speak in my backpack to read on the plane, together with another hardback book which looks too good to leave at home). Kerkeling, while he is, as we said, a comic, is quite bright really. Someone who has been in the media since the age of 16 has to be. I'm sure being a successful comic is as hard work as being a successful concert pianist, and as a spoken comic people may expect you to be funny all the time, whereas a pianist at least needs a pianna to perform. He also speaks about 5 European languages, including Dutch.

So this book is about his time on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He started at St Jean Pied de Port in France, some 769 kms from Santiago. Impressive, no? There were moments where he hopped on a train or a bus, but these seem few and far between. According to the rules, and to get your certificate of completion, you have to finish the last 100 kms on foot or horseback, or cycled the last 200 kms. It should be added that northern Spain is not flat, and some really quite significant hills and passes have to be overcome. Our hero is blessed by the fact that his time seems to be unlimited and he can put in rest stops as he needs them.

The book then describes his progress and his pain, the people he meets, tells a few stories about his progress in life so far, and it also contains a considerable amount of deep thinking about the meaning of life and God (not in a missionising way). Like many of the other pilgrims he faces many adversities, including being too wet, too hot, the path being very steep or running alongside an extremely busy highway. The pilgrim's hostel accommodation seems to be as good as the price you pay for it (nothing, except a donation), so he finds small guesthouses etc. He meets a wide range of characters, of whom the funniest is a couple from Remscheid, Germany, who he hears arguing through the wall in their bedroom before meeting them face to face - so he knows both their private and their public lives, and observes them with appalled fascination. Right at the end of the treck he also makes friends with two women, one of whom he had met at the start but who had eyed him suspiciously until he tells her that, seeing as he is gay, he has interest in her body. After that they are the best of friends.

The book is very well written, and in fact unputdownable. It's written fairly simply, at the same time entertainingly but also containing 'insights of the day'. These you can take as deep meaningful lessons to learn (as he may have done, it seems that for many people this walk is a life-changing or life-reviewing event), or you can skip over them lightly. It's a good book for anyone wishing to embark on this walk since it describes what it feels like, which is just as important as having a travel guide. It makes such a walk quite tempting!

Rostropovich is dead!

Only a week ago I was chatting to someone from a Vilnius orchestra who told me that their summer orchestra tour with Rostropovich had been cancelled due to his ill-health. Today he died - it seems he had cancer.

Young Lithuanian and, actually young musicians from most former Soviet nations, have much to thank him and his Rostropovich foundation for, which used his considerable fame to organise scholarships and maybe even helped to organise music students to study with particular teachers. That's apart from the help his foundation gave to children in need, including those suffering from cancer. To be fair, though, the ticket prices for the concerts associated with his charity sometimes were eyewateringly high. But the story goes that he waived his fee for these concerts.

He was a great friend of Lithuania - I have a feeling our President, in a previous turn of office, gave him honorary Lithuanian citizenship. He would often be seen visiting his friend Rodion Scedrin's lakeside house near Vilnius. Obviously his concerts were always sold out.

Our President, Adamkus, is a few months older than Rostropovich. He made a point of attending Rostropovich's concerts, one of which fell on the President's 75th birthday. Our President has spent most of his life in America and was probably not used to Russian ways, especially relating to male brotherhood. (He's not generally approving of Russia, being one of the two Baltic Presidents who refused to attend the Russian 60 years after the end of WWII celebrations.) But Rostropovich of course had his own problems with Russia. At the end of the concert Rostropovich jumped off the metre-high stage, ran round to the President, and slobbered three very wet kisses all over him. The President has just about recovered. Needs to be said that Rostropovich was big into kissing people; I must be one of the few he has not kissed.

The music world will be poorer without him.

Free ticket

I wish I could say that the Filharmonija heard my comment about being paid to visit their concerts, but today it was someone else who seems to have placed a free ticket in my letterbox, anonymously. Weird? Unfortunately that day I will be in Vienna listening to Maris Janssons and Mahler's 7th rather than attending a concert by the French Group 'NoJazz' in Vilnius. Thanks, whoever it was!

