Lithuania's best-kept secret

(I am procrastinating from revision, hence a couple of late reviews).

10 days ago, in the music academy, we had the 70th birthday celebration of Lithuania's best clarinettist, Algirdas Budrys - seems like only yesterday that we celebrated his 65th in a long series of concerts at the Filharmonija. He's probably the oldest professor at the music academy who still performs, and he does it well.  He played, as well as a number of his present and former pupils, and grandpupils.

The concert began with his Grand Trio (Budrys, Petras Geniusas and David Geringas) playing two movements from Brahms' piano trio op. 114. Beautifully played, of course - I sat close to the cello (quite an achievement in the packed hall), and oh, Geringas' sound! He really is such a stunning cellist!  I was also contemplating his good looks - for a guy 9 years older than me he looks pretty damn good, a man at the peak of his life.

There were lots of performances; outstanding were also Budrys' students Rimvydas Savickas and Azuolas ('acorn' in English?) Paulauskas putting together a very nice performance of Krommer's concerto for two clarinets, making it completely their own.

But who were these people from the Kaunas end of clarinet playing? 4 teenage boys, Zilvinas Brazauskas, Ernestas Sidiskis, Antanas Makstutis and Andrius Polianskas made everyone smile with their fun, funky, highly spirited performance of D'Rivera's 'Contradora' - what talents, what choreography and how much fun they had - and we! There was a quite a bit of life, nay, a cornucopia of life (that sadly seems to disappear as people hit 25). We need to get that inoculated into the music academy, too. Similarly Dainius Karzenauskas, Dalius Pilikevicius, Eitvydas Gavutis, and Rimvydas Vilkas, saxophonists from the Kaunas faculty of the music academy produced a spirited and fun version of Wibernu's 'Afrika'. Ok, so these pieces were light music, but there's nothing wrong with that - they were in any case technically challenging, and again played with gusto!   Kaunas, get yourself known in the world! Your wind players are outstanding!

(And my readers' homework for today is memorizing all these Lithuanian names).

Bliss is...

...being in Georgia, with not much to do, and watching the Berlin Philharmonic via the internet. It worked, nearly for the whole concert (picked from the archive). If I can get that elsewhere in the world, this subscription will really be worth it.

It was a concert of works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Schumann, conducted by Heinz Holliger with Thomas Zehetmair as the violin soloist. I meant only to watch the Schumann, but hit the wrong button and got the whole concert. That was actually quite interesting, and I am glad I did. I don't think I had ever heard or seen Heinz Holliger, who, like Arthur Scargill, wears a weasel across his head, and seemed rather underdressed in his lounge suit. Holliger, to me, is more known as an oboist, with a bent towards contemporary music

Zimmermann, I had always thought, would be an avantgarde type of composer, but in fact he is very tonal. His Alagoana (Caprichos Brasilieros) had quite a few West Side Story type elements - did he filch from Bernstein? They might be a nice piece for the Simon Bolivar orchestra to play, lots of rhythms, tunes, percussion...a tiny bit long, though, for a piece at the beginning of a concert.  His violin concerto was awesome, also fairly traditional in structure and very technical. Zehetmair played it with such ease and panache!

Schumann always gets me here (points at heart). I'm not sure why this is - I feel quite sorry for him and the struggles he had, with his mental illness (bipolar disorder, some people say); and at the same time he expresses his aching love in his music for his Clara; someone worked out, in the 1960s, that Schumann had a code where alphabetic letters were expressed by notes, and then identified the word 'Clara' in many of his pieces. Zehetmair joined the orchestra for the Fantasy for violin and orchestra (op 131); it was beautiful!

And finally the first symphony, with hints towards his wonderful Konzertstück for 4 horns. Schumann must have really liked the sound of horns; in some way the use of bright brass in the 19th century was more of a French thing to do (Berlioz); maybe the Rhinelander Schumann was influenced by French music. Also a great performance (what else can you say about the Berlin Phil); Holliger was a tiny bit irritating - he's a very active conductor, with much body movement. I wondered if that came from being an oboist - oboists and clarinettists tend to sway about in a way that, say, brass players could not risk to do.  But it was a lovely, lovely concert, all the better for having it accessible in the furthest corners of the world.

Not a note out of place....

....at last night's concert for the SOS Talents foundation at the Filharmonija. It was a concert broadcast directly by Mezzo TV into 38 countries with, as they said, 16 million viewers. High-powered stuff, no? The first direct broadcast by Mezzo from Vilnius.

