Out in the countryside....

Out at the crack of dawn this morning to set the hash for tomorrow. Crack of dawn is 7.30 am, which it is distinctly nippy at this time of year.

The hash was at Kgale Sidings which I had heard of because the Ladies' No 1 Opera House is supposed to be there. Jeeez, it's way out of town, past Game City, along the Lobatse road, and then near major satellite dishes you turn left into the bush. All countryside, with a few nice houses dotted here and there. It's a cul-de-sac.

Not exactly a typical location for an opera house, nor for a restaurant which it is from 9-4pm during the week, or 10-2pm on a Sunday. Passing trade? Probably zero. Walking distance from anywhere? Forget it. I suppose it is a concert venue, reasonably cheap to set up, given the scarcity of land anywhere central, and with parking for visitors - but the casual visitor is extremely unlikely to ever find it. Extremely well-meant, of course, but I wonder about the business model....if it had not been largely funded by the generous A McCall Smith, would it ever have got a start-up loan? (See photo to the left below)

The Gaborone Hash have got some implements called 'stompers'; they are cans screwed to batons, with the letter 'H' punched out of the bottom. They contain lime, you stomp them on the floor and you have printed a beautiful 'H' to show the track. Off we wandered, followed by a delightful little Jack Russell who followed us all the way around our track. There were no serious animals to be seen, apart from a dog. I asked about snakes but was told they were not around at this time of year, and that the main dangerous snake, the puff adder tended only to be dangerous if you stepped on it. So would I, I'd expect! (NB I have no idea whose nests are swinging in that tree....)

On the way back into town I spotted a large animal strolling along the road - gee, some size of dog that, I thought. Coming closer I noticed it was a large monkey, casually strolling along on all fours, in no hurry to go anywhere! It must have been close to the size of me, standing up. Since this seemed to be quite a normal thing to happen, I thought it would look rather naff stopping and taking a photo of the beast!

When I got home, the guard made a lot of heavy weather of showing me into my parking space. Not only did I not much care for that, wee bump or no wee bump, I cared even less for him standing right behind my tank as I was manoeuvring in......

Dammit!

So today I got the office car; it works well, but feck it - I reversed it, slightly and slowly (but it is a frigging tank) into someone else's car. Not sure what the insurance situation is in that respect.  The owner of the other car asked if we needed to get the police - I suggested that not, seeing it happened where we both live, there were plenty of witnesses and no-one else can be at fault (plus my driving licence is in my previous name; hope that does not cause problems with the insurance....). Not sure what the insurance status is in any case.

It's such a huge car that you tend to feel rather invulnerable in it, which does not really help....And yes, as Freud would say, there are always emotional reasons for accidents, there are no accidents per se. What had happened that someone had blocked me in my car parking space, I kept hooting the horn, nothing happened, then it turned out to be a colleague who had just nipped into someone's house nearby, and so I was a bit narked, to put it mildly before I started driving. Without due care and attention, obviously.

Looking for a house

I've now given up looking for a furnished place; I will just have to buy furniture and everything (got enough money for that, though I used it for other stuff, but ah well - people tell me that it is easy to sell things again (after 4 months' use....). Have now got a colleague on the job, too. Just phoned about a couple of places, both reasonable, advertised yesterday, and they were already taken. Wew!  That looks like it is hard, too.

But again the problem is the directions and the addresses; in the papers they talk about Block X, but on the slightly old map they talk about Extension this and Extension that. So I have no idea where the dratted place is. Just now I am downloading Google Earth to see if it shows the Blocks.  When I ask for a street name and an address they just laugh - does not work like that here. A local colleague, who studied in England, was surprised how easy it was in England to find a place. And then proceeded to tell me how to get to a particular ministry, waving her arms about....

There is a place called Phalakane, where lots of places are for rent, but it is a long way out of town; very posh and rather nice, but I don't need posh (though need to meet my employer's security requirements); I just want somewhere in town, especially now that I am joining this choir.....

Choir!

Found a choir in Gaborone, the Gaborone Musical Society. It will do Carmina Burana in November, and rehearsals start next week. Not entirely sure about the pitch of my voice these days (might be baritone/bass) and how it will hold out to serious singing.

First parcel arrived....

...from Europe. The only one sent commercially, by Amazon UK; took exactly 2 weeks. Three others are on the way - will they make it?

Reading, reading, reading

So what can a guy do when there is virtually no cultural life, no restaurants, little social life, but read.  Lots of books, all so far very interesting, but I wonder how long it will take me to use up the books in Exclusive Books in Riverwalk Mall of Gaborone? At least at the moment they have their winter sale, which helps. Need to look in Stellenbosch next week - I hope they will have a wider choice.

What did I read?

Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene (1938). A scary book set in the underworld of Brighton, with knife-gangs etc (as they say they had in Glasgow in the 1950s). Some desperate guys kill a guy (except it seems he died of fright before they managed to kill him). A woman with big boobs has her suspicions about his 'natural death' and pursues the gang. It describes their rather horrid lives rather well - there is a rather complex character, all of 17, who runs the gang, and who has had the usual upbringing of reform school and so on. What surprises me about him is that he does not drink or smoke and he hates sex, perhaps because, in his family's one-roomed flat, he saw his parents at it every Saturday. But a 17-year-old boy, with hormones all over the place? A bit strange....

The Bad Mother's Handbook, by Kate Long - about a single mother (aged 33) of a clever 17-year-old daughter living on a council estate somewhere in the North of England, and with a rather batty mother herself, who slips in and out of dementia. Except there is a secret..... and the daughter herself follows her mother's footsteps. Very amusing in between all the drama. Well worth a read if you understand life in the North of England.

Spud, by John van de Ruit, written as a diary by a 14/15 year old boy in a South African boarding school. It's very funny, though I hope not too many of the events in the book happened to folks I know who went to boarding school.  The narrator comes across as rather a complex child, singing in the choir one minute and up to no good the next.

A book by a South African author (currently lent out, cannot remember author's name or the book's title) about a Jewish family in South Africa and their black servants (in passing). Told by all the different characters (which makes each chapter difficult to sus out - just who exactly is talking here?). The grandparents come from Lithuania, and for some reason talk about Polish money (fair enough), had a terrible life in Lithuania (ditto), spoke little Russian (why would they speak Russian if they were using Polish money) and speak much Yiddish (when suddenly the Lithuanian word 'bulves' = potatoes) drops into it.  The book is set in the 1950s when the main character, a child, is a young child, and goes on. It's very interesting psychologically, with the child/family having to deal with a mother who clearly sinks into deep depression (understandable, under the circumstances described in the book), but no-one in the family is able to deal with the woman's rejection of any help.  Only much later, after the woman is dead, the daughter realises what difficulties her mother had to struggle with.  Initially it seems a bit corney, but when you get into it, you really (or I really did) get into the child's suffering.  I can't believe I can't find the book on the internet. Would help if I remembered any of the characters' names; I have a feeling it was shortlisted for some (UK?) prize within the last few years....I picked it because I have a South African Jewish friend who would have been about 10 years older than the child in the book.

A wild sheep chase' by Haruki Murakami; a usual Murakami thriller-type book involving the slightly weird and wonderful. Great reading, as always, less sex than usual (:-().  Unputdownable.

And I am still reading 'MacroPsychoanalyse', an economics/psychoanalytic textbook (in French) about how any economic models are really run by emotions (as is everything, in my view, even if, sometimes, it is the denial of emotions, which also gives its own message). Very interesting, converting the individual model of people (in French 'le ça', 'le moi' and 'le supermoi', as well as 'la pulsion de la vie' and 'la pulsion du mort'). Fascinating stuff, it really is - but it is so threatening to people to talk about emotions in relation to what they think are rational decisions.  I'm waiting for a few more books on the same topic, should they ever arrive in Botswana.  It's not quite as easy to get into it in French....

But Philip Roth's book, 'Our Gang' or 'Le théâtre de Sabbath' in French may be one step too far for my French. It's sitting there, and I have laboured through a few pages.....

Picnic by the lake

So, after the hash, where I had whinged a little about being lonely and having little do do on a weekend, one of the guys phoned us on the way back into town and suggested we join him and the girls for a picnic. No idea where we were going. My mate, whose car we were using, got a little anxious about how far we were heading out of town.

Anyway, tootled along the Francistown Road (600 km to the North) but after 20 minutes turned left towards a village called Bokaa. What is there, we asked ourselves? The guy in the other car kept stopping and asking people for directions, which led us all over the village. Finally we saw the lake, but still could not get to it. When we asked again at a house, the woman there gave us her 15-year-old daughter (or sister) to show us the way. So young Keda joined us.....I was not at all sure about this, what with my work - how did the woman know that we were not child abductors/traffickers?  Finally found the lack and young Keda sat beside us, occasionally saying something. She was a lovely little girl (rather than young woman which some girls of that age might have been). It was very tempting to go into the lake, but Keda (and later her mother/sister who appeared looking for her - so she was worried after all) told us that there might be crocodiles in the water, although perhaps more at the far side. I'm afraid when I hear of crocodiles in the water I always think of that scene in the cartoon version of Peter Pan where the eyes pop up, one by one - so I only went in up to my ankles. The ground was a bit slimy and it might not have been nice to be unable to sprint out of the water. In any case, I think crocs can have a fair bit of speed on them in water....

It was interesting - we were there with some Cuban doctors, who are here as volunteers. Apparently there are lots of Cuban doctors in Botswana, and probably other African/Latin American countries as well.  Maybe Cuba gets some money for this, but it is so impressive that it sends its doctors all over the world. Cuba is well-known to run an excellent medical system on a shoe-string (if the string is long enough to close one shoe) - it may be propaganda, but this is just fine with me. (Much like El Sistema from Venezuela - if it does good to its own people and give benefits/pleasure to people in other parts of the world, why not. I wondered how able they might be to open a bank account here - the bank I opened an account with made me sign some thing about trading with unapproved countries, of which Cuba is bound to be one.  