Music and History

One of these days the Filharmonija needs to start paying me to attend their concerts! Took me some time to decide to go to today's concert of the Tartar Music Orchestra of the Kazan Conservatory. I feared I might not like it, but it would be interesting to see what they do and what the music is like. The concert was in aid of the Tartar's 610 year presence in the Lithuanian Grand Duchy (they are linked to Trakai whence they were imported to by ...Gediminas? from Crimea though the story goes that originally they are from the Iraq area). Due to their dark good looks, and the German's lack of knowledge of the finer details they also suffered much during the second World War. From somewhere I already knew that it would be a long programme (24 items!).

But that was nothing compared to the sinking feeling I had when I saw the band coming on stage with those instruments, which the Russians call 'national instruments'. These are anything that is plucked or strummed, mandolin-style, including some balalaikas (triangular), domras (egg-shaped), and a number of other such instruments. This website describes the domra, and this goes for them all, as 'When you play the domra, you play with a plectrum and mostly, you use a tremolo method giving a monotonous endless tone'. And they are trying to get people to play these instruments? There were 11 of these, about 2 accordeons/bayans, a double bass, a flute and variety of kurais (Bashkir national instruments like recorders), clarinet, two violins and percussion. Apart from a singer with the helpful name of Gubaidulina (Lilia of that ilk).

The link to history comes in where all these plucked instruments are clearly Russian, and I wondered what Tartar music was played on before the Russians waded in, and perhaps adapted the music to Russian instruments? Much like Khachaturian is accused of Europeanising/Sovietising Armenian folk music.

Some of the music was Tartar, but the band had no hesitation to also play Rossini and Piazzola on their national instruments (as I have heard Telemann and Vivaldi concertos on similar instruments in Russia). The Tartar music is interesting - I can hear bits of Caucasus music (that hard drum), and of Chinese harmonies, as you might hear in Turandot (I think) and other pieces that purport to reflect Chinese influences. The players' faces reflected all that is good and great about Russia, and its ethnic mix. Strange how the Russian hoodlums forget their own country's history when they beat up all the Chinese after Japan beats them at football.

How well someone plays an instrument with a plectrum is not something I can comment on. The violinists were a bit rough, particularly in terms of lacking vibrato when it was needed, strangely, for Russian training - there were moments when the notes were really not nice at all. The flute had moments of breathlessness; the accordeon/bayan players did some very virtuosic stuff and tried to engage the public (attendance, and participation, was limited) with only very moderate success. It was not entirely necessary in a programme of 24 items for one of them to give an encore! One young woman played a well-known piece 'Caravan' by one V Novikov on the bass clarinet, almost the size of herself, but was often drowned out by the band behind her - you could only see her fingers moving. The singer would be nice for operetta; she hammed it up greatly; her voice was rather over-bright but for a provincial opera company, in little operettas she might be fine. Dramatic roles? I don't know.

Despite the long programme, and speeches, the concert was over after 2 hours and 10 minutes. It's one I can tick off as having heard.

When I see 'French Duet' ...

...in a concert programme I immediately think 'Debussy' and 'ye gads'. So I might have seen an announcement of this concert before, but not recently and certainly not the day before outside the doors of the church where it took place. It took a bit of waiting time at the dentist's, and a read of the papers, to notice who exactly was playing there.

It was Michel Michalakakos, viola, and his wife Natalie (who has a different surname but it's not on the internet), violin, together with the best chamber orchestra in Lithuania, the St Christopher Chamber Orchestra under the delectable Donatas Katkus. Michalakakos often comes to Vilnius, but the last time I had seen him was in Montreal, Canada, at the International Viola Congress 2006, where he had been the proud flag carrier of the French representation, and they had put on a stunning, outstanding, day's events - one of the best ever! So obviously I had to be at this concert, especially since also it had been a long time since I had seen the St Christopher in action.