Our President, Mr Adamkus, is the patron of this foundation started by the Hungarian Michel Sogny in 2001. M Sogny is a pedagogue, composer and pianist, and also the Lithuanian honorary consul in Geneva. I have to say that the President looked like a man in pain; it's good that he will be able to put his slippers on and his feet up later this year, after the presidential election in May or so. The way he was standing, left shoulder much higher than the right one, no weight on the left leg, gives me two theories about his health. One is that of back pain, the other I won't discuss on a public website - suffice it to say that the only person I have seen standing exactly like this was suffering from a long-term degenerative disease. M le Président gave an introductory speech, translated into French by a poor interpreter who interrupted the President (I would have stopped, he wasn't having any of it), and then M Sogny gave another speech.

It seems SOS Talents is about sponsoring young pianists from the former Soviet Union and associated countries, most of whom follow the M Sogny school of piano playing, and many of whom have had masterclasses with him. So here we had pianists aged 10 to 19. The first half was entirely piano playing - I don't care that much for this, so I left that part after three out of four pianists. They all faithfully performed 6 Sogny etudes, all thankfully short, plus each played some other pieces. Listening to them all, especially the young ones, made me think of the Lang Lang biography I had read recently, especially when I read about the long lists of prizes some had won at competitions. Yes, they played nicely, and correctly, but the expression was not always there - the delightful Adam Szolokay (12) from Hungary played Bartok's Romanian Dances, beautifully, very beautifully indeed - but actually they need to be played roughly, like on a scratchy violin at a village dance. Two of the Lithuanians, taught by Justas Dvarionas, played pieces by grandpère Dvarionas, Balys of that ilk, in whose compositional abilities I have not much faith, though the one set of pieces I heard in this concert here had a bit more potential, with a Débussyan flavour.  Sogny's studies were, compositionally, not far removed from the 18th century in terms of tonality and structure - but then they were studies for educational purposes, not concert pieces.

In the second half the Lithuanian chamber orchestra joined them for the first movements of Beethoven's piano concertos Nos 1 and 3, and that Bach piano concerto (originally for harpsichord) that everyone knows. The Beethovens were, I'm afraid, rather hard - Beethoven has written lyrical bits in his music, but these did not come out, more so with the younger participant, Alexandra Masaleva (13) than Morta Grigaliunaite (17). Did not help that the orchestra had also not noticed the lyrical moments - but perhaps they were trying to match the soloists. Tedo Diakonidze from Georgia (16) was something else, though. Bach does not really do lyrical, but Diakonidze still exposed different colours and played a beautiful second movement. He was also by far the best-mannered of all the participants, remembering to thank the orchestra leader after his performance. Lovely guy; I hope he will go far.

Delightful Bruckner

Bit of a posh do in the Filharmonija last night. The concert was sponsored by Statoil whose flag was placed outside the concert hall, and many ambassadors attended - the Austrian, Norwegian, Vatican, Japanese, and I think the Georgian ambassador, who, sitting in the row behind me, talked loudly during one of the pieces (which gives me a clue) until I glared at him. Otherwise the hall was far from full. In addition that American-Lithuanian businessman who only comes to concerts when they are a posh do. In concerts like these many invitations are given out, but a programme involving Bruckner and Shostakovich is not that attractive to non-music-lovers, so folk don't come. At least people did not applaud between movements, as often happens on such occasions, and most stayed for the second half. Given that at least two Ambassador's cars were there at the end of the concert, the motivation must have been the concert - there did not appear to be drinks after the concert.

But who was the announcer? Not the usual authoritative and delightful lady, but a slip of a girl, who talked well and audibly, but got a bit carried away with herself in the handing out of flowers to the soloist, making a little speech.

Do all the Norwegian upper string players come from the same Lego box? I'm just asking, because Arne Tellefsen, the violinist, looked like a miniature version of the viola player Lars Anders Tomter. Given that Tomter is easily 2m tall, this makes the miniature version about 1.70 - 1.80 tall; otherwise there was no difference in looks, though Tellefsen is probably a bit older.  He performed in Shostakovich's first violin concerto, with Thomas Rösner of Austria conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Lithuania.

