Music
More than a yard of tickets to the Proms!
The BBC Proms present themselves as the “world’s greatest classical music festival” and of course they are; it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to walk to the Albert Hall direct from my work’s office and then to walk home afterwards.
All of this depends on tickets, either a Prom ticket bought on the day or seat tickets bought in advance. These days the advance booking process is online but is far from satisfactory. It is maybe slightly less of a lottery than the previous postal booking process: at least I can choose exactly what to book and adapt my choices in the light of what is actually available at the point of booking.
A varied programme for violin and piano presented by Keswick Music Society at the Theatre by the Lake featured Tasmin Little, violin, and Martin Roscoe, piano. The evening took us on several musical journeys, firstly from 1740 (Tartini) through to 1915 (Szymanowski). Also from classical form through nationalist story-telling (Smetana) and Edwardian romanticism (Elgar) to Szymanowski 's atmospheric impressionism.
Read more: Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe - Keswick Music Society
A concert given in St. Patrick’s, Patterdale, Cumbria, of Russian liturgical and secular music performed by four young musicians from the St Petersburg Conservatory who sung in the choir of the Konevets Monastery on the island of Konevets on Lake Ladoga. The Konevets Quartet sing unaccompanied and maintain tuning at the start of each piece by striking a tuning fork (which is inaudible to the audience).
Interesting to hear Nederlands Kamerorkest: Frank Martin’s Pavane played well as an unusual introduction to this classic programme. The acoustic of the Concertgebouw integrated the string sound with a very pleasing effect.
Rusalka isn't a familiar opera, it's in Czech so before surtitles it was probably not viable outside of the Czech homeland. Tonight’s was only the eighth performance ever at Covent Garden. Royal Opera bill their production as a “Lyric fairytale in three acts” although at heart Antonin Dvorák’s opera is a tragedy. As a fairytale, it seems the moral is “Be careful what you wish for”, as the heroine Rusalka finds out. The score is full of glorious melodies in the style that Antonin Dvorák has made us think of as Czech national music although the underlying emotions are as much jealousy, pain, grief as lust and joy.