I suspected that the Mozart Sinfonia concertante might be on the programme, but I had not heard of the Pleyel Sinfonia Concertante which they also played. Violin and Viola must have been a bit popular at the time, because one of the many Stamitz had also written one. And of course Pleyel, of the Salle Pleyel incidentally, though he's Austrian, had also written some very pleasant violin/viola duets. This started off as an extremely delightful piece with a long first movement containing many lovely little classical music moments. The second movement, a rondo, though theme A seemed to appear only about three times, began with what sounded like a little classical minuet tune on the violin (though it was in 4/4 time) which was then responded to by the viola. But this movement also had some very dark, Don Giovanni-ish moments. The third movement - well, if it had been longer I might have found to say something about it; as it was it seemed to finish before it ever got started. I wonder if the soloists' parts were any longer than a page? Interestingly a (rather rough and tooth-achingly sharp-sounding) recording by the Concilium Musicum Wien suggests that there are only two movements, with the second one labelled as a 'rondo-moderato - Allegro'. That might explain this. The viola part of the whole piece seemed to have rather more accompanying scrubbing than the violin part, so it was not quite evenly balanced. The two soloists played this sounding much more in control than the recording, with a beautiful tone from both instruments (but especially the viola, of course!), and having fun, too! There was only one little moment where the violin, after some pyrotechnics, got into a tiny difficulty, and when the viola repeated the same section an octave or so lower, he came out in sympathy.

The Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, which we hear in Vilnius about once a year, was beautiful as always. I thought the violist was happier than the violinist, but perhaps the violist has played this 100 times more. The orchestra responded well, though there were moments in the introduction of the first movement when things could have been even crisper (you know when you expect a particularly thrilling, and much loved, moment [it's some pizz's in the first fiddle] and it does not quite happen). It's also possible that the first fiddles could not see the conductor well around the soloists; in any case he was very close indeed to the edge of the stage. In the introduction to the second movement the conductor kept surging like a jellyfish and pulling the orchestra along.

The concert finished in a chamber orchestra arrangement of Shostakovich's Quartet No 8, which my son played at the end of his school career. It's the one based on the notes D - eS - C - H, or to the English-speaking world, D - Eflat - C - B; Shosty's initials, so to speak, since a 'Sh' is one letter in Russian. This was wonderful; the orchestra was clean, crisp, full of energy, clearly picking up on the theme which went right through the piece. Fantastic stuff!

On Beauty

a totally, totally different book from the one reviewed below. This was well reviewed last year or so, when it came out; it's by Zadie Smith, the author of 'White teeth', which, if I remember correctly, is about immigrant families of different backgrounds and their children getting it together. A bit Romeo and Julietish, which, come to think of it, also drifts through this book.

'On Beauty', the Guardian review tells me, is Smith's homage to EM Forster. Well, I wouldn't know. Compared to Slaters, while successful, rather simple family, Smith's family is dominated by an extremely intellectual father who deconstructs Rembrandt in his spare time. He thinks he is right, all the time, and that he can defeat anyone with sheer force of intellect. One of his children takes after him, another becomes a Christian, much to the horror of the father, and the youngest hiphops along, getting himself into a dangerous scrape or two. Did I mention that the father is White English, but wife is black American, so the children are effectively black, too? The father has an [intellectual] arch enemy living in England, also black, who his eldest son goes and stays with, falling briefly in love with that guy's daughter (Romeo etc). Then the arch enemy ends up teaching at the same campus, and all hell breaks loose. Not least because the father thinks fit to sleep with anyone in a skirt (unlike his arch enemy, a severe Christian), one of whom describes him as being 'only human in a theoretical sense'. Oh yes, the mother tries to hold it all together, like it usually seems to be the women's role in families. A number of other random characters also appear.

It's a totally unputdownable book, poking endless fun at people in universities who are super-intellectual but unable to deal with real life. It's beautifully, funnily and extremely well written, endlessly more complex than Slater's book with which it should probably absolutely not be compared. In some ways it reminds me of David Lodge's books, though all his books are set in Academe, and this is the first one of Smiths in the same location. I am sure it would make a wonderful film.