This is an awesome piece; long, with much complicated technique. The first movement, a nocturne, was a bit not going anywhere, fairly languid, not really telling a story (one would think that a nocturne would tell a bedtime story) - it seemed to lack tension a bit (I'm listening to Daniel Hope's more interesting recording of this movement).  The fireworks started in the second movement, and never stopped. Does the second movement involve a theme from the cello concerto? It seemed familiar. The second and fourth movements sounded typically Shostakovich, and quite Soviet. There is a long, looooong, and hair-raising, cadenza at the end of the third movement. Of these last three movements Tellefsen gave an awesome performance, with incredible energy. For the deserved encore he played Ole Bull's piece 'A mother's prayer'. Ole Bull is well-known to violin aficionados as a 19th century virtuoso (I thought he made fiddles, too, but I must be mistaken). The piece was a bit sentimental, but I suppose in the 19th century mothers had reason for prayer, what with the child death rate being what it was then.

I never thought that I would use the words 'delightful' and 'Bruckner' in the same sentence, but this is what it turned out to be. My heart had sunk at the prospect of Bruckner, but I thought that it would be good for me - and I am really glad I stayed! The first movement of this fourth symphony (the 'Romantic') could almost have been a ballet score; the third movement of which I knew the main theme was a very strict scherzo (bit unusual by that time) repeating the first part verbatim (the conductor turned back his pages.....), and had a lovely rural middle part. There were some lovely melodies; hints of Mahler (to come) with those Austrian trills; generally it was a very Austrian piece. I really must look at Bruckner more.... Don't know what Thomas Rösner had done to the orchestra; the French horns were outstanding, for once, the cellos sounded really lush, there were some lovely viola solos. It really was a great concert! (Sadly, the applause was tired - perhaps because the piece ends with a bit of a damp squib).

How to get a composer to write for viola

You take one composer, marry him and get him to produce a viola-playing off-spring. As is the case with the composer Juozas Juozapaitis and his son Jurgis. I first heard Jurgis a few years ago, attempting the Paganini Sonata per la gran viola.  It was a bit ambitious, bit of a struggle.

So I was surprised when only a short while later he ended up in the last seat of the Lithuanian chamber orchestra.

But I have now revised my opinion. Last night I heard him and an (unfortunately names not noted) clarinet player and a pianist at the music academy, playing Mozart, a piece by Dad, Francaix and Bruch. It was pretty damn good, for all of them - the clarinet player played very nicely too.  (We have a great viola and clarinet teachers in Lithuania).

Having heard the Mozart only from the outside (I had gone to the wrong building, and nearly was trapped in some concert by some singers, ye gads), I entered in time for the Juozapaitis (senior), who had written a very nice piece, too. In three movements, with a kind of a conversation between the viola and the clarinet; very listenable-to. It's worth putting this in the repertoire.

The Francaix was beautifully played, too - it's a rather over-long piece, but very nice, as is the Bruch. Overall the concert was rather long (and young Jurgis has another one on Monday!), but really, it was all very musically performed, with beautiful intonation and lovely expression. The boy will go far!

Two harrowing childhoods

These are two very different childhoods, but ones you would not wish on your worst enemy. I'm talking about Lang Lang (growing up as an only child in China) and Janice Galloway (whose older mother, during pregnancy, thought she was the menopause and the child was thus welcomed into the family), growing up in Saltcoats, Scotland.

In his autobiography, Lang Lang (born in about 1983) describes how parents in China invest all their hopes in their only child. He sure got to feel that! His father always wanted him to be Number One - in a country where at any one time, 50 million children learn to play the piano! Thus Dad devoted his life to making sure that his son became the Number One. This meant making his boy practice all the time. The father attended his lessons, later, at the Central music school in Beijing, the father spied on the lessons of other children to such a degree that the other teachers began to complain about him. At one stage the father, in his despair about the son's progress, held him over the balcony rail of their block of flats and wanted him to commit suicide; when that failed, he wanted the boy to take pills.....Once Lang Lang 'failed' as a pianist - he came only 7th in a competition.  If Lang Lang did not practice enough or make enough progress the father would not allow his mother, who in a distant part of China earned the money that kept them all afloat, and who was sorely missed by her son, to visit the child.

Life in China was always about competitions, winning the local one, the national one, an international competition....the family raked together enough money to send the boy and his family to Germany for a competition, then to Japan....Later Lang Lang got a place to study in the US. He arrived clutching a piece of paper listing the next competitions he wanted to enter. His teacher told him that this was not the way they do it there...so he knuckled down. When, after his US breakthrough, he wanted to play a concert in China with a major US orchestra, the Chinese authorities nearly refused him to come - on account of him having won no further competitions. At the press conference on arrival they asked, effectively 'so what exactly is it you have done in the US?'. 