It was an interesting outing, not least because I found myself as one of the three guys going out with three girls (plus young Keda) - I did wonder a bit how to handle this. Stuff to get used to, I suppose.

Learnt something else over the weekend, and just had a long conversation with my South African mate, who clearly did not understand what I was talking about (he's never lived in the North).  Sitting quite a bit in the garden, I was wondering about the path of the sun; I was totally bewildered in terms of the direction in which it was travelling.  Seems that in the South it travels also from the east to the west, but via the north!  I had never paid any attention to that in Australia. One lives and learns.

Oh joy, Radio 3!

My faithful reader Anni reminded me that Radio 3 exists on the internet; just tried it, and it comes across on my laptop (but the Berlin Phil transmissions, involving also pictures, don't... thankfully, it seems, my subscription had expired anyway at the end of the season). This is brilliant!!!  So I suppose it'll be Proms from wall to wall for the next couple of months.

So it's a long three-day weekend; I had taken the office car as I am still entitled to. Went shopping last night, and got enough for a while. Just as well - even last night there seemed to be a problem getting it started (it turns over but does not fire), and this morning it did not fire at all. I have a distant memory of having to jiggle something in the carburettor (was looking for a choke but did not find one), but it's a long time since I tried to get a car to start. There are no hills for bump starting, and the thing weighs a ton. So much for my planned trip to a game park, or anything else exciting.

Walked to the Broadhurst mall (about 4 km), described as 'atmospheric' in some information for American medical students. Hmm, not sure.  Wish I had looked at their blurb again before I left, and looked for the second-hand bookshop. Otherwise it was the usual shops in Gaborone, slightly less organised than in the fancy Game City Mall (Broadhurst was probably built in bits), a post office which took 15 minutes to post registered letters, a very nice shop with a huge range Indian spices in bulk (200g makes an awful lot of spice), and chapatti flour in 5kg bags (how much flour does one chappati take? 10 g?). The 'stalls where you can bargain for all sorts of things' were largely of clothes, either fake designer goods or secondhand clothes, including huge piles of black shoes. Nothing African.  As one who once bought a second-hand Tshirt of a street child vendor in Rwanda I should not quibble, and for non-posing running t-shirts it should be ok.  Beyond that it does not have that much to offer to the average ex-pat.

Had meant to go to another place, with a garden centre, to try and liven up my dark patio (and it's supposed to have a nice restaurant, too). But one thing that drives me crazy in Gaborone is that no-one ever gives their frigging address on their websites or their adverts. I assume they don't use postmen/women here; it's all 'Post Bag XXXXX'. How do ambulances and the fire services manage?  So lots of businesses do have websites, but don't tell you where they are. The garden centre in 'Block 7' is as near as I got; but Block 7 is rather huge, especially without a car; Botswanacrafts, another highly rated provider of Botswanan arts and crafts (can't say I am that much into that sort of thing, but it would be nice for a look), also appears to have its shop inside a post bag.

Soweto Buskaid vs El Sistema (Venezuela)

After seeing Soweto Buskaid in concert last night, I thought I would try and compare it with Venezuela's El Sistema.

Both target children living in difficult circumstances (though not all those in the Venezuelan Band fall into this category, 'only' 90% do - that's a pretty good achievement in terms of targeting). Buskaid is privately sponsored (by Total petrol); El Sistema is publicly funded, under the heading of 'Social Action for Music', possibly by the Health Ministry.

El Sistema has 250,000 children participating at any one time, apparently 30 professional symphony orchestras (see Wikipedia) and is creating many very fine soloists, musicians and not least conductors (Dudamel); the population of Venezuela is 27 million; thus almost 0.1% of the population are in El Sistema. The Buskaid project is one music school in Soweto (population 900,000), which takes 80 students (0.01% of the population) and turns away 100s more, due to lack of funding. Rather than an integrative system, Buskaid is more an elitist system - but, it's privately funded, with apparently no state support. (It should be said that there may be other, similar projects in other townships - a violist friend is involved in a similar project in possibly another township, but that does not have as high a profile).

El sistema was started by a Venezuelan, Mr Abreu, whereas Buskaid came into being through a British violinist, a foreigner. El sistema grows its own conductors (well, it does have a huge base) whereas Buskaid is still a string ensemble and conducted by Mrs Nalden; who conducts a bit (I am sorry) like a school teacher - do those children really need two bars counting in? I do wonder whether another conductor, a local one, might not have let the children's personalities and their exuberance (all children are, or should be, exuberant) out. Perhaps the rather refined 'early performance practice' is not the best approach for this age group? But with such a small base it will be hard to find someone....

It would be great to persuade the South African government to expand something like Buskaid, but locally there is probably no evidence base whatsoever to show that it keeps children out of trouble (especially since I suspect that the children chosen to be accepted are probably those who might not get into trouble in the first place).

Music in Gaborone!

So you think I am in a cultural desert? Well, almost, but not quite.....tonight we had, in the 400-seat Maitisong concert hall/theatre (the only one purpose-built since independence in 1966) a concert of Soweto Buskaid.

Soweto Buskaid is an outfit founded by a VIOLA Player, Rosemary Nalden, in response to a BBC programme about the 'difficulties besetting a string project in Diepkloof, Soweto. It is a band of about 20 - 25 young string players who tour the world, have played at the Proms (to '5-star reviews'), and voted as 'one of the world's most inspirational orchestras' by Grammophone magazine. Hmmmm. You know how it is when you have a blind pianist or someone else overcoming seemingly overwhelming odds, that sometimes judgement goes out of the window, a bit?

Yes, they played very nicely - but world class? They need to let their personalities out.

There was something funny about it. I found them rather timid. Someone said 'it's because they are very young' - that's no excuse; young people don't tend to be timid. Think of the Bolivar Youth Orchestra, or any other major youth orchestra - usually they are full of exuberance. I did wonder about the conductor's personality (more about that anon).

They started with some Purcell, a dance suite, of short dances. They were very nice; played with a nice baroque bow hold and so on, but Purcell is Purcell, fairly straight music, precise, at times not all that exciting....There were a couple of amazing dancers (one also a violinist in the band); I thought of the two Tumi Mapholo was the more talented one - they had done their own choreography which was very interesting, and Mapholo was really, really good. Drop the violin, boy!

This was followed by two Kreisler pieces, played very nicely by a violinist from the back row. In the second piece there were some intonation issues, and maybe not enough give and take on the tempi. There was the odd bit of funny bow direction, but he was having fun. I did wonder about him going to a music school in Europe, say Lithuania; he would have the talent though I would not wish Lithuania on a lad from Soweto.

Then we had two Beatles songs, sung by Cecilia Manyama; she was far more at home in Preacherman than in 'Michelle' (which the band is hoping to send to Mrs Michelle Obama). I think that needs a bit more practice to get more into the singer's comfort zone.  This was followed by the first movement of the Brandenburg 3; we have all played it, haven't we. It was nice, though again not as lively as it might have been.

Finally they ended with the Beale Street Blues, an old American piece, nicely played by the band and the basses (they seem to have streamlined basses - they had the thickness of the cellos rather than being deeper as is normally the case). 

The second half opened with the best of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, No 6 for violas and basso continuo. I was listening closely to the violas - during the first half emotions had taken over and I was wondering about sponsoring (or helping to sponsor) one of the viola players to participate in the viola congress at the other end of South Africa in a couple of weeks' time. When I was listening to them, they were good, again lots of musicality, but at times (mildly) iffy technique, and damn it, can those personalities not be let out?  I thought of the standards of other viola players and wondered whether really theirs would be up to congress level.  Still some time to think.

Then we had two slow Gymnopedies by Satie - those that we all know and can sing along to. The dancers appeared again and did very nice dances indeed. I see that the programme notes suggest that Satie may have suffered from 'compulsive neuroses' (hence the 'hypnotic repetitions' of the piece??? though you could say the same about any ground bass; and I wonder if people like Philip Glass have similar neuroses??? - Freud - where are you?). Does this come from Wikipedia, one of the sources of the programme notes?

Another two Kreisler pieces followed - again not as much give and take (rubatos) as there might have been, but pleasant and nice.  Finally we had an African Kwela; African music arranged by Buskaid students - these were fun.  Again I wondered if the players had restrained themselves a bit too much, and were a bit too much in the European music straight jacket - it was pleasant music, but I would have expected some raucousness.

But overall I thought temperaments were curbed, the members of the group were too restrained, and there was not as much fun as there might have been. '5-star reviews?'   At the end I went to ask a member of the accompanying team about the viola congress; not only had she not heard about it, but she also felt 'we should have been invited' - before she dropped me to speak to the US embassy representatives.  Well, with that attitude of 'entitlement' (I am sure the congress is run on a shoe-string budget, and could probably not invite a whole group) I could see no reason to offer to support anyone.  Money saved.

Will blog a bit more about Buskaid and saving the world and so on....

Medical services - Botswanan style?

So I've had a stiff neck for over 3 weeks, making my nights quite uncomfortable - not moving my neck much during the night seems to stiffen it up. Tried yoga, did not really work - at the end I felt my head was ready to part from my body; then a massage - the next night it seemed to freeze up completely, so today I went to see a doc.

Did not want to ask my colleagues, less than 3 weeks into the job, so picked one from an embassy website of doctors approved for that country's immigration policy, and one who was not too far from my home.