Toast

I got this book, by Nigel Slater, first as an audio-book which I loaded on my Ipod thingy to 'read' whilst travelling. A book that saves on weight is a useful book. I'm not used to audio books, however, and find it difficult to keep up the concentration; particularly when in Tbilisi I connected the Ipod to a set of speakers but wandered around the house, or clattered around the kitchen. It's different with music - and in fact I have the strangest ability to go into something akin to a trance even with the loudest music pouring into my ears, getting my rest and still not missing a note. But with wurdzz it's different.

So somewhere somehow I picked up a copy of the book. To my transatlantic readers it should be explained that Nigel Slater is a food writer who has been writing in the Observer (a Sunday newspaper) seemingly forever; I can't remember who was there before him, maybe Prue Leith? There was someone else before her, Kate/Katherine Whitehouse (??) but I never experienced her as a foodwriter in a newspaper. She did write a wonderful paperback on cooking in a bedsit which came out in the mid 1970s. Unfortunately I left all my cookery books behind when I moved house in 1986, and the successors in the flat threw them out. There had been some interesting stuff amongst them; I managed to replace some of them with their later versions. He has brought out, as is every foodwriter's wont, a number of very interesting cookery books, and of course you can read his recipes every week in the Observer.

This book is about his childhood and adolescence. He tells it, heading every chapter, some very short, with a heading of food. This is very nostalgic, though some of those foods, like the trifle with the very firm jelly (Delia Smith would not make it like that) and many other of the ready-made foods are thankfully a flavour of times past. I hope. Cadbury's Smash? Angel Delight? Perhaps with the current obesity epidemic in the UK, they have been replaced by much more evil foods. The story is told in a very flat, northern sort of way (especially if you listen to Slater reading it). A bit Alan Bennett, but not quite as droll, with short sentences and simple words. If you read it very carefully, you come across gems like someone having 'lips like a cat's bottom'. Slater seems to have had a bit of a hard childhood, what with his mother dying when he was around 10, a fairly unapproachable father who sometimes threatened to place him in care, and who died when Slater was about 16, and the demon cleaning stepmother. His mother could not cook but she loved, the father could not cook and his love was expressed in strange ways, and the stepmother cooked wonderfully but definitely did not show any love to the boy. Add to that the fact that he woult not eat certain foods, driving his carers crazy. All pretty horrendous stuff, really. No wonder he escaped as soon as he could. At the end of the book we also learn things about hotel kitchens which we wish not to know.

It's a great book for recalling a particular period of life in Britain what with the food - especially the prawns Marie Rose - , the house in the countryside with steamed up windows, the Aga and no central heating, and the early attempts at love or rather sex. It would make a great subject for a sociological study of which level of society ate which food. I do remember the packets of trifle mix including the jelly, the custard, the biscuits and the hundreds and thousands, but that's nothing like Delia's rich sherry trifle with the biscuits, the fruit, the sherry (if you like), the double cream custard, and the further layer of double cream on top. Scrumptious? Let me go and look up the recipe!

Hammerklavier

Actually, there were two concerts today. The first was a collaboration between the music academy, the American Centre, and a local wind band called 'Trimitas' (trumpet). I only got the first half of this concert, and do not really feel qualified to comment on wind bands. The final piece they played before the interval was one of those rousing pieces, 'we are Americans' and was presented by the conductor as a 'gift from the American people'. At this point it is well worth remembering that the American people as a whole are delightful people, helpful, kind and extremely polite, and very different from their government. If this piece had been played in Scotland, it would have been described as 'foot-tapping'; a kind of American Radetzky March where the audience had to applaud along in places (which were a bit long, and the audience faltered). I'm told the sound of the band (combining Trimitas and music academy students) had improved considerably in their collaboration with John Lynch, the conductor straight from Kansas.

This was to be followed by a dance performance by our own Egle Spokaite, and dance students, in collaboration with an American choreographer and dancer, Patrick Suzeau, but I had to rush off to the Filharmonija for another concert.