Was it worth it all? Of course he now has all the trappings of a glittering life-style, and he has been able to side-line his father in the US, what with Dad's English being not so good. But he has also suffered from severe depressions..... a condition which he may have been able to overcome thanks to having to take an enforced break after a hand injury, when he suddenly realised there were other things to life than playing the piano.

It's harrowing stuff, well-written (by a ghost writer) and unputdownable.

Janice Galloway's life in Saltcoats, on the other hand, was quite different ('This is not about me', described as a memoir-cum-novel). An unexpected, and it seems, unwanted child born in the mid 1950's (her mother tells her at the age of 4 for the first time that she wishes she had not been born), she grows up with her mother, her abusive and drunk father (until that age) and a sister who is about 20 years older and a nasty piece of work. The mother flees from the marital home when Janice is 4 and finds shelter in the tiny attic of her doctor's surgery which she cleans in return. The attic is so small that when the bed is pulled out there is just a tiny bit of space for the mother to move around it. Then the sister returns from her broken-up marriage and joins them there.....(it never becomes clear what exactly has happened to the sister's son).  Later the father dies and the family returns to the family home, an 'architect-designed' council house.

I'm not sure what makes the sister tick. Is it sibling rivalry - for a 20-year-old? She seems to be totally selfish, and constantly bullies and trips up little Janice, who quickly learns to keep her head down. Keeping her head down seems to be the central theme of her life - living at the doctor's she has to be quiet when he has surgery, quiet when she accompanies her mother in her cleaning rounds, and quiet at home when her sister, Cora, sleeps. So when she starts school, she is good at being 'good' and quiet - and her world is totally rattled when in a gym lessons the children are told to run around and pretend to be an aeroplane, and to make a noise. She cannot deal with this and refuses to participate. Later her mother is called into the school and told that Janice seems to have some problems; the school suggests, among others, that Janice should see a psychologist - the mother refuses, angrily. Little Janice finds some solace in singing, which she and her mother do well, and in writing, especially in forming beautiful letters.

The book ends around the time she finishes primary school. For me it was very evocative, given that I know Saltcoats, West of Scotland culture and the language spoken there. I just wonder how many other children there grew and grow up like this (though in many cases now parents in her mother's situation might not care about their children being noisy or quiet or anything).

Breaking the back of Bruch

What the heck was the matter with the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre today? There was the Malmö music academy orchestra, having travelled all the way from Sweden, and only the head of strings represented the music academy (in the first half). I mean, they are partners in the Erasmus programme, and some Lithuanians were in the orchestra, but neither the rector, nor the head of the senate, nor the Lithuanian music academy orchestra's conductor, nor a representative of the international department had the grace to support the guest orchestra. Not good enough - actually quite rude and shocking! (Apart from that the whole Lith music academy orchestra had received invitations, but of those also few attended).

So there they were, a big band, playing Körvitt, Bruch and Stenhammer. Tönu Körvitt's Passacaglia is so new, the ink is still wet. In terms of music, it was a fairly traditional piece. With a passacaglia, or a ciaconna for that matter, I expect to hear an 8-bar or so theme that goes round and round and round. I failed to spot that, but during this piece my mind rather wandered. It certainly covered a huge instrumental range.  

This was followed by the Bruch No 1 violin concerto (only the fourth hearing of it in Vilnius this year), with Vilhelmas Cepinskas as the soloist. He's a bit of a star performer in Lithuania, with a trend towards funkiness. Funky might work with Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', but it does not really work with romantic music.  It was a rather strange performance, with extreme rubatos, rhythms which I doubt that Bruch wrote them, and the odd unusual sound here or there. Romantic music tends to be more prescriptive than Baroque music - I suspect Cepinskas did not follow the doctor's orders to the letter. The orchestra accompanied with enthusiasm!

Finally Stenhammer's second symphony. It's a folksy, pleasant, but rather long piece. Stenhammer seems to like dark sounds - three out of four movements were opened by the violas and cellos, who played beautifully (with two Lithuanian viola players, so they should!). The fourth movement was overlong, hurtling from one set of themes to another.  The orchestra played beautifully - not sure if they can do 'quiet', but they can certainly do 'loud' and 'enthusiastic'. Bags of energy.