Found the surgery, a little house in the back garden of a larger house. The reception was presided over by Mma Ramotswe herself; a large lady with a ball of hair pinned on top of her head (Botswanan ladies seem to be prone to wigs, hair extensions and hair pieces - at times it can be rather disconcerting).

She asked me if I had come for a medical examination; I confirmed assuming I would need to be examined before any treatment was given (I suspected she meant a deeper medical examination). She proceded to push over to me a medical examination form for the Civil Aviation Authority..... I suggested that was not what I needed.

Waited for a while; an elderly female doctor (?) had slipped into one of the consulting rooms, but nothing happened. Then a very elderly male doctor went into the other room, and I was ushered in the second after he had disappeared through the door. Felt a bit bad about not even giving him time to sit down.

He did, I told him my symptoms, he started writing a prescription while I was still talking. Meantime I had time to survey the consulting room; akin to British NHS ca 1950.  I had been worried a bit about taking off my shirt, and having to explain the scars across my chest (not a very common condition here), but seeing he did not lift himself out of his seat, nor ask me to move my head about or do anything, there was no great need.  Not totally convinced about the quality of this interaction....

Then, in the waiting room, I was told to wait. The receptionist shuffled round a bit, went into an open cupboard beside the front door full of medicines, dug out two large bottles, disappeared into a back room, and a short while later re-appeared with two neatly labelled plastic bags with the stuff I had been prescribed. Still trying to find the name of one of those on the internet...

but I did get him to refer me for an xray. Addresses are funny in Botswana. People tend not to use them, but give you general driving directions, waving their hands in the air, and houses have plot numbers which seem to be fairly randomly allocated....luckily the referral form had a general map of the place on the back, and I only had to ask once.

There I did have to take off my shirt, but no questions were asked. 5 x-rays later, including one holding two full 10-litre containers in my hand, and an excruciating one of lying on the table (that's when I worried about the following night) I was done. Result due tomorrow.

It's interesting sussing out different health services. This one also seems to give the reports direct to the patients (though the next day, not on the spot as the Lithuanian service).  Is it only the UK service that 'protects' patients from the knowledge of their own health condition?

I may be going to the Viola Congress!!!

Just discovered that this year's international viola congress, which usually takes place around June, has not happened yet! I knew it was going to be in South Africa.....So, it seems it will take place in 3 weeks' time, and I should be able to get enough leave to participate in most of it (I will be entitled, it just depends whether I will be allowed....)

It slightly kyboshes my idea of going to Cape Town for the 4-day weekend before (we are having some public holidays), but going to the Viola Congress and see all my mates should be wonderful!

Keep fingers crossed!

Settling in...

after my internet started working yesterday, albeit slowly, but it works...must try out the skype phone side....I bought a lightbulb (the missing one was a halogen bulb, I discovered after buying several ordinary ones, both of screw fitting and that British kind, can't remember what they are called, but they don't screw). The shop only had a 500 watt bulb, which makes me feel guilty about the environment, but it's better for my mental health.

En passant also bought some cake tins ('tins' - they are silicone) and a marble cake is in the oven as I speak - I am finally blessing this house. Ok, so I only had brown bread flour (wholemeal) in the house, but that makes it a bit healthier. Funny thing, though - the measuring jug I had bought measures water, sugar, rice and...wheat.... Cultural differences in measuring jugs, too. The baking powder, I discovered, comes in a rather dinky metal tin, with the old-fashioned 'Royal' logo. At times I feel I am going back 50 years - whilst baking in a silicone 'tin'. I can see food-related souvenirs returning with me to Lithuania at the end of the year...There's also the 'Five Roses' black tea which is the first tea I have ever experienced that does not go bitter while sitting in the pot for hours...

Twice this weekend I took the wrong turning to the shopping mall, the 'Game' mall. First time I drove past a rather poor neighbourhood, the second time I drove right through the middle of it. Great thing to do, going through a fairly dirt-poor neighbourhood with a tank of a car called 'UNICEF'! As in 'seriously embarassing'. I can see what those guys of the planning blog mean about it being much more natural, if this is the one they were referring to. It does look vastly more human, not least because there are many more humans around and to be seen, what with no high walls, fences, the roads being a bit squiggledy (and dirt roads). Though the housing was basic, some just tin shacks, with outside toilets and so on (wonder what it will smell like there in the summer). There was a large open space in the middle, no grass, and a serious football match was happening, with lots of spectators. At the edge of this settlement there were little decorations, some ornamental plants etc which made the place look rather pretty. I wonder if the place has a school.....

There's also the question of individual security. Some people might think that there is nothing to steal from the poor, but my experience tells me that the poor tend to be among the greatest victims of crime (I am sure there must be some statistics somewhere). The financial value of what can be stolen may not be that great, but the loss to the (former) owner can be very great indeed, if not devastating. This place did not look all that secure to me. And even though everyone may know who thieves and who does not, community pressure in itself may not be sufficient to control such activities. People may be too scared to speak out.

A small miracle?

Just switched the laptop to apple mac and suddenly the internet is working in my house. Coincidence, or is apple more sensitive? My digs are beginning to grow on me...

Sooo, Botswana continued....

Today I walked past a large building with loud singing coming out of it; a short while later I returned by it and heard singing, cheering, whooping....it was the Roman Catholic church! The singing sounded very interesting - quite different from the European RC churches; very African with a solo singer followed by a choir (song and response, type of thing). I should go and study that a bit....

The Batswana ladies are very polite; in particular they are very softly spoken. This causes me no small degree of difficulty, having left my hearing aid at home, what with coping ok recently without it. Maybe I'll get it sent out. 

Everyone, particularly men, address me as 'sir' which makes me feel uncomfortable in terms of race relations.

Outside a supermarket today spotted a couple of guys busking on home-made marimbas...

The Game Mall is amazing; a proper Western shopping mall, if you desire to buy anything. Not that I particularly would, and it was a bit dark and gloomy (maybe justified in the summer) but it seems to have every type of shop possible, including a book shop, a few cafes - in the one I tried you need to allow for much time for the service; diy shops and you name it, they have it, including a garden centre. Someone tried to sell me some language courses - French, Spanish - (done that, worn the Tshirt), but also Setswana, the main local language other than English.

Tried to get a ticket today at the Maitisong, the local concert hall seating 400 (the only purpose-built theatre since independence in 1966), for Soweto Buskaid, but each time the box office staff, such as they are, were not there, the guards at the school entrance (it's a school hall) informed me. Will need to keep trying.  Otherwise I could go and see them on 15 July at the No 1 Ladies Opera House (I kid you not!) which is co-funded by Alexander McCall Smith (he looks for donations on his website) - this is converted from a former garage and acts as a restaurant during the day. But it's rather far from my place.

Also I see that the Soweto Buskaid will run a string orchestra session on one of those days - I wish I could go along, but apart from having no instrument it's also a working day.

Hey, it's brilliant to have internet in the house, without being hunched over on a poolside chair!

Driving the organisation's car

Driving our huge organisation's car (both the organisation and the car), it creates mixed feelings in me. It's covered in the (humanitarian) organisation's logo, which does not necessarily help.

Of course it is nice to drive such a huge car, and very comfortable - though I am a bit surprised about the manual windows - would have expected things to be electric, or is this a security precaution, like the internal central locking mechanism?

But I find that I have to drive very well, and cannot let my anger or aggression reflect itself into the foot on the accelerator. Then I am also quite scared about children running into the road (though that's not a problem in Gaborone); I know that if I touched them with this tank even at 20 mph that would be deadly for them. There are quite a few tiny children in the complex in which I live - I would not possibly be able to see them....(I do tend to think of cars as deadly missiles in any case.) Plus here is zero tolerance for drinking and driving, so that is absolutely not on. So it is rather mixed feelings...

In front of me, by the pool at the place where I stay, a wee boy is playing at 'Wimbledon'. First he carried out two green plastic chairs, then his backpack...I wondered whether he was about to run away....out of it came two bottles of juice, and a huge tennis racket. Now he is rushing about after an imaginary ball, smashing them across an imaginary net, and already grunting for...Botswana. It's really rather sweet.

'Cases' and 'Suitcases'

English language = difficult language. This article is headed by a heading which suggests that an employee of the Polish embassy is complaining that her 'suitcase' was not examined by the Lithuanian authorities.

What is she complaining about that for, one wonders?

In fact, it's her 'case' about sexual harassment in the embassy....

I've moved!

Slight crisis this morning - having checked out of the hotel, and quibbled over a phone bill of less than 2 Euros (somehow I thought it had been more) when no-one had actually answered the calls, I moved over to 'luxury accommodation in the heart of Gaborone'. Got there to get my studio apartment (actually a bit small, but at least self-catering) and found that it was only available for one night, rather than the weeks or months I was planning to stay. Long debacle.

Eventually they had a townhouse for me. That's a two-bedroomed house, with the bedrooms on the small side, but a house. Luxury? I don't know. They look as if they are not much loved, and mine has more the flavour of a shared student house - there's a certain amount of wear and tear. The groundfloor is quite dark, what with the house opposite about 3 m away, and at the back a concrete wall, a dirt (garden) space about 1.5 m deep, behind that trees and high green netting. Don't mention the view! Wifi - I am not sure about it. But there is a pool (nearby, obviously not in my backyard) and there the wifi seems to be ok. Not sure that I would want to inhabit the house with a bunch of small children. Maybe the flats are better? I don't know. At least I have internal space and a functioning kitchen.