This programme, I'm sorry guys, was extremely staid and conventional. Could have been played 150 years ago. Beethoven's Fidelio overture, 2nd piano concerto and Brahms' first symphony. The absent audience must have thought so, too. Fair enough, at the same time my first concert was still continuing (well attended), and there was another concert in the Jauna Muzika electronic music series. But few regular concert goers wopuld have been diverted to these latter concerts. So basically I suspect that people just found this Beethoven/Brahms concert boring. If in Vilnius there are only old folk in concerts, the concerts are boring.

Barry Douglas, with his flowing grey locks, carefully manicured stubble and impish smile looks like the archetypal Irish guy. I'm not sure what makes people look Irish or British, but somehow one can see the difference. Bit of a sensitive topic, which as a former West of Scotland resident I should move off quickly.

Anyway. In Beethoven's day the Hammerklavier was more common, and it sounded as if Douglas had taken this on board, hammering away at the piano, particularly in the first and jeez, taking 'attacca' literally, when bursting into the final movement. As described below, I have problems with sound at the moment, but thought that the Steinway sounded extremely crisp. I have always thought it lacks warmth, but here it was so clear and crisp that it could have sliced the air into tiny segments. The middle movement lacked warmth, I thought, though I suppose Beethoven was not really a romantic composer. There was little communication between conductor and soloist, not necessarily for the wrong reasons, and the orchestra sure had its moments. Someone had mentioned to me that in Lithuania it's difficult for the winds to make a common entry at the same time; I had forgotten that until at one moment the winds clattered in quite spectacularly one after another. As an encore Douglas played something that sounded like Debussy, again I felt in a slightly clinical way. But I'm no lover of Debussy or his ilk.

The Brahms, one of my favourite symphonies (I have a bad memory of playing it), was ok; very noisy (has he not written 'p' or even 'ppp' anywhere?), and it was only during the violin solo at the end of the second movement that I thought - this is usually played much more slowly, no? Anyway, the orchestra seemed to enjoy playing it, though I am sure they have played it lots of times before. I've heard it at least once in Vilnius. It would have been nice to stay at the other concert for the dance, but I had not been to the Filharmonija all year.

Marks and Spencers is here!

This week the new shopping centre at Gedimino 09, in Vilnius, opened. It's in the former municipality HQ which has been transformed quite astonishingly. Only the outside walls were left, and inside there are now four floors of shopping (not all of them used yet) including the Body Shop and Marks and Spencers. They did do a very nice job.

This is Vilnius, however, and must be one of the few capitals in the world where the city centre is almost deserted on the weekend. I popped in on the second day after opening, following a theatre performance - yes, there were queues at M&S, but nothing outrageous. You certainly did not have to fight your way through the crowds. Even today, on the first open Saturday, business was not particularly busy. Vilnius people seem to like to shop at the edge of town, at the big shopping centre at Akropolis. I am sure even the farmer's markets here are much busier on a Saturday than this shopping centre, or any others in the town centre. It's quite astonishing how quickly the shops change hands - there are now three or four shopping centres within spitting distance of each other, but not many people go there. M&S and the Body Shop are also not cheap, in Vilnius terms, though other shops are even more expensive.

I did not buy any clothes at M&S; it's not really my style, and I had also just completely reclad myself with much smaller clothes than before (to such a degree that last week in Germany I had trouble finding clothes small enough for the new me....). But they have a food department! It has no fresh foods, but it had seville orange marmalade which you can't get here, and my favourite musli! I should probably stock up a bit more on both - I just wonder how long this will last - the stuff is really quite expensive, but it's cheaper for me than shlepping it back from the UK. BHS has been and gone; it lasted about a year with its dull and dreary clothes. British companies don't realise that women in Lithuania, especially those with cash, are extremely stylish and also often extremely tall and thin. Folk don't really do frumpy!

Help - what's the real sound??

Getting used to this hearing aid is interesting. You kind of break it, and yourself, in over a period of about a month, with 1.5 hours per day for the first week, 3 hours per day for the second week and so on - usually taken in 3 bits per day. Of course, my life isn't like that. There seems little point of wearing it at home for that half hour or an hour, just to hear better the rattling of my keyboard. So I've always used it in a batch of several hours, when I was with people or in a concert. The other day I took it off at the dentist's and thought: 'Jeeez, it's gone quiet'. Obviously it does make a considerable difference.