Strange thing though - is it something that is in the Baltic sea? Neither their nor Lithuanian wind groups seem to be able to start all at the same moment.

Busk for the World

Here you can sign up to contribute to music projects in the world, by busking in the streets between 8 and 14 June and donating your collection to Musequality, an organisation supporting music projects for some of the poorest children in the world.  Seems a very worthwhile cause indeed!

Go for it!

Letting those artists into the UK

The Observer reports that a number of artists are starting a campaign to fight the visa clampdown by UK authorities, which requires artists from beyond the EU to be fingerprinted, and organisations inviting them to pay £400 or £1000 to become 'an official sponsor'. (UK authorities are always good at charging their citizens....).  The Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov, living in Italy, recently fell victim to this policy, since he did not have time to travel to Rome to be finger-printed.

The UK Border Agency states that 'all migrants, not just artists, seeking to come to the UK to work or study, except for the most highly skilled, will require a certificate of sponsorship'.  

I wonder who decides who is the 'most highly skilled'. Do people have to audition, or in the case of scientists, send a piece of their most recent research? What are the qualifications of those who decide, and how long does it take them to decide?  Imagine if an artists suddenly falls sick, the Royal Opera House searches right round the world to find someone to take the role - do they have to ask if the singer has visa clearance, too?  Would, eg, Anna Netrebko, a Russian, pass this test? (She probably would, I seem to remember she was given Austrian citizenship for her achievements).

A question of balance

Last night's concert at the Filharmonija was one in a cycle called 'Quartet and Piano', with the State Vilnius String Quartet and the New York-based pianist Andrius Zlabis, playing Shostakovich and Dvorak.

Shostakovich's quintet, op 57, was written in the summer of 1940 - at which time Russia was not at war. I had wondered about the period of its writing, because it seemed quite a subdued piece, apart from the middle movement, with three slow movements and two faster ones.  It has an interesting start, in which the cello plays above all the other instruments. The second movement is described as a fugue, though it seemed more canonical to me. To say that the string quartet played it rather understatedly is a bit of an over-statement.  It was very calm indeed, very very calm - apart from a blistering middle movement. It was so calm that it was often difficult to hear it over the piano. The first violin seemed to have trouble reaching the highest note, missing it every time (out of 3).  There was a moment when I was wondering how this quartet gets to have American tours all the time - though this may be partly due to the Lithuanian diaspora in the US.  But I liked the mournful second movement.

After the interval (I had also moved seats, but surely moving from the side of the small hall to the centre should not make such a difference) the string quartet seemed transformed. It did a lovely performance of the Dvorak op 81 quintet, now clearly audible, with beautiful viola lines. The cello suddenly developed a pulse - almost passion. Nice collaboration with the pianist. This was a very nice performance, though I wondered what the quartet thought about playing Dvorak. It's kind of an intellectual quartet that does not hesitate trying out all sorts of music, and Dvorak is at the edge of populism.  But the bread-and-butter repertoire puts the butter on the bread, I suppose.

Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia for Violin and Viola

All is forgiven!

A packed Filharmonija tonight, for the concert of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra under its new artistic director and conductor Sergey Krilov. Even Mr Kevisas, the supremo of all things musical in Lithuania, was there - and the company Lindt was handing out chocolates (why?). No benefit to me, that, I don't like chocolate all that much.

The programming was Mozart, Mendelssohn and Mozart. When I listened to, and watched, the symphony No 15, I thought 'a conductor he ain't'. No sign of a beat. Ok, this Mozart-experienced orchestra does not need a beat, but I wondered how he and they might get on with a contemporary piece with complicated rhythms. I was also a bit puzzled when, before starting, he turned a page or two, as if he were looking at a tricky place, trying to remember it. In conducting Mozart? He just went with the tune....His right hand movements reminded me of my beloved dog Arran who would beg like that with her right front paw. But anyway. In the piece there could have been more contrasts, but it was ok.

This was followed by Mendelssohn's violin concerto. Again, I thought - everyone is playing it. And why does he need sheet music for a piece as well-known as this? Then they started. What was this? Was this Mendelssohn? In fact it was his violin concerto in d-minor, rather than the well-known e-minor concerto. Strange piece, with a very classical first movement (you'd never guess it was Mendelssohn), and rather strange second and third movements - though the third movement had at least a rondo format. Both had extended places of only solo fiddling, and other places where the soloist played like crazy but it could not be heard over the band. It was good to have heard it, but it's clear why it is not often played. Very virtuosic, I think, and well played. I liked the Rondo theme, which was quite hungarian and suitably roughly played.