I had taken the huge office car to go shopping, and bought enough staples, cornflakes, bread, wine, beer, the usual things to last me a while. The vegetable front was a bit limited, even in the supermarket, and at the time I had not seen the house to assess freezer space. Maybe I'll take the car back to get some more frozen veg. The aubergines in the supermarket seem to take the American term 'egg plant' literally; they were egg sized. Otherwise the food is a peculiar mix of British food (custard, all those jellies, Patak's curries etc), German food (a la South African) with buttermilk etc, and local spices. They seem to like their spices, the Batswana. The wine shop, Liquorama (doesn't that really make you feel like a drunk?) was tucked round the back, and quite small. But there was a nice bookshop in the Riverwalk mall, and I picked up some books by African (South African) writers. It is only a small section; otherwise the shop is middle-brow, but I am only here for 6 months, so it'll be fine.

Let's see how it goes. I'm a bit depressed about having another dark house, after Georgia, but at least it's near work, and other useful places - not that there are that many (no opera etc, though I see there will be a concert by someone called something like Soweto busk, a string ensemble, on 11 July. Must check that out.

Gaborone planning (2)

So ok, I only took a brief walk this morning, what with work pressure - but I was thinking about that planning blog. And ok, also, I just walked round the bit near my hotel, for about an hour, and it was the Presidential/embassy area, so hardly representative of the whole of Gaborone.

There were lots of large houses, most single-story, all behind high walls, often topped by electric fencing. In one I saw probably a domestic worker emerge from a brick shack at the end of the garden (hope that was not her living quarters). Otherwise you could not really look in. I counted three small park-like areas (so much for 'no green spaces in Gaborone'); the roads were deserted, barely a soul to be seen - presumably in this neighbourhood no-one would set a foot on the road if they could drive. Crossed two or three dual carriage-ways, also fairly empty (at between 10 and 11 am in the morning). All the gardens had trees and things, so it was quite a green neighbourhood. Did not see any vegetable plots, mainly there was just bare earth (the joys of a dry country, where weeds may not grow much).  Probably again these people just buy their food....But it was a very pleasant, liveable neighbourhood, though totally without shops (unlike in Georgia, where every cellar is a shop).  Not sure about community facilities either; did not see any, but would this type of people do 'community'?

I was a bit alarmed to see that my entry yesterday was in the Gabarone Google News Alert. Bit of a low-news country, no?

A bit at a loose end...

I'm still in my hotel, have done all the work I needed to do over the weekend, it's 7.50 pm, and so I switch on the TV. Not sure that Sky News is the best that is on offer....it's looking grim for the next 6 months.....

Anyway, I'm appalled at the amount of coverage of Michael Jackson's death, with Sky not half stoking the flames, having live coverage from 'outside the Jackson home', asking people why they are coming there ('I haven't stopped crying since I heard') and talking about every frigging car that enters or leaves the place. Seems to be another Diana situation. Whether he was a great artist or not, I could not really comment upon, but the poor guy has led a rather tortured life - let's let him rest in peace.

Gaborone Planning?

Here a guy (of the planning variety, presumably) writes about the layout of Gaborone, described as unsustainable. He suggests that the none-too wide roads, hemmed in on all sides by houses in more or less large gardens cause lots of problems, eg traffic snarl-ups (which might explain my 40 minute wait for taxis the other day). 

Gabarone as a capital was only built in 1966 and later, and there are plot numbers rather than street numbers; now it is getting a bit crammed, but it still feels nice and spacious.  Everyone has a house and a garden, with greenery in it. Which probably explains why they did not think of parks as open spaces when they first planned it - everyone has their own little park, and a tree to sit under.

Of course what Gaborone needs to build new wide roads is a war. That's what sorted the problems in Germany, Britain, and many other European countries.  Is that what he suggests?  So the roads are not so good for cars. I don't see that as much of a problem. There is a (private) public transport system - so far I have tried it only once, but it seems ok. Why should everyone have a car? Ok, your own car can be air-conditioned in hot summers....

I bet he would like to go back to the drawing board and start again. And then what? In another 40-50 years someone else might go along and give out about the planning. In many countries (in places where a war did not rage) people live around the buildings rather than the buildings making way for that God, the motor car.

The comments on his blog are closed, so this is the only way of responding to it.

Sort of a music story...

So Michael Jackson has died, after 50 years of, as it seems, a lot of misery, despite all his money. God rest his soul, at last.

I ask myself, though, was this really the top story of the day? 6 stories in the Times alone?

Sex Education

My employer had put on a 'learning session'. I had just come away from another meeting, the topic appeared to be something about community groups. Important, but not all that critical for me.

Then I got the call to come along, so I did. Rather startled to find myself in a large room, with most of the team, looking at banners proclaiming 'your sex network'. Was I in the right class? It seems I was. It was about HIV and AIDS and how one infected person can infect lots of others, if they are not careful, and each has several partners. I thought that it was good news that in the years between the last HIV survey in Botswana (2003/4) and the most recent one (2008) the prevalence rate had hardly changed (I'm not putting in figures because I am not sure the report has been published) and said so aloud. Sometimes one just does not think and one should keep one's mouth shut. The reason it has remained so relatively stable is because lots of people have died, so in fact this masks quite a few new infections. As it happens, Botswana is pretty damn good at dealing with this - giving all those who need it those anti-AIDS drugs, so people are much more likely to stay alive now, and providing home care for bed-ridden people. Those drugs ain't cheap! We talked about homosexual sex (illegal here) though a significant number of respondents in the survey (male) they had had sex with a man. I then had to explain to a woman how lesbians do sex....she could not quite understand the gesture the lovely lecturer had used.

Later went off to do shopping. I had intended to get a pair of glasses for driving; I see pretty well enough in most environments, but might not pass a driving sight test. Took only 40 minutes for the taxi to arrive at the hotel, and the journey to the shopping centre cost almost 10 times as much as the minibus on the way back. Having sat in the far corner at the rear, when I got out it meant other people had to get out as well. But a good experience to make, and my seat neighbour was very nice and helpful. I still have not worked out the money - need to take a closer peek at the coins.

Did not get the glasses - paying 100 Euros for those few occasions on which I need them seems a bit much (though they might be useful in opera houses, too - whenever I get back to be near one). Also I had gone to the shopping centre because I saw no opticians in the main street; as soon as the taxi hit the road I saw three within 100 m of my hotel. Might check them out a bit more. But at least I have seen the shopping centre. It seems to have a cinema, too; the supermarket sells some wine, none to cheap, though I got a carton of claret for about 6 Euros for 2 litres (the same make of carton that my luxury hotel uses, with probably a reasonable profit margin)......Just had a near catastrophe; the opening for the wine is quite different from the openings the Chileans use for their wine, sold in Vilnius; thank Christ something had made me try it out in the bathroom and not on the beige bedroom carpet. Not sure what the chambermaid will say about the red spots all over one of the toilet rolls....

Work is building up nicely now; there seem to be a few things potentially on the boil and it is nice to be a bit under work pressure. Still finishing another bit of work; had hoped to have more of it to do over the weekend, but nothing more has appeared. Oh well....

Winter in Botswana

Lovely story here about winter in Botswana.

Not sure what the temperature actually was - seemed a bit cool yesterday morning, maybe 15 degrees or so, but perhaps in that place, not that far from here, it was much colder? And some of the children described were barefoot....

Botswana!

Botswana – First Impression

It has a lovely temperature – it’s mid-winter, and some colleagues have the heating on….I walk around in short-sleeved shirts.

Gabarone is like a large village – all low-rise buildings, apart from a few in the centre, large open spaces, large gardens everywhere.

The malls are not like the ‘Mall of America’, but rather small, low-level affairs.

The Batswana (people of Botswana) seem to be very law-abiding. When the plane landed, everyone stayed sitting until long after the engines stopped running – until they were told they could disembark (yes, I was told off). A scandal in some other part of the country involves people drinking alcohol and INSULTING other people. Insulting people is a serious no-no. They are also very polite - they greet you with 'how are you?'.

Another case in the news involved a family of 10 persons who lived in terrible conditions, with a house that was far from weather-proof. So the local community gave them 2 tents, but also found that the mother was quite able-bodied and able to work – so she find herself working shortly. Some might think that with 10 people to take care of she might be working hard enough already…

Botswanan names are very difficult; long, complicated and seemingly not connected to any names I know. I will really have to memorise my colleagues’ names.

Not viola, not Vilnius

This viola player will be out of Vilnius for some time - he's going to work in Botswana for the rest of the year, and the viola will stay in Vilnius. The nature of the blog will therefore change somewhat.....

Love and Other Demons

This opera by Peter Eötvös is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez' book on the same name. It was first performed in Vilnius last October (original premiere in Glyndebourne; it's our co-production with them) - I missed it - but last night formed part of the Vilnius International Opera Festival.

Not having read anything about it, and being too mean to buy a programme, I thought the story was about a girl who was sexually abused by her father, then became rather sexually precocious (not acceptable in 18th century Colombia) and for that was meant to be exorcised (they were singing in English, but a lot of words were lost), made love to Satan, and then was exorcised. The fact that the guy who I thought was Satan was played by the guy (Vytautas Juozapaitis) who was Don Giovanni added a certain piquancy for me.

In fact she was bitten by a rabid dog, then went mad, my 'Satan' was the exorcist who fell in love with her and so on. 

It was a very busy opera; a great change from those static performances of the Mariinsky theatre, with an ever changing set, a river of (live!) fire on the stage, contrasts between the apparently mad girl (Marisol Montalvo?) and the nuns constantly fluttering around, who later, themselves, threw off their togs (to dresses underneath). Unlike the girl who in the process of exorcism was stripped down to her briefs and covered in ... blood...(red paint). And then she sang, wearing nothing but briefs.....(With her figure she could get away with it!)