Wearing it at concerts is another issue. I have been terrified of it whistling where other people can hear it. It whistles, for example, when I bring my hand near my ear, or when I hug someone. Adjusting it in the middle of a concert is a bit of a no-no, for the moment, until I sus it out better. I did notice it whistling a little, on and off, in a concert where I was sitting virtually on the first fiddler's lap, with the trumpets 3 metres behind. Though it does not do that in quiet moments, thankfully.

So you ask, why use it in a concert at all? Actually, it is programmed to pick up and amplify those bits of the sound range that I have trouble hearing, and today I noticed a marked difference in a concert of Beethoven and Brahms. It was amazing how clear, crisp and bright the orchestra sounded, and I wonder about those reviews I wrote where I said the orchestra sounded dull.....As it happens the aid should be set more strongly so that I hear even more, but that causes more feedback (whistling) and it makes the sounds more metallic. So the question is, how real is the sound that I hear? The current setting is a compromise between needing to hear and not having the whistling. But what the heck am I reviewing then? Should I keep off the topic of the sound altogether?

This will take some more experimentation. I was wondering, whilst listening to the orchestra, what the results might be if the orchestral musicians had their hearing tested....

Electrochordos

Tonight saw the opening night of the 'Jauna Muzika' electronic music festival in Vilnius. It takes place every year, for a week or so, and has most recently found itself in the contemporary arts centre - a very suitable location, and for your ticket money you get to see the pictures, too.

Although the topic is new music, tonight's programme was relatively old; George Crumb's Black Angels electric string quartet, a quartet whose author I will remember as soon as the website of the Lithuanian Music Information Centre agrees to open up, and Steve Reich's trains.

Crumb's Black Angels (1970) is apparently based on the Vietnam war. This only included the people on the stage, the Chordos Quartet; who played not only their own instruments, but also bowed some Indonesian gongs, some tuned glasses, had some mini-maraccas, sang and made other noises, scrunched and scratched, and for a while played their violins and violas upside down (very competently). The piece generally was white noise, with rarely a bow placed squarely on a string. But every now and again quotes popped up, of something by Bach (?? B A C H???) in the first movement, a bit of Schubert's Death and the Maiden in the second movement, and the upside down playing reminded the audience of a viol consort. The style was also particularly vibrato-less, to the extreme of making the notes sound not very nice. The instruments were amplified which was just as well - such was the sound level of the 'not connecting the bow with the string' approach.

This was followed by Ezekiel de Vinao's 'La Noche de las Noches' for string quartet and electronics. The electronics were produced by a computer, and included a range of sounds including church bells which electronicly changed the nature of their sound, and later a much amplified roaring cello. The music was much more connected (especially between bow and string!) and more like real music; at some stages the sound level became very loud indeed!

Finally we heard Reichs 'Different trains' which is for a string quartet backed by a string quartet recording, together with the voices of train conductors and such like. It was supposed to have three movements, 'America before the war', 'Europe during the war', and 'after the war', but at least the second and third movements joined together, and there was not much of a gap between the first and second either. Had he added 'Britain after 1970' an almost silent movement might have followed, with a few scrunches for the crashes. Reich writes minimalist music, and there was much repetition in it; however, particularly in the first part the trains were very identifiable, including their whistles. Of course, trains also make repetitive music. And there was a difference between the US trains and the European trains during the war (though they seemed to move too fast for the time). What I liked particularly was the way in which he had translated the spoken announcements into music; the announcer would say something and the cello or viola would repeat it. This piece seemed much more focused that Reich's streams of consciousness, when he and his team were in Vilnius last October. It was also relatively short. I had always thought it was supposed to be performed with trains in the background.

The Chordos Quartet did well; they are a bunch of young(ish) performers, all Lithuanian trained, who do much ink-still-wet type of work, though their website suggests they also play other music. They have two performances in this festival and regularly perform at Gaida, the autumn modern music festival (without electronics, usually). They are therefore well experienced at this sort of thing, and very well organised. They did very well indeed, and seemed to be in control of their recorded music most of the time. Of course, one would have liked to have heard some real notes, but the small moment of Schubert was something one could take home. One tip, though - with this kind of programme you can assume that your audience does not know the music, so please get up when it's over so we can give you some applause! (Bit difficult, considering they were wired up.)

