First there are the endless auditions and competitions then the vexing business of choosing a debut recital programme
Posted in General on 03. Oct, 2010
First there are the endless auditions and competitions, then the vexing business of choosing a debut recital programme. How can you show an emerging musical personality to best effect? The answer, as shown by violinist Ruth Palmer’s initially unsteady but finally electrifying Wigmore Hall debut, is to be daring.If, as I argued a few weeks ago, the time to leave a concert is when you’ve heard something astonishing, it follows that there are times when you have to wait for that moment. When he holds back, when the dynamics so low as to be barely playable and the metre is tick-tick-ticking away to the next forte, the suspense is almost unbearable. This is great theatre, and if great theatre is not quite the thing for the reflective monograph of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto – where, in any case, the positioning of soloist Nikolai Lugansky’s instrument forced the orchestra into acoustic anonymity – the intricate variations of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony were impeccably realised.Conducting this work from memory might be ostentatious but Minkowski’s translation of its origami-like structure is breathtakingly confident and imaginative. From the first sensuous horn entry, through the sprung, Italianate quality of the woodwind refrain, the brisk andante con moto (with due emphasis on con moto), its mournful cello theme, the sour-sweet trio of the scherzo and the formidable pulse of the finale, this was a remarkable performance Colour, tempi and tone glittered and dazzled. Then there’s the Maori squat, which involves leaving the podium to make eye-to-eye contact with the cellos. There’s the 180-degree swoop that starts from the timpani and extends to the back of the circle, the side-of-beef swing to the first violins, the yo-yo, the column, and the star-jump.
There are, he suggests, a thousand ways to make each moment happen.
A comprehensive lexicon of Minkowski’s aerobic gestures could run to several pages. There’s the personal stereo jiggle: a hips, knees, shoulders and elbows boogie that bubbles along to a constant current of semi-quavers. But neither is their regular guest conductor, Mark Minkowski. With period or modern instruments, with baton or bare hands, Minkowski’s gift is to make music instantaneous. Clearly he rehearses every nuance – if he didn’t, he simply wouldn’t get away with some of the break-neck speeds he favours – yet the feeling is of improvisation on a grand scale: a giddy awareness of the infinite arithmetic of phrases, bars, beats and sub-divisions.
With repertoire stretching from Rameau to Bollywood, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra are nothing if not versatile. It looks like a Vauxhall Corsa, of all things.But, of course, seamless continuity is just what keeps those Golfers wedded to their cars, and who I am I to disillusion them? As they settle behind the wheel of their new one, taking in the familiar blue-glow instruments, the big- buttoned air-conditioning controls and the characteristic park-bench-like firm seats, they will have every reason to feel happy with their lot. Now, what did that nice man say about his Porsche? I was sure he lived in a flat.. One more naval-gazing styling job like this and the brand is liable to disappear in a puff of narcissistic self-indulgence. The recent Touran is one of the most anonymous vehicles ever, the Bora is aptly named, and now the once- revolutionary Golf has become the vanilla ice- cream of the car world.
The new MkV Golf boasts lustier, more refined engines – particularly the diesels. If my stint behind the wheel of the all-new 2-litre oil burner is anything to go by it handles better too – thanks, as it happens – and not that most Golf buyers will be interested – to new multi-link rear suspension. The old car was a bit of a lumbering potato, but the MkV boasts a lovely taut chassis, if you will excuse the William Woollard-ism Plus it is more spacious than the old car. And that brand is Golf.Golfers are the ostriches of the motoring world partly because, as healthy, well-adjusted adults they don’t give a stuff about break-horse power, multi-link suspension or direct injection engines They have better things to do with their brains. The other reason is that for the past 30 years the Golf has simply been the best car in its class.