BBC Proms:

Haydn Sinfonia Concertante in B flat major, for oboe, bassoon, violin, cello*
Schoenberg Variations for Orchestra, Op.31
Brahms Symphony No.4


Daniel Baremboim
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

---

バレンボイムとWest-Eastern Divan Orchestraはやっぱり良かったです。
前日のデュダメルはやっぱり若いなと。苦笑


ブラームス、本当にガッツがある演奏で、２月にマエストロが「音楽家にとって一番大切なのは“お腹”で音楽を感じて、そこから音を創ることです」といってたのがよく解りました。

このオケは、バレンボイムと哲学者サイードが99年に才能あるパレスチナ人、イスラエル人、アラブ人の若い音楽家のためにつくった特別なオーケストラです。といっても、何が特別なのか日本ではよくわからないのですが、このパレスチナ、イスラエル、アラブというのは、政治的に非常に難しい地域で、民間レベルで人間の交流をもつというのができない地域です。何せパスポートに「○○人の支配する領域への立ち入りを禁ずる」とかいてあるぐらいですから（イラン人の友達のパスポートにはパレスチナ領域への入国は認めないってあった）。その政治的／歴史的わだかまりを音楽でなんとかできないかと立ち上がったのが、バレンボイムとサイードなのです。

毎年夏にスペインのアンダルシアで合宿を行い、演奏ツアーにでるのですが、最近は楽団員のなかに、アンダルシア人（やはりスペイン内でも民族問題が激しい）とあのヴェネズエラ青少年オーケストラのメンバーも何人か加わっているようで、ますます世界和平への大きな希望となるような団体になりつつあります。

てなわけで、私はその志も彼らのキラキラする音楽も大好きなわけです。マエストロ自身、ユダヤ人でそのイスラエルへの想い入れは相当なものだと思いますが、彼の素晴らしいのは「私は政治家ではなく、音楽家だ」という姿勢です。

オーケストラのメンバーの出身国での演奏会は、やはり政治的なことが大きな憚りとなり実現はできていないのですが、それでもこうやって世界を回ることで、若い才能を伸ばしつつ、世界へ何かを訴えられるというのは、なかなかできないことです。

何よりも観衆が熱狂したのは、アンコール前のスピーチです。

Ladies and gentlemen, whenever we have come to Proms in the past, I have some reasons for other, always been made to feel that I have to say a few words about what is wrong in the Middle East. The last time it was just before we went to Lamala. Well, I am not going to do that tonight, because you just heard what is right in the Middle East! (Pointing the all members of orchestra)

We will, nevertheless, with your permission, play the encore.

I always like to put programmes where the major works by Schoenberg, one by Brahms, and one by Wargner, because I'm always fascinated how he manage to make a synthesis of the influence of two people who coudldn't stand each other because of the music.


バレンボイムの本「Everything is connected」がやはり14日に発売になったんですが、はやくよみたーい！

バレンボイム、本当に素晴らしい人です。
マエストロの創る音楽や言葉を耳にする度に、心がぐわっと揺さぶられます。
私もマエストロには到底およばないけれど、こうやって人を音楽で動かせられる仕事がしたいです。
がんばるぞー。

San Francisco Classical Voice
1 July 2008
By David Bratman


San José, as its boosters like to point out, is now the largest city in Northern California. But if it’s the leader in population, it has a ways to go to catch up to San Francisco in cultural influence. Still, San José is far from the cultural desert that its flat sprawling landscape might suggest to residents of hillier, more congested parts of the Bay Area. The lively downtown has a flavor to it that you could find, perhaps to your equal surprise, in places like Sacramento and Santa Rosa. And there are musical performances well worth hearing here, enough to enthuse the locals and perhaps even draw audiences from outside the city and its suburbs.

San José’s leading concert ensemble is Symphony Silicon Valley. Born in 2002 out of the ashes of the old San José Symphony (see a story recounted by SFCV here), it has grown cautiously over the years, with surprising and gratifying success. The orchestra was artistically mature from the beginning, drawing most of its personnel from its predecessor. Where SSV has really grown is in scheduling.

For its first year only four concerts were held, scheduled individually only a few weeks in advance. When a full season came, in 2004-2005, it consisted of seven programs in two performances each. These were successful and popular enough that in 2006-2007, four Thursday performances were added to the seven Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees schedule. Attendance has continued to rise, and demand for two of this year’s concerts — one featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the other an all-Gershwin program — was so great that fourth performances, on Fridays, were added.