The music? Eötvös' music is not the kind you would go home whistling, not much in the way of tunes; it's very modern and intellectual. I felt the opera was more about the story, with the music playing a role like in film music, emphasizing or explaining what happened on the stage, and adding information, eg with the nuns singing in the background. There were moments when it reminded me of 'Peter Grimes', but perhaps only because of the very high tenor voice, and the music accompanying it.

After the first half I was not sure if I would stay, but I am glad I did - after I while I stopped worrying about 'having to enjoy the music' and just enjoyed the spectacle. So go if you want to see something exciting, but not if you want to go home whistling a tune.

The boy in the Striped Pyjamas

This film finally made it to Vilnius. It's an English film (in cooperation with the BBC) and it sure shows! The music (lush, Ronnie Hazlehurst type style), the very middle-class English conversation....

It's a variation on the Auschwitz theme; about a guy who is promoted to be commander of Auschwitz and moves there with his family. It's told from the viewpoint of his 8-year-old son, who himself feels in a bit of a prison, in the commander's house - a dull, grey, building outside the camp, which also seems to serve as the commander's office. Finally Bruno manages to find a secret way out of the enclosed house and garden, and, exploring the surroundings, ends up outside the fence of Auschwitz, on the other side of which just happens to sit 8-year-old Shmuel, an inmate. They become friends.....

The commander's mother does not approve of the Nazis, and, once his wife finds out what happens in the camp, neither does she. But it's too late....

There are some historical inaccuracies - I am sure the camps were surrounded by double fences, at least of one was electrified. Therefore the story could not have happened the way it was told, if at all.  I am not sure, also, that at a Nazi party someone would have sung in English.

About the end - I'm afraid I thought 'serves them right'...

The Lithuanian subtitles and the English talk did seem to have a bit of a gap; it was rather freely translated.

How perceptions change!

I was at home, idly musing into another blog, having just made a coffee and looking forward to a bite of pre-concert dinner, when suddenly I looked at the clock of my computer and found it was 18.28. Performance at the opera house starting at 18.30 - I was wearing my shorts and a t-shirt I had bought secondhand.

I have never changed so fast, and run so fast, as I did to the opera house today, to see, for the second time, Robert Wilson's production of the St John Passion by Bach. Made it in time for the first chorus - impressive or what?

Last time I reviewed it I was quite down on it, what with the sort of slow and symbolic movements on the stage. This time, after the very static performances by the Mariinsky Theatre, I found it quite lively! (I heard a couple of days ago that after the Parsifal there was no standing ovation, and the primadonna apparently was in tears....).

I had meant, obviously, to come on time and find a nice seat in the front row. As a latecomer, I was lucky to be let in at all but had to go to the balcony. Went to the first balcony instead of the second I had been told to go to, and found a wonderful seat! Ok, it was at the side of the theatre, but quite close to the stage and I had a great view of the orchestra - that's a seat worth checking out in future.

The performance was fine; the orchestra was struggling in places (a rather rough obligato for two violins), but with the very fine cellist of Musica Humana who was playing non-stop (more than anyone else apart from the organist) it was held together well; they tried to play in the historically correct style, too. Some of the singers had some intonation problems; the counter-tenor (Charles Humphries) singing a tenor role (seems a bit over the top, using a countertenor for this) in his second aria produced some melismas which reminded me of the histrionic singer in the original version of La Cage Aux Folles (film) - it's the most politically correct way of saying this.... But the diction was great and it was easy, in general, to understand the words (I've been in a choir of this myself, and I know the piece well, maybe that helped, too). The evangelist (Kestutis Alcauskas?) was wonderful!

I felt sorry for the choir who in every appearance had to stand there, holding the right hand up as if they were holding a glass of wine - some of those appearances were so long that I wondered if someone had given them false arms to make it easier, but it seems not. What if someone's nose had started to itch? And then there was the woman dancer who, it seems, was representing something akin to inner conflicts, and was rushing about all over the place, in the same stylised kind of way that all other movements were, by everyone.

The penultimate chorus, 'Ruht wohl', was too fast (Rolf Beck conducting; seems to do a lot of it in Vilnius these days). I don't know what it is that makes these so fast (it was the same in the St Matthew's passion in the Filharmonija last year) - if a guy has just died, and maybe his soul is still in his body, he wants to 'ruhen' (rest), not take off at a sprint!

'The Enchanted Wanderer' - what about the audience?

Second night of the International Opera Festival in Vilnius, and we had Shchedrin's opera 'The Enchanted Wanderer', again produced by the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, with Gergiev conducting.  That funny little American was around again, he who was sleeping with next to me the previous evening. Seems he is a serious fan possibly of the band - before the show started he was crawling round the artist's entrance, where the musicians were still enjoying a smoke; the look on his face was a picture - like a five-year-old who was meeting Father Christmas for the first time.

What would you think about hearing the title? Maybe the 'Wizard of Oz'? Or 'Die schöne Müllerin'? Well, das Wandern was definitely not this guy's Lust.  It seemed to be more of a Faustian/Soldier's Tale type story, where a guy sells his soul to the devil, then loses his money to the gypsies (well-done, Mr Shchedrin, another triumph for political correctness - I just hope it was an old story you used; couldn't he have misspent his money in a brothel or something), then it seems his wife dies and he becomes a monk (says the reviewer, using the visual clues).   Have to say that Stravinsky told that tale vastly more amusingly, and briefly.  Not sure if 'enchanted' is the best translation - maybe more like 'bewitched'...

So here we had a stage covered in reeds; a huge choir sitting at the back of it, using sheet music (I later realised that they were probably representing nuns and monks), and some young men taking various roles as land labourers and so on - to add a bit of movement to a very staid direction. There were 3 singing parts, a bass, a tenor and a woman's voice (soprano?, not sure), plus the orchestra. To say that the piece was sparsely orchestrated, at least from where I was sitting (could not see them to assess the amount of playing) is a bit of an understanding. It sounded like large chunks of the band were not playing most of the time.

The music was perfectly pleasant, nothing of 12-tone or other experimental stuff about it - Shchedrin tends to write accessible music - and the singing was good (the tenor was a bit screechy, but a very funny actor, on those rare occasions that he did some). The main singer, the bass, mainly stood around and sang - the woman, who started being an old woman, but then became younger (or was a different character) did some acting and dancing. I am not sure how to bring across the boredom of the piece; it kept being interspersed with the choir singing prayers (not to enough effect, given the story line). What was worse was that I thought it had two parts, and the first part went on and on for 1 hour 50 minutes or so - I began to wonder what else they could possibly tell in the story, but it seems there was only the first part.  Thank god for that.

It did contain some lovely Russian music, sacred-sounding and profane, and would have been nice to listen to at home over a glass of wine, but as a spectacle it was just too slow.  The bass, as he become a monk, ended on a note so low that even I could not reach it (I can just make the C two octaves below middle C...) - if he had held it any longer his guts would have spilled out.  A clear Russian signature note, no? Think of the Don Cossacks' choir.

So nice music, well-played, shame about the spectacle - though that tenor's 'ministry of funny walks' department (deportment?) was amazing!

I lasted 3.5 hours....

Well, it was Wagner's Parsifal, in the opening event of the first Vilnius opera festival, with the Marinsky Theatre, Gergiev conducting, and lots of Russian singers. But boy, was it boring.

Did not help that I sat between a young American, who had flown over that day, and was asleep in the first act, jerking his head up about every minute, and an elderly Lithuanian, a keen concert goer, but who has a personal hygiene problem (in the downstairs department....).

Everyone who was anyone, was there (again!), including my shrink in a rather nice short black dress (she wears well, given that she is a few minutes older than me). The foyer was set up (again!) for a post-event reception - Gergiev must think that in Vilnius there are receptions after every concert.

But oh, that opera. I had not read the plot before; it's all about holy grails, sacred woodlands, mixed with Christian rituals (a communion service) and so on. Blah! The music is nice, but when the overture started with slow music I thought - that'll go on all evening! And so it did. Seems a very unbalanced opera; one guy does most of the singing in the first act; in the second act this guy is almost mute and Parsifal stands around at the side of the stage most of the time; in the third act Parsifal does most of the singing...and the rest I don't know, I was not there.

The set was standard Russian; first I thought it was the lite set for travelling, but it was quite cleverly put together with lots of different backdrops; but still a standard Russian faux-modern faux-old set. The dresses were fairly standard, too, operatic, total fantasy. Poor Parsifal appeared on his first entry just wearing tights on his legs; later he was allowed some boots and trousers.  In the third act some guy ghosted around with what appeared to be a grey Russian onion-dome on his head - his wig. Seemed to be carrying a spear.  At the beginning and end of that act there was quite a nice scene with lots of girls in very colourful costumes wafting around; it was really a very phallic scene, involving a sword, and I was trying to imagine what a more adventurous producer/designer might have made of this. (Sometimes it is hard watching or reading something with a psychoanalytic gaze).

The orchestra played beautifully; lovely string sound. In the overture I was not sure if the strings and winds were quite together, and certainly, in the ladies' scene, the girls' entries were well apart.  The singers were good, apart from one rather nasal tenor who had a couple of lines to sing.  But it was all standing around and singing.

For me, that's quite enough of Parsifal. Tomorrow it's an opera by Shchedrin....

Unbelievable!

Sergey Malov, the winner of the Jascha Heifetz violin competition in Vilnius, has now walked off with the first prize of the Tokyo viola competion!!!!!!!!!!!

Incredible - I wonder if anyone has ever done that before???? Winning both violin and viola competitions....

Mind you, if Malov played spoons, the washboard, or the harp - with his musicianship he would win every competition.

Welldone!

Vilnius is HIP!

Of course we knew that anyway, though sometimes there are aspects ....hmmm.