Finally, yet again Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante. Ah well, it's the first time I've heard it this year (and it's only February!). They played very nicely, though I am not sure if they were entirely in emotional tune with each other, sort of slightly talking past each other; Krilov seemed to have more bite than Naidin, the viola soloist. Beautiful sound of both instruments, and clearly Krilov is a great violinist. They got excellent applause from the hall, and then...

...and then....

they gave an encore, of the Handel-Halvorsen passacaglia, one of my very favourite violin-viola duets (see a very talented but also very funny video above, with Clarence and Oliver playing it). Thank you, thank you, guys. It was just great! Possibly that of Elmar Oliveira and Paul Neubauer at the 2004 viola congress was even more risk-taking, but it was just great to hear the piece. Somehow I managed to start a standing ovation - I was behind and above the orchestra, I stood up and the whole audience shot up; normally it's creeping death from the back of the hall to the front. That was really well deserved.

Full forces

It seems that the Filharmonija is suffering quite a lot from the economic crisis, see my query here. Speaking to them last night they said that all they were doing now was accountancy work, finding ways of saving money everywhere.

Last night's concert, my first proper concert with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra featured Povilas Jacunskas (cello) and the Latvian conductor Imants Resnis, together with Prokofiev and Mahler.

Jacunskas (about 25) is the great white hope of Lithuanian cello playing - I remember him from his school days, which was almost yesterday; though he seems to have aged more than the eight years since I first saw him. Last night he played Prokofiev's symphony-concerto in e minor. With gusto! It's probably not fair of me to be listening to Mischa Maisky playing it while I am writing this review.... Jacunskas played beautifully and expertly, getting himself round all those tricky corners with bravura. His intonation suffered at moments, and the lyrical theme in the second movement could have been more lyrical (but so could Maisky's), but otherwise it was all under control. In those pizzing places in the first movement, had his strings been those of a bow and arrows, the arrows would have shot through three fat men standing behind each other. How he managed not to break a string, I'll never know!  The audience was full of his fan club, friends, fellow students, colleagues from his orchestra (all to visibly absent in the second half), and it would have been nice to have had an encore.

In the second half we heard Mahler's first symphony, in the original version - which contains an extra movement. The orchestra must have died when they found that out! I've never heard the orchestra play as quietly as they did at the beginning of the movement - so they can do it! Unfortunately the oboe d'amore sounded rather flat in this rather exposed place which was a bit of a shame. The third (usually second) movement initially seemed to be lacking a bit of Viennese give and take, but then suddenly the conductor threw it in - and it was probably more wonderful for being so unexpected. During the interval I had heard a bassist practice the Frère Jacques theme and wondered 'what's there to practice in that?'. But seeing he played it as a soft solo, clearly there was everything to practice in that. It was a great performance (though afterwards I heard some mutterings from some other people, musicians at that....).

Orfeo Mark 3

I've reviewed this Vilnius Opera and Ballet theatre performance before (twice), the most relevant review being here. So just a few vignettes/comments.

Poor Amor, who had to do all his singing suspended in the air, at one moment crashed into the set. No harm done, it seemed. But I was confused. Only at the end, though, when the main characters took their bows. The singer for Amor was very tall indeed. 'Tis not unnatural in Lithuania, for men and for women. But, was it a guy or a gal? It seems it was a guy, Victoras Gerasimovas. But the part is a soprano part. It did not sound like a male voice at all, nor did it sound like it was sung at tenor pitch (leaving aside the fact how the poor lad was strung up during his entire singing, but that alone would not a soprano make). Very interesting!

Yaniv D'Or was still rather brighter as Orfeo than he should have been.

The conductor, near the end, walks on the stage and picks up Amor's arrow to conduct the rest of the opera with it. He clearly acted 'conducting' on the way back down, looking very happy. This was quite different from the scowl he shot during the performance at a little group playing on his right during the dance of the furies moment. If looks could have killed.....

Interesting to see what a small band they used. The pit was half empty; it was more a chamber orchestra group. As it probably should be.

What the heck is the matter with the FIlharmonija?

Call itself the Capital of Culture? It would make a cat laugh!