The Symphony has not let this success go to its head, however. It is not a full-time orchestra and is not trying to expand beyond its capacity. The 2008-2009 season comprises eight programs, the same number as this year, four in three performances and four in two. Whether or not extra performances are added this season, there is a real audience for local symphony concerts in San José, and the 1,100-seat California Theatre, with its grand 1920s-period foyer and auditorium, and its bright, lively acoustics, makes a perfect venue.

SSV has taken to presenting short, chamber-music preview concerts before its Thursday performances, and holds a number of special events, including holiday carol concerts and summer family concerts. In 2006 the symphony gave a special concert of video game music (accompanied by visual effects) — this is Silicon Valley, after all — but the experiment has not been repeated.


Elena Sharkova directs the SSV Chorale; Vance George guest conducts next year


This May, the SSV Chorale, conducted by Elena Sharkova, came out from behind the orchestra to perform Rachmaninov’s a cappella Vespers at the Santa Clara Mission and at Santa Cruz’s Holy Cross Church. On March 15 of next year, the Chorale is bringing in retired San Francisco Symphony Chorus Director Vance George to lead Fauré’s Requiem.
No Music Director? No Problem

SSV has become locally famous, almost notorious, as an orchestra without a music director. Circumstances at first did not allow for the hiring of one — concerts in the first two seasons were infrequent and there were budgetary concerns as well as worries about putting the orchestra’s fate in one pair of conductorial hands. Perhaps surprisingly, the orchestra has just gone on that way. This is not an entirely uncontroversial policy. But the symphony has developed a corporate personality, embodied by its president, Andrew Bales. Bales comes out on stage to give a short speech of welcome before every concert, so he’s become familiar to the audience. As CEO of the orchestra, he appears to be doing a remarkable job of giving equal attention to administrative, financial, and artistic matters. And in the process, San José has come to hear the work of a lot of more interesting guest conductors than most orchestras its size would have. Not all are successful, but the winners often return in later years.



Andrew Bales
Photo by Robert Shomler


One particular slant SSV has taken has been an interest in mid-20th-century American vernacular music. The orchestra seized on this repertoire with gusto in their first concert in the California Theatre in 2004 (reviewed here). They celebrated the completion of the restoration of the building, which originally opened in 1927 as a grand film and stage theater, by putting on a show of American film and stage music of the era. Works by Gershwin, Copland, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold were conducted with panache by the late Sergiu Comissiona, while a theater usher wearing a period uniform changed a signboard on stage before each piece.


Gwendolyn Mok

This programming trend has continued, most obviously this May when the orchestra offered a pops program called “George Gershwin’s 1920s Radio Hour,” devised by pianist Gwendolyn Mok. Paul Polivnick conducted. Mok played both the Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue, the latter in the original Paul Whiteman jazz band instrumentation; Broadway star Sara Uriarte Berry belted out some Gershwin show tunes; and the pseudo-radio narration, including some comical commercials for a laxative chewing gum, was delivered cheerfully by KDFC radio announcer Hoyt Smith. If the playing was less than SSV’s most incisive, as a show it was great fun.


Paul Polivnick

But there’s been more. Polivnick was also on the podium in October 2005 for a jazz-classical fusion program consisting of Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown & Beige, and David Amram’s Triple Concerto. The concert’s success sparked a commission from the orchestra to Amram — if Gershwin and Ellington were still with us, they’d probably have been contacted too — from which emerged a work titled Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, which received its premiere in the first concert of this season last September. Polivnick was on the podium again. Amram didn’t simply orchestrate “This Land Is Your Land,” run a few thuddy variations on it, and leave it at that. Instead, he produced a large suite of colorful and varied Americana through which the song, often mutated nearly unrecognizably, recurs in unexpected forms.

Now Amram, though in his late seventies, has been recommissioned, and next January 15-18, SSV audiences will hear the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1, played by the local favorite Jon Nakamatsu, the former high school teacher from Mountain View who won the Van Cliburn Competition 11 years ago. Paul Polivnick conducts again.