I'm talking about historically informed performance - in music. At last it is arriving in Vilnius, and it seems, even being taught at the music academy. Welcome to the 21st century!

Seemed like it was Mindaugas Backus' (final?) exam for his doctorate (given the heavy mob loitering at the back of the hall). Backus is of course that wonderful cellist about whom I have written often. Recently he has developed quite an interest in baroque technique, even to the degree of buying a (modern) baroque cello. Not sure if he sparked that interest in the music academy, or vice versa.  Suspect the former is more likely to be the case, after hearing the tone in the voice of a music professor about 'old music' when I had bumped into him the day before.

It was a chamber music exam, so there were lots of other players. All the string players used the baroque bow. Now, call me fussy, but normally I think you would hold the baroque bow a bit higher up, or does that only apply when you use a modern bow to play in the baroque style? Baroque bows perform quite differently. Backus clearly also had gut strings on his instrument - given the amount of tuning he had to do, and the slower response of the strings. Not sure about the other ones - the other two cellists also, like him, bravely held their cellos with their legs. It would be a bit of a job, restringing a cello just for one concert....I also wondered if someone would make concert clothes with a non-slip inside leg? As long as they don't wear skirts or trousers with an elasticated waist....The violinist (Rima Svegdaite, from the St Christopher Chamber Orchestra) had an interesting woman-shaped violin (without corners) and the flautist (Vytenis Giknius, from the Lithuanian state orchestra) used a wooden flute - its sound was so different from the modern metal flutes; so much warmer.  The harpsichord was the usual all-over-Vilnius harpsichord. Really I don't know why composers at that time wrote for it in ensembles; I could not hear it at all (not the player's fault, of course - Vaiva Eidukaite-Storastiene).

Anyway. The concert began with Vivaldis Sonata No 5 for cello and basso continuo (played by another cello, possibly Onute Svabauskaite). I am sure I know it. It was very nice - one little portamento slipped in, probably by accident, but otherwise it was great - nicely played in the baroque style. I wondered, though, whether it had been written for cello originally - it was so fast (in the fast movements) that the strings did not have enough time to respond; they were almost meeting themselves coming backwards. I would have put it down more for violin (or maybe flute, if it fits under flute fingerings).

This was followed by Telemann's cantata for flute, soprano (Nora Petrochenko) and cello 'Ew'ge Quelle, milder Strom'; sounds like one you might not wish to sing to someone with a prostrate condition. Beautiful flute solos, and the usual da capo style arias.  Again very nicely performed, though I realised after a while that the singer was singing in German. As she should be, it's Telemann, after all. Then I tried to listen to the words, but had some difficulty. The word is 'ich', not 'isch'.  Bit of a shame.

Finally we had a quartet from the 'New Quartets in Six Suites' - typically baroque, Telemann threw in an inaudible harpsichord as well. I wondered if the flute part might have been a violin part originally. It was a nice conversation between the flute and the three string instruments. I thought the violin did not come through very well (gut strings??), and there were some intonation issues. Was it really written for two upper instruments (flute/violin) and two cellos? Here the second cello was played by Roma Jaraminaite (unless the female cellists were the other way round - you know what I mean...) Anyway, it was fun. Backus was ready to take off - I wondered how different it is to play a cello you have to hold up, rather than one which is pinned to the ground.

Great little concert!

Death and Destruction on the balcony

This year I had decided to do a bit for colour on the balcony. Great timing - looks like I might be off to Africa shortly, for the rest of the year....

So I planted some nasturtiums, to wind themselves round the balcony railing, when they grow up. Last weekend they had shot up and almost reached the edge of the window box.

Yesterday we had at least one hailstorm. The nasturtiums are shredded! Luckily the tiny growing points seem to be all right, so they may recover.  Near miss!

And who was that leading the viola section of the Scala Milan chamber orchestra?

There I was, in the concert of the chamber orchestra of La Scala, Milan, idly gazing around the band, watching the viola section (I had a really cheap standing ticket, for 5 LT - how come it was so cheap? and there were no real sets left to crowd into), when suddenly I thought, I know the viola leader. You know how it is when you see a person in unexpected places, you don't recognize them, or at least I don't - terrible memory for faces...Was that our own Ula Ulijona Zebriunaite? That dark viola, I recognized it, too - and indeed it was! What's she doing playing in that band? Is it a move away from the Kremerata Baltica? What about the string quartet she is playing in? Seems she is up to all these things - well, congratulations, Ula!

To some degree it was rather a standard concert. The four seasons of Vivaldi interspersed with four seasons of Piazzola. Nowadays one knows both sets of pieces as well as each other. Given that Piazzola is Argentinian one wonders if his seasons should not be played upside down, what with the seasons being in different months of the year in Argentina.  It was also strange about the concert arrangement and applause - there was no interval, and the band breezed through all 8 sets of pieces in one go, apparently not particularly inviting applause between any of them, though occasionally the audience made itself felt - in a rather random sort of way.

The interpretation of the Vivaldi was rather conventional (Cepinskas does a more interesting one), but beautifully played. Oh that cellist! Sitting in the standing room seats I could not see the violins, but I got the impression that the cellist was leading the band. The soloist was great - apart from appearing in a very stylish red shirt (where did he buy that??) and white trousers, he fairly blistered through the fast movements. Was it really possible to play them that fast? Obviously it was.

This kind of concert attracts two kinds of people, or maybe three - those who go to concerts to be seen (and yes, they were there), those who like Vivaldi and suffer Piazzola, and those who like Piazzola and suffer Vivaldi, and yes, ok, there are those who like them both (so four kinds of people).  At the end the band gave two Piazzola encores - when, finally, they launched into Libertango, the Filharmonija briefly converted into a pop concert, with the audience cheering, as the band started to play. I don't really mind, it's nice that people enjoy music - a woman in the front row seemed to be close to orgasm at that point....

Wonders will never cease!

Got a big surprise after the end of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra's contribution to the Vilnius Festival - see below.

The programming involved the delightful Osvaldas Balakauskas' symphonic poem 'Tetra', Prokofiev's second piano concerto, and Skriabin's third symphony.  I had some misunderstanding about Tetra; I thought it was an early work (of the 70s) but it is in fact a work of 2007; quite recent, therefore.  It's a piece for full, very full orchestra, including piano (I did not see one, but maybe it was under the balcony, and thus under me), lots of percussion, and harp. I am not sure the textures really came through - the way it was performed it was rather a lot of noise; maybe it is meant to be like that, maybe not. Not sure if 'Tetra' is a Lithuanian word (it's not in my dictionary), or whether it is related to 3, as in 'tetrapak'. Oh dear, the associations we have. Would need to listen to it again.

This was followed by Prokofiev's second piano concerto; a piece I did not know at all.  Toradze is apparently a great Prokofiev expert; he has recorded all Prokofiev's five concertos and his recording of the third has been described as 'historically the best on record, out of over 70 recordings (Wikipedia reports).  This one was a momentous work; in a kind of baroque structure with four movements, but that's where the baroque stops. Technically it looked, and sounded, awesome - with long, very long, composed cadenzas, and a serious physical work-out for the pianist.  Toradze, for the big guy that he is, has the most amazing soft touch, where required - I bet as a dancer he'll be light on his feet, as some people of that size are.

Finally we had Skriabin's third symphony, another piece I don't know at all (theme of the evening?). Again a stunning piece, with lovely violin lines (cannot remember that much about it, to be honest, two days after the event). Three movements, played in one; it went down very well indeed.

The surprise? I never thought that Domarkas can speak English, but here both he and Toradze (who lives in America but is a Georgian who studied in Russia; he and Domarkas go back a long way) spoke English all evening. Usually Domarkas speaks Lithuanian and takes no prisoners with soloists who do not share this language (ie ALL foreigners).  And his English is good!  It confirmed my idea that he is a Lithuanian nationalist. At the post-concert reception there was a flavour of anti-Russian Georgian and Lithuanian nationalism in the air; ah well.

What was much more interesting in the town hall yesterday...

....than the Fortvio interview was the press photo exhibition on the top landing, covering the Georgian/Russian war, some Lithuanian politics and life in Lithunia.

One cannot expect, in Lithuania, even-handedness when Georgia and its freedom are concerned; so the photos were of Georgian soldiers being taken prisoner, an old woman protesting in the street and so on. In another country perhaps a photo of the shelled by Georgians Tskhinvali might have been included, for balance.

Among the Lithuanian photos was one of one poor MP, who at some event involving journalists, dropped his mobile phone, and when leaning back to pick it up, it seems he got the heebie-jeebies about the journalists. Whereupon he fled into a cleaner's cupboard, and hid in that, with the journos outside, for nearly 12 hours. The photo is of him leaning with his face into a wall, eyes closed - story is that he did not move while in there. Afterwards the police carted him off for an alcohol test. I suspect that a chap, who had really been alcoholised, would have left some other traces after 12 hours in a cupboard.  I felt really sorry for the guy.

Then there was a photo of a wee boy and his labrador who had been hit by a train (the dog) and survived. They're tough, those Labs. The dog's front leg had been injured, and he had lost a large chunk of skin, it seems, from his shoulder. Also he was wearing one of those trumpet things over his head, to stop him scratching his ears, or maybe linking his shoulder. I was surprised to read that the skin was being fixed with 'medical skin'. Of course I know nothing about the case, but I do remember that when my cat was half-skinned by a car, looking like a skinned chicken, the skin and hair grew back all by themselves....

Dear Fortvio Trio....

so today I went to the concert of my favourite Lithuanian trio, in the Vilnius town hall - and what did I get? A 'meet the Fortvio Trio' event.