Strolled over to the Filharmonija tonight for the usual Saturday night concert, looking forward to hearing the delightful Philippe Graffin play whatever, with the even more delectable Robertas Servenikas conducting. Found the Filharmonija in darkness, totally deserted. Seems that the concert took place yesterday. Since when does the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra play on a Friday?

It's the third time in as many months that I walked over there on a Saturday and did not find a concert. Ok, once I was too late and did not get a ticket; another Saturday it was a Frank Zappa evening (definitely not with the LNSO).

In January the orchestra had two whole concerts at the Filharmonija; I would have expected four.  So one Saturday they played in Warsaw - could they not have done that another night of the week?  Muzika Humana, a usual Sunday standby every few weeks, isn't performing till March. Not good enough! 

I hear that the crash of the Lithuanian airline, flyLAL is having an impact on the year of culture, too. It's possible that they had some sponsorship arrangement, apart from the question of flightbookings. Not sure what financing the sponsorship arrangement was based on.

Meanwhile the North Korean Symphony Orchestra is repaying the gesture of the New York Philharmonic and travelling to the US for a return match. Some people wonder if the whole orchestra will return to North Korea. I would have thought that their standard is not soooo high that people would very easily get jobs in the US....

Forward Planning

It was good that at the Filharmonija last night the Brahms violin concerto was placed at the end of the concert, with two unknown works before the interval. Stops the audience from running away....

It was the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, under their conductor, the talented Modestas Pitrenas, with Pavel Berman, now living in Italy, as the soloist.

The programme, as often happens in the Filharmonija, was a bit of a mess, with the first two pieces played back to front, compared to the programme text. It was even more confusing since the piece by Alvydas Malcys, a living Lithuanian composer (and where was he?) 'Games according to MozART' had a distinctly South American sound - with South American rhythms and I could have sworn some bits of familiar South American melody as well. There were tiny hints of Mozartian motifs. The conductor could have brought out the rhythms more, and frankly, the winds, who had another motif, were a mess.

The confusion arose because the second composer was the Brazilian Villa Lobos, with his sinfonietta in the memory of Mozart, composed in 1916. This had no South American flavour whatsoever! It was an ok piece - though the cellos, who had a lovely solo at the end of the second movement, totally lacked confidence, and eventually were all together, but every start of this motif was made by one cello with the others joining hesitantly. Shame, that.

Finally Berman joined the band for Brahms' violin concerto, which I love.  He played this beautifully, and there we had also a lovely oboe solo in the second movement. The final movement was interesting - he played it very roughly, the way I like it (almost excessively roughly at the end, but with lots of spirit). Weird though that he always started the main motif (second note) with a down bow, where I would have expected an upbow - I could not look at this after the first hearing!
As an encore he gave some lovely polyphonic Bach, played beautifully and lightly, with little vibrato - the way I like my Bach. That was wonderful!

The Kaunas orchestra could do with some more polish, but I hope it will get there. Interesting how many women there were in the winds - and there was a female percussionist, too. This is not so usual in Lithuanian orchestras.

Made for oboe

Last night's concert at the Kongresu Rumu was the last in a series of a Christmas festival, organised by music academies in Vilnius, St Petersburg and Moscow, the Russian Embassy and funded by a variety of sponsors, including Russian and Lithuanian radio stations. I know this because Viktoras Gerulaitis, the announcer, told us this in Lithuanian and in Russian - lots of diplomats, including from Russia, presumably, were there. My heart sinks when Gerulaitis steps on the stage, seeing as he is rather garrulous, but this time he stuck strictly to the script - which in itself was rather long.

A half-empty concert hall then heard the Moscow-based chamber ensemble 'Hermitage' under Aleksey Utkin perform pieces by JC Bach, Britten, Bruch, Shostakovich and Piazzola. All pieces had been arranged by Utkin to be for oboe plus support - this arranging to suit soloists seems to be a characteristic of East European groups; Kremer does it in his Kremerata Baltica (though not necessarily himself) as does Bashmet with his group.  I suppose arranging pieces gets round copyright law, too, at least for the arrangers.   The group was young, and consisted of 7 women, 2 men, Utkin and an unnamed female flautist. (Upper string players out east tend to be female.)  Utkin and the flautist (perhaps his wife??) both played golden instruments.

I was amazed by JC Bach's sinfonia concertante for oboe, violin and flute. This was an exciting performance, with nice modern bow strokes (not the usual East European indulgence of beautiful sounds), beautifully presented. The flute had a wonderful warm sound - don't think it has anything to do with it being golden.