Music Appreciation With Flair

The orchestra’s final concert this year was another special program borrowing, this one from the Chicago Symphony’s “Beyond the Score” series. This scheme provides an elaborate preconcert lecture in the first half about the work being given in the second half, which in this case was Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The narrators talked us through the Rite as an anthropological re-creation of a hypothesized, ancient Russian ritual, though not a word was said about it as a ballet or on the remarkable effect of Stravinsky’s new musical vocabulary. Musical illustrations were provided by period field recordings, by a third presenter who played Russian folk instruments, and by the orchestra, seated patiently behind the presenters. After intermission, Martin West led a rendition of the full work that, though light and chipper, was illuminated by the lesson. Next season, on December 6-7, SSV is going “Beyond the Score” again, this time with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. It will be interesting to compare this program with Michael Tilson Thomas’ “Keeping Score” program on the same work.

SSV performs more conventional concerts, as well. Nothing is more classic than Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which the Symphony performed in March. Under Fabio Mechetti they delivered a basic, straightforward, but captivating rendition of the work. SSV is an inconsistent orchestra. Sometimes the horns, for instance, are having an off night, but other times they can be the stars of the stage. Sometimes the performances can be dull or wayward, but other times the music comes together excellently. Much depends on the individual conductor.

Some critics and others have argued that the appointment of a music director would give the orchestra steadier leadership and keep its performances more even. This could be true, but the artistic waywardness of the last years of the San José Symphony offers a lesson in the risks of appointing the wrong music director. If artistic leadership from the front office remains strong enough, and the financial situation continues to be healthy, this peculiar situation may be stable for some time to come.


Scott Bearden

Beethoven’s Ninth was one of the Symphony’s better interpretations, but the evening’s highlight was the clear and powerful tone of Opera San José’s lead baritone, Scott Bearden, in the “Ode to Joy.” Bearden has been thrilling audiences in local opera productions for a long time now, in Falstaff, I Pagliacci, The Barber of Seville, and many others. Opera San José, which also performs in the California Theatre, is something of a workshop company for young performers, but every workshop group needs its strong experienced hands as well, and Bearden, who just received the first place award and the audience favorite award in the second annual Irene Dalis Vocal Competition, has been filling that role here.


George Cleve

Next year’s eight regular concerts will include return visits from conductors Polivnick and George Cleve, who will each lead two concerts, and Leslie Dunner and Gregory Vajda, with one each. Cleve will be giving solid 19th-century programs, with composers from Beethoven to Debussy, featuring two solo violinists: Ju-Young Baek, a favorite on previous visits, in the Brahms concerto on Mar. 26-29, and the orchestra’s own associate concertmaster, Christina Mok, in the Mendelssohn on Oct. 16-19. Dunner takes charge of another Duke Ellington opus, The River Suite, which will be paired with dance music by Prokofiev and Ginastera. Two new conductors will appear: Paul Haas, who will lead Felix Guilmant’s Organ Symphony No. 1 and Schubert’s Ninth Symphony in C Major on March 14-15, and Jane Glover, who will direct the orchestra and chorale in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass on June 6-7.

So San José’s ship sails on captainless for another season, taking in classic symphonies, concertos, and choral works; some 20th-century works both well- and little-known; one premiere; and another “Beyond the Score” lecture. It may be another inconsistent season, but at the very least it sounds interesting, and there are sure to be some winning concerts.


More Concerts in the South Bay

SSV is far from the only orchestra in the San José area. Even leaving aside student and nonprofessional groups — notably the scrappy and hard-working Redwood Symphony up the Peninsula — there’s the Fremont Symphony just to the north, and Santa Cruz County Symphony for listeners who care to go over the hill.

Also in town is the San José Chamber Orchestra, which last month won an Adventurous Programming award from ASCAP, the performance rights group, and the League of American Orchestras. Their concerts next season will feature living composers such as Mimi Dye, James Harvestus, and Hyo-shin Na next to Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky.



The St. Lawrence and Kronos quartets

In chamber music, the region is also well-blessed. Stanford Lively Arts is a prestigious local presenter that features ensembles such as the St. Lawrence and Kronos quartets. Nearby is the world-renowned Music@Menlo Festival. The Sunset Concerts at St. Luke’s Church in Los Gatos, and Music@Market at the St. Joseph Basilica in downtown San José, which repeats as Music at the Mission in Fremont, are notable small annual programs.

In San José itself, the hidden treasure is the San José Chamber Music Society, which presents concerts at Le Petit Trianon, a tiny but acoustically excellent auditorium just north of San José’s city hall. The staff