Now I know the tickets were cheap - was that why we got so little music and so much talking? Ok, so you organised a stunningly attractive mistress of honour, with hair larger than her American size 0 body, and who was very good at her job...but why all this talking? She gave a long introduction, rattling through everyone's CVs - and everyone who was there knew you anyway, apart from the tourists who would not understand her, then you played a short piece (Tanayev?), and then up came another interview, about how you met and all that. In the Tanayev, and the first movement of the Haydn, the piano was far too loud - I could see the violin play, but not hear her - maybe that was an acoustics problem in the town hall. Often I could not hear the cello either, and dammit, I was in the second row.

Frankly, that's what I don't go to concerts for, but for music. And what was that with you playing only 2 movements of the Haydn? That's something that school children do, but frankly, you are now adults, and it is time to give serious concerts. The Haydn was, to be fair, stunningly played - oh, that third movement! But then started another interview about competitions. That's when I left, and went to the supermarket instead.

Did you not have enough repertoire to fill the whole concert? I was a bit worried anyway about you playing all those competition pieces. Competitions are all very well, but rather an East European way of building a career, and I am sure you spend much time working up competition pieces, when you should be broadening your repertoire instead.

You are still my favourite trio; when you played, you played with such energy and enjoyment - but please, give us adult-sized concerts next time.

Nostril to Nostril....

that's what the audience and the performers were, at tonight's concert of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra performing the Bernstein Mass. There was the audience (it was sold out, at the last minute I was able to buy a ticket off an old lady) with extra rows in front of the front row, seats up the stairs, and there were the performers - two choirs, 9 soloists, the orchestra with extra reinforcements. There were loudspeakers - the soloists were miked up (I mean, really, it was a 'classical' music concert), so if anything had short circuited and caught a fire, there would have been deaths. No fire police in Lithuanian concert venues.....

Can't say I care for this piece. It was interesting, far from the traditional mass format I expected; kind of West Side Story meets Sound of Music meets American evangelical preachers.  But what does a yiddishe boy know about goyim music anyway (or vice versa).... The solo singing was more musical style, with singers who I had never seen before, apart from one opera house singer who had about two lines to sing. They were very very good, though. There was even a boy soprano, poor soul, he had to wear a virgin-white suit - at the beginning he was far from the class in which he would have been allowed to sing a solo in a British choir school (we don't have that tradition here, and it shows), but he got better at the end. It was really rather corny, though, the way in which, at the end, he joined the main part (narrator, priest kind of role) and seemed to walk off into the sunset. The narrator singer was really, really good at what he did - it's just that American evangelical preachers make me want to vomit. I mean, religion is something sacred, not something to be folksy or happy-clappy about. To me, anyway.  Perhaps I should treat it as ironic....  And what did it have to do with narcotics? That word flashed up on the Lithuanian translation screen - something like 'keep me taking from narcotics'. Bernstein would know, I suppose.

Some weird stuff about this performance; there were bits in which taped music was played. Was that intended by Bernstein, was the band unable to play these bits,  or did they not have time to rehearse these?  The percussion, Pavelas Giunteris and many colleagues, had a field day. The rest of the orchestra did not play, most of the time - it was nearly always only ever sections of the band.

It was very interesting in an appalled sort of way, but I felt severely tempted to go and leave, whether Mr President was there or not. But it was 1 hour 40 minutes of uninterrupted music, and there was nothing I could do....That's one I can tick off now.

Get those coats aff the chairs!

You know those concerts where the seats are not numbered? So people come in early, and spread their coats or programmes over the chairs next to them for their friends, who often cruise in at the last minute, and sometimes not. I once remembered a little old lady in Russia, sitting in the front row, defending the seat next to her to the death. The only occupant of the seat was her handbag, and lots of home-grown (or park-grown) flowers, with which she rushed to the stage, every time the conductor dropped his baton - between movements 'n all.  The next day I saw her outside the supermarket, going through bins looking for empty bottles.....

This is intensely irritating. It would appear, as the German Fono-Forum states, that in Germany at least this contravenes the law, the Buergerliches Gesetzbuch (for my German readers). I wonder how that is phrased in the law: 'Though shalt not place thy coat across the seats of others?'. It's about a person occupying more seats than they paid for, I think.

Of course it takes a brave soul to actually take a seat on which someone else's coat has been placed. The way to do it, apparently, is to approach the seat and the person who took it and thank them for keeping it for you. That takes them by surprise. If you have trouble, get the hall attendants to help you. Probably will work better in Germany, given the legal situation. But you could try it elsewhere....

Rocking Messiah!

We don't often get to hear the Messiah in Vilnius - there is no tradition of Messiah and Christmas. Which is a shame. So having it a couple of days ago, in May, was a real treat. The performance was even more of a treat!

It was a concert in memory of Menuhin, who toured the world with the Messiah, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Kaunas State Choir and the singer Benno Schollum, among others. 50 times they performed the piece in the 90s, when days were still dark in Lithuania. And now the days look slightly darkening again, what with the Government's handling of the economic crisis....But the ray of hope on the horizon is the new President, Ms Grybauskaite - though whether she has the power to change things is another question.

Anyway. This time it was the choir of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (why that one?) consisting of exactly 15 men and 15 women - that's what I call a balanced choir! The soloists, all young, were Jana Mamanova, Lucia Duchonova, Eric Stoklossa, and Wiard Withold, an extremely tall Dutch bass; the conductor was the choirmaster of the Bamberg Choir, Rolf Beck.

Last year, in my music course, I listened to about 9 interpretations of the introduction to the Messiah - they were all incredibly different, some lush, some punchy, some on 'original' instruments, some on modern instruments (in the case of strings that might mean instruments older than 'original' instruments). This performance was very punchy indeed, almost percussive in places. Very different from the Menuhin interpretation.  But it was sublime - there were moments of extreme pianissimo (where the choir sang a capella) followed by outbursts from the orchestra. The soloists were all wonderful; Withold had by far the best English diction. Some American friends said that they found it funny, seeing Germans sing it in English, when they (the Murricans) tended to sing it in German.  But English was what Handel wrote it in.

I had not appreciated before the sheer emotional power of the Messiah; that aria 'he was despised, rejected...' and that other aria where he is alone, looking around 'for someone to take pity on him' - that is really, really heartbreaking stuff. I should listen to it more often....

Funny moment with the Hallelujah. I could not remember whether in Lithuania it was traditional to stand during this chorus; as it approached my tension was rising. It seems not. When it started I saw half a dozen people stand in the rear of the hall (at least two of them Lithuanian Americans), so I stood up, in the front of the hall. Whereupon the people from the 'celebrity row' followed, and in a whoosh, the rest of the hall. It slightly fell apart afterwards because a number of people applauded, but never mind. At the end the performers got a standing ovation; they launched into an encore, we sat down, it was the Hallelujah chorus again, we shot out of our seats.

Looks like a result!

It seems, on current opinion polls, that Dalia Grybauskaite, the current EU Budget Commissioner, may have won the presidential election in the first round of voting - the most recent estimate (19.00 hrs) was 67.5%, well over the 50% required to avoid a run-off.

One of her advantages, apart from being a superbly intelligent politician, is that she has been out of Lithuania for five years, and not involved in any of the shenanigans that have been going on in the last few years. She threw her hat into the ring in February, after the small riot over the Government's handling of the economic crisis (they are tightening everyone's belt, so no wonder that the economy is shrinking fast).

She had to overcome some obstacles, though; over her sexual orientation - she is an unmarried woman and there have been rumours over exactly who she might prefer - she said that she was not a lesbian. Can you believe someone having to state that??

Then over her nationality - this blonde woman has a father with a Greek first name, Polikarpas (which is incidentally also the name of the chap who my road in Georgia was named after, Polikarpe Kakabadze - no doubt about links between Greece and Georgia, apart from the Salomes and Medeas of the Georgian world). Someone legally challenged her, and she had to place hers and her mother's birth certificates in the internet to prove that she is a true Lithuanian. The question was never clarified whether the challenger was talking about ethnicity or citizenship....

But at last we may have a president who is not only untainted by scandal (if there were any, the Lithuanian media would find it), and one who has a pulse and a true close connection to the country, her absence in Europe notwithstanding. That was 5 years, not 50 years as in the case of Mr Adamkus, for all the good egg that he is.

Beethoven in miniature

Another day, another Vilnius festival concert. At the same time the European Festivals Association is having its conference in Vilnius, and so the fragrant Filharmonija Director, Ruta Prunskiene, was looking her best in a suitably Chinese-style outfit (and no doubt she was approaching exhaustion as well). 

This time it was Muza Rubackyte, the Lithuanian piano professor in Paris, a well-loved pianist in Lithuania, with the Shanghai Quartet plus Girdutis Jackaitis playing the second viola in the Beethoven 4th piano concerto. Where, I hear you ask, is the orchestra? There was none - it was a version for piano and string quintet!

That was interesting. I was wondering about the orchestration, were there no winds? According to wikipedia it contains a flute, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets and timps. All that reduced to 5 strings?  Must have been some job transcribing that, although often instruments were doubled in Beethoven's time anyway. My main worry was about the thinness of the violins; they sounded like mice squeaking away over the other instruments - but it could be with me sitting on the balcony on top of them, that the sound could not get through the balcony floor. I also felt that the strings and the piano had different interpretations; the strings were crisp and clean, whereas the piano was heavy on the pedal - and does the piece really start with an arpeggiated chord? The piano kind of washed over the much reduced forces. It was interesting to notice that the pianist was playing from a full score; maybe the absence of winds and timps did not give enough clues for the piece to be played from memory. The cadenza in the slow movement, I thought, ground to an unplanned halt at one moment, following an unexpected chord.  Quite a lot of people left after she had played - it is ever thus. They should have kept her till the end.