The Britten pieces were interesting. I did not know any of them - there was a fantasy for oboe and strings, and two other pieces. They sounded very percussive, and very advanced for Britten, who I know more for his Peter Grimes, his Lachrymae for viola and the Simple Symphony.  The last of these, 'Vapsva' in Lithuanian, sounded more like the Britten I knew.

Bruch's 'Kol Nidrei' seems to be taken up by anyone who can play an instrument these days. Originally written for cello and small orchestra, it's in the standard repertoire for viola, and there is a violin version, too - plus an oboe version, it would appear. A piano took on the role of a harp. The group shot into this piece - I think it's a mournful piece, but the beginning was rather on the fast side. I'm not really sure about the oboe (and probably also the violin) playing this; the pitch is just too high and the sound too penetrating. Maybe a clarinet would be better, if it has to be played on a wind instrument. The ending of it, when they slowed down and Utkin created a much more melancholic sound, was beautiful, though. Some twat in the audience applauded as the last note was dying...  (The audience was not the usual concert-going crowd in any case - they applauded everywhere.)

The second half was more entertainment-like; some Shostakovich dances from a ballet score (but not Tea for Two) which I had not heard before. And finally some Piazzola pieces, which came across a bit boring. First they were all the pieces everyone knows, and secondly four of the five were rather mournful pieces (Ave Maria, Muerto del Angelo, Oblivion, and Adios Nonino) - the Libertango at the end was almost not like the one I recognized....

The encore was a piece by 'Josef Gaydn', as the Russians tend to say. A beautiful Rondo for oboe and strings.

The band played very beautifully indeed, and if this is the modern Russian approach to music, it's well worth exporting. Their versions of the classical pieces would support them well in Western Europe and the US. It was only that the programming was a bit mixed, but maybe that was needed for this kind of event and musically fairly illiterate audience. The lead cellist seemed to be a bit of a mainstay of the band - she was great. Utkin's oboe playing is superb; strangely he did not seem to have to do all that housekeeping that you see other oboists do, fiddling with bits of paper, or the mouthpiece - maybe he just has a better quality of oboe? 

They faked it!

You will remember the 'Air and Simple Gifts' played at the Presidential Inauguration by Yo Yo Ma, Izthak Perlman, Anthony McGill on clarinet, and Gabriela Montero, a product of the Venezuelan sistema? I was wondering how people would hear it.

Turns out that 'played' was not quite the right word to choose, see here. They had recorded it two days before, and finger-synched it.  It was too cold to really play, risk of broken strings and all that. This explains the earpieces they all wore. I did wonder if they had used cheaper instruments for this outdoor gig (seems they did).

Missed a good 'un

Coming back from a very nice dinner with friends, I passed St Catherine's church and saw people pouring out, including members of the choir 'Jauna Muzika'.

Seems they had put on a performance of Haydn's 'Creation' with the St Christopher Orchestra.

Damn! I missed it - just don't seem to have my finger on the pulse any more.

Making do....

What with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra having to household its resources - no concerts on two consecutive Saturday nights (in the Capital of Culture??) - for 3 Bruch, 2 Mendelssohn and a Vieuxtemps violin concerto on Wednesday night, I just had to make do with the Digital Concert Hall, The Berlin Philharmonic, Bernard Haitink, and Mahler's 7th symphony.

This time I had the sound sorted out, and the symphony roared through my flat. Still need to find a way of linking the laptop to the TV - unfortunately that laptop which works better does not have an output slot....

How can one review an orchestra as perfect as this? The winds here are like a finely-tuned Porsche, whereas those of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra are more like an old Soviet lorry which has difficulties in starting - as evidenced in Malov's wonderful performance of the Mendelssohn violin concerto.  Some of those solos, oh the trumpets, or the oboes - just brilliant!

Haitink is a fairly quiet conductor; I suppose he is not so young - and maybe it's nice for the orchestra not to have someone grimacing quite like Rattle.  I don't know the symphony well enough to review it in detail, but the way the themes and motifs moved round the orchestra - it was just brilliant! Next concert on Saturday (do they always do Saturdays? That might make it difficult to rush back in time from the Filharmonija, when they work).

I see I missed Zubin Mehta, Murray Perahia and Beethoven 4 - need to check the archives to find this.