I wondered, though, about the cost of these performances - with living composers and those recently dead the performance fees are high, and then there is the rental of the tape/CD as well....Lithuania is doing well!

Men in Black BMWs

Is it only in Eastern Europe that tangling with a black BMW is bad news? Usually these are driven by men, of strong build, with short haircuts, wearing black, often bedecked in golden jewelry. I would not like to investigate their tax returns - do they make tax returns? Even worse are black BMWs with darkened windows so you cannot look in. The word 'mafia' comes to mind, as it does with pinstriped suits where the stripes are far apart.

Men driving these cars think they own the world and they have a right to everything, highspeed driving, parking where they wish, across a pavement if necessary, and they can probably buy most law enforcement people. You don't mess with them, and so they get away with lots of stuff. Not always, though - today I spotted one having tried to change lanes rapidly and bumping into a lorry. As a result the whole traffic system in one corner of Vilnius broke down - and will still be broken down, because the police does not rush quickly to traffic accidents!

Stop me before I kill again...

(no, it's not what you think)...is what George W Bush says on the back of my anti-capitalista t-shirt which I picked up in Friedrichshain market last Sunday. Told you it had interesting things. At another stall a young woman sold t-shirts with poems. One of these went 'I am the stag and you are the doe' - it's a poem by Hermann Hesse. A guy who had sidled up beside me muttered, in awe, 'that's an enormous statement!' (No, I did not buy this one!). Both t-shirts are relevant in the context of 'Bambiland', a ...well, what....kind of play by Elfriede Jelinek.

Elfriede Jelinek, you will remember, is the Austrian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004, much to some people's surprise. Amongst other things she has written 'The Piano Teacher', a book about a sex-obsessed and mother-dominated piano teacher who abuses her student. Many of her books are like that; I've read about two or three....They are not easy reads (in case someone is looking for a bit of pornography...); the language is very complicated. In view of this I was a bit concerned to see a four-year-old going into the theatre. Jelinek did not go to pick up the prize, on the grounds of agarophobia or some such condition. That does not seem to stop her having a site on myspace.....unless one of her fans set it up.

Today was the premiere of the play in the National Drama Theatre in Vilnius, by the Oskar Korsunovas Theatre, but with the production by one Yana Ross from the US. The full text of the play is on her website (click on 'Bambiland' above, then on 'Aktuelles', go to 2004 and 'Bambiland' in German, or 2005 and Bambiland in English [incomplete]), and is a non-stop monologue based on the model of Aishylos' 'The Persians' (in the current climate the British Navy might wish to produce a new interpretation of this play...).

Actually it's about the Iraq war (hence my desire to have worn the t-shirt). It was not put on as a ceaseless monologue, thankfully, but by about 8 actors, five men and three women. One of the men wore the most enormous platform boots, and a huge rubber cone on top of his head; he played God, generally (remember, it's based on a Greek play). The other men and women, bar one, were soldiers in the first half and gods in bambi trousers with little bambi tails in the second half. The final woman came on stage as the Queen of England to the National Anthem (I had to restrain myself from standing up!), but later was a normal person. As normal as can be in this play. There were scenes with people in hoods (Abu Ghraib), a mother picking up toys in the street (which reminded her of her dead children), a puppet show involving inflatable bambis and a skull, another scene involving lots of bloodstained clothes of all sizes and redundant toys; at one moment a pig's head (real, but dead) was dismembered with an axe very close to the front row, bits flying everywhere. It would seem there was a vegetarian rather too close to the action....