The second half was Penderecki's third string quintet 'An unwritten diary page' (2008) and Debussy's Quartet opus 10, written in 1893. Surprisingly, there was not much difference between the two; Penderecki was of course about 75 at least when he wrote his piece. Mellow old age? It had a lovely viola part, and the violist in the string quartet really has a wonderful sound. The Debussy was actually very nice; quite energetic, not like some of his simpering impressionist pieces - and the quartet played with great energy, enthusiasm and precision. Finally there were a couple of encores, arrangement of (Chinese?) folksongs, possibly written by the second violinist. Very simple arrangements for simple music, but very effective. To be honest, Chinese folksongs (if this is what they were) do not sound that different from other folksongs, certainly not like the sounds of Chinese opera. But then, whose folksongs do sound like opera?

It was a lovely concert. Before someone had tried to sell me a ticket for 100 LT (the concert must have been sold out); I got a slightly sarcastic comment when I refused saying I would buy one ('try then', he said), and I got a nice standing room ticket for 30 LT. There are steps people can sit on, so it's perfectly ok. In the second half there would have been real seats for me to move to, had I wanted to do so.

The North Ossetian, the red-eared orchestra, and the wonderful tuba

It occurred to me, during the interminable announcement before the London Symphony Orchestra's concert in Vilnius tonight (opening the Vilnius Festival), to wonder what a North Ossetian was doing in Lithuania, which so much loves Georgia (and vice versa).  Said North Ossetian, Valerij Gergiev (stress on the 'i', apparently) was the only international conductor to launch a concert in Tskhinvali, a month after much of it was laid to waste by Georgia.

That was that story. The red-eared orchestra? A number of ears sported red ear protectors, as probably they all should, especially when sitting in front of the brass, who had been moved around to the side of the opera theatre to improve the acoustics.  Do they need to be red? One of the second violinists had been wearing one, on the brass side, but still, his face was tripping him up for England at the end of the concert.

So the programme included the world premiere of Rodion Shchedrin's 'Lithuania saga', partly in memory of the battle of Gruenberg 600 years ago, whatever that was and whatever it was for. I'm not into history.  Before the concert, the audience's attention had been drawn to Mr Shchedrin, and his wife, the delightful assoluta Maya Pliseckaja, who, aged just over 80 or so, did the ballerina's bowing thing with her arms.  The piece...well, it kind of was. It did not seem to tell much of a story and in particular it was not going anywhere. Suddenly it stopped. Hmmm. Maybe so did the battle? Would hardly be celebrated in that case.

Then there was Stravinsky's symphony in three parts; typical rhythmic Stravinsky. I thought the orchestra was a bit tired (and it seems they have had daily concerts, with travel in between, for a week, so they probably really were tired).  There was no fire, no zing. For that to pay 50 LT for a standing ticket, during which time I could contemplate the distribution of shoe polish in the orchestra; clearly it had not reached the last row of the second violins....Perhaps my position in the hall did not help?

Anyway, stayed for the second half - it was Rakhmaninov's Slavonic Dances. There was a lovely viola solo, and some nice cello playing. It had a bit more zing.  By this time I had a seat, and could observer Gergiev's weird conducting style.  He does do a beat when needed (eg in the Stravinsky, and the way he was peering at the Shchedrin I thought it was not exactly under his skin), but otherwise his hand is like a skater doing his turns.

The orchestra finally came to life with the Montagues and the Capulets, in the first of two encores. There was some awesome pianissimo playing in the strings, stunning brass (especially the tuba, which had a brilliant sound), and some real energy (even though presumably the orchestra plays this a lot). Similarly the piece from the Love of 3 Oranges was very nice indeed. Shame they could not give it laldy in the first half.

The twelve-fingered pianist

Last concert of the National Symphony Orchestra's season last night, with the boss Juozas Domarkas conducting and Vestard Shimkus as the soloist in Brahms' second piano concerto.

Shimkus is but a young lad, aged 23 or 24, and a very talented young man, with a nice communicative personality. Apparently he had very much his own ideas about the Brahms, which caused some difficulties in the first rehearsal - the orchestra and conductor could not go into automatic drive, as they might have liked to have done. I wondered if the piece had any lyrical moments - there was not that much lyricism that came across. But he did play exquisitly and had some lovely interactions with the orchestra, where the first horn played the opening beautifully; this is not always guaranteed with the horn section in this orchestra.  He must be a 'product' of the Russian school; he does that thing with a handkerchief, cleaning the keyboard between every movement.  Only Russians do that.  His encores was a piece, seemingly for 12 fingers, which sounded like a variation on a folk song type thing (a Latvian folk song?).  It was astonishing! Then a bit of Bach and finally, to make a point, an arrangement of 'Guten Abend, gute Nacht'. He's great at interaction with the audience, which really helps to create a fan base.

The second half was Ravel and Ravel. First the Spanish Rhapsody, and then the Bolero - which allowed the orchestra's soloists and then some (saxophonists) to show off their skills. In the Rhapsody there were some iffy wind moments, and it could have done with more zing and panache; the Bolero was stunning - with the percussionist motoring on and on and on. I thought that he really must not think as he plays the same few bars over and over again. There was a very young cor anglais player who had me at the edge of my seat; he coped very well indeed and played some haunting solos.

It was a great ending to the Symphony Orchestra concert season (today there's a Filharmonija club picnic, and I'm missing another concert of Haydn; missed a trick there) - with an encore of the end of the Bolero and a standing ovation.

After the concert there was a wee reception, with the prime minister there. He's a surprisingly short guy (accompanied by some huge guy; his PPS?). I'm not that fond of his politics seeing the tax changes linked to his austerity budget cause me some austerity, too, but it was good to see that he did only a very tiny speech. Seems to be a sensible guy after all (and after doing some work researching the Lithuanian pensions system this week I can see that austerity is needed).

Street Music Day

I've never seen Vilnius so full of young people, on a sunny almost summer weekend, and a long one at that - usually Vilnius is dead on such occasions. It was brilliant!

The reason? It was the third street music day (first Saturday in May) where anyone who wanted to could take their instrument and perform outside. So, ok, there was a lot of amplified band music everywhere (I wondered about the band playing outside St Catherine's church just before an a capella choir started singing inside it), but there were also other little groups; a trio of girls playing the kanklas (a kind of zither), some folks from the countryside with violins and accordeons, a sad little family group who you could see performing, but who were drowned out by the band beside them. But it was really nice to see the town so busy - and I am sure, whether you see this as culture or not, that quite a lot of cash registers in town may have been quite busy. It would be nice if someone measured this increase in revenue, to prove the benefits of culture to the economy.

A near miss!

There I was at home, 18.34, after a slightly dull day (public holiday, town dead) planning to go clubbing later in the evening, and looking to see what else might be on yesterday, today, tomorrow....when I spotted a State Symphony Orchestra concert, starting at 19.00. Wow! Changed into concert clothes, including a new shirt (worried in case some pins were left in it) and shot off across the road to the Kongresu Rumai.

It was a fully romantic concert, Strauss (Richard), Bruch, and Berlioz - playing to a half-empty concert hall - what else would you expect on a sunny long weekend evening? The conductor was Adrian Brown, the soloist Sasha Rozhdestvensky, stated to be one of Russia's 'finest young violinists' whom Menuhin pronounced to be 'one of the most talented and gifted violinists of his generation'. Sometimes I worry about the number of violinists carrying similar Menuhin statements around with him; Menuhin was kind of a polite guy, but he must also have been aware of the weight these kind of statements carry. Père Rozhdestvensky is that famous conductor, Gennady of that ilk.

The State Symphony Orchestra has changed a bit - seems like ages since I was there.

The programme was really all a bit old-hat; cheap in terms of performance rights, I expect. Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel, quite nicely played, though the first violinist was really rather dodgy in every one of her solos. I haven't been to that orchestra's concerts for ages, so I don't know if she is now the permanent leader or not (the other one, Zbigniev Levickas, would have done it beautifully).

Young Sasha Rozhdestvensky is indeed a violinist with a very beautiful tone. I was a bit surprised that he played the Bruch concerto (which I have heard now for this fifth time this year, in Vilnius) from sheet music. Is that not something so basic, in terms of repertoire, that one should know it from memory? I am not sure about his interpretation, though. It was rather old-fashioned, with lots of portamento and rubato; the way it might have been played 100 years ago, but is probably not really played now. But it's the Russian way, perhaps. His encore was a simple Bach piece; played better than Maxim Rysanov's Bach 6 days earlier - quite good, really. I wonder, though, if no-one else has written any encores for violin solo?

At the interval I asked what the final piece would be.....it was Berlioz' Fantastic Symphony; one of my favourite pieces! And to think that I might have missed that! It was great! The orchestra did really well - the quiet places they played as quietly as I rarely heard them play; the percussion - the fabulous Pavelas Giunteris and colleagues - was awesome, eery, threatening, overwhelming, everything as required. The violas laid down a wonderful solo (the cellos were a bit lacking in feeling, but it's that leader) - it was a great performance! Brown came across as a very secure and reliable conductor - one who really beats a beat (many conductors don't) and he really brought out the best of the orchestra.

Some time after the concert, tried to do a bit more clubbing...went to the cellar of the Neringa Hotel which advertises itself as having famous Lithuanian singers (live, presumably). At around 11 pm it was fairly deserted; had a small party and some men on their own, including me; plus a DJ and some canned music.....Luckily it also had a book shelf, though the only English book within my reach was that on the Rachel Nickell murder, written by her husband for the mass market - not exactly cheery stuff. Left after I finished my beer. This is not great - at what time do these Lithuanians get out?