Actually, the text is very funny, astonishingly crafted (as you should expect from a Nobel Prize Winner...) and totally scathing about the Bush and Blair coalition with all the others - since I am not allowed to quote anything, I cannot, but it's well worth taking a look at it - if you have time, go and read it. Considering there were no stage directions since essentially it's a polemic rather than a play, the producer had managed quite well keeping up the interest. Of course there is no real dialogue, it's more that the words are tossed about between the actors. This perhaps made it difficult to keep up the interest at times, and there were moments when I found my eyes drifting to 'closed' but I got over that after a while. The applause was rather weak, though, so maybe it was not just me. It's clear that this text has a lot to say, and having it as a play maybe connects it to more people; but it's not easy for producers. I suspect the text is better than the production was, but the producer did try her best.

What I like about Friedrichshain

Berlin Friedrichshain is in the former East of the City; it's now joined together as a local government district with Kreuzberg, across the river (Spree?). It's a bit odd because Kreuzberg is full of migrants and Friedrichshain is relatively 'white' and German. It's the place my son moved to when he first lived in Berlin. At the time I knew nothing about it and was a bit dismayed that he had not gone for Prenzlauer Berg, the 'in place', but actually, I think Friedrichshain is cool.

To be fair I have never spent more than a few days there, so perhaps I am not the best judge. I also know that there are many issues in Friedrichshain, such as racist attacks - but these exist in Prenzlauer Berg, too; only the other day I thought I heard a racist comment in PB. However, this article in the Berliner Zeitung totally slates Friedrichshain, and I don't think the author, Sabine Reichel, is being entirely fair. She's a journalist in her 60s (grew up in the 50s she says) who moved from Los Angeles to Friedrichshain; but she's a native Hamburger, so to speak. Probably she does not have the right background and expectations to survive in Friedrichshain.

So she complains and complains... about her cold flat (which might apply anywhere in Berlin, surely), the rudeness of the shop assistants, the number of people with body piercings, the dog shit (fair enough), the market, people sitting around in parks, drinking and listening to loud music, the public transport system and its clientele, and so on. She thinks Friedrichshain is a fake, but finally she realises that she may just have got old.

I like Friedrichshain because it's different and it's funky. During my Berlin trip I visited the far west of the centre, Wilmersdorf, and found myself in a neighbourhood where the only people under 70 were Polish care assistants, and the flat I looked at faced a hospital and a funeral parlour. The capuccino was cheap, though! Prenzlauer Berg is becoming stunningly beautiful, but also very gentrified and middleclass - as is reflected in some of the very expensive shops there. Now everyone has young children - in 20 years it'll also be a pensioner's paradise.

I like the mix of people in Friedrichshain, most of whom are quite young. Many of whom are punks or have other reasons for piercing their faces - and they will pay for it later with dental bills. At the same time there are also many more established residents from before the wall came down. Perhaps coming from California the writer was not used to a slightly robust way of communicating. Those of us who spent much time in the satellites of Glasgow, Scotland, can well deal with that - but I found all shop assistants friendly, apart from my first visit to a little ear ring shop in Kopernikusstrasse. And if they are grumpy, you just grump back or you are so nice to them that they finally melt. It's nice watching people and seeing what they do and how they behave. The punks don't worry me, the racists do. It would be good if Friedrichshain was more ethnically mixed, but perhaps that will develop.

The buildings range from stunning to decayed, though the modernisation is moving on relentlessly. There are lots of little interesting shops selling all sorts of weird and wonderful things, and there is a great little bookshop, Buchbox, which may not have that many books, but almost all are those I would read. Other shops range from a busy organic supermarket to cheap supermarkets, and a wide range of other goods, many cheap and nasty, and others quite ok. And there is the little market in Boxhagener Platz which on a Saturday has a wide range of vegetables, organic and otherwise, meat, delicatessen etc, and on a Sunday is a flea-market where, if you look carefully, you can pick up interesting things.

There is the cutest little cinema set in the groundfloor of a block of flats, and Friedrichshain now has many restaurants for all levels of income, except the very highest. It's between two lines of the S-Bahn allowing for quick transport to other parts of Berlin - yes, you get crazy people in the S-Bahn, but you do in public transport everywhere. It's because they can't get a driving licence what with being drunk or crazy...and welcome to the real world! I would be happy to live in Friedrichshain, though I would not necessarily buy a flat overlooking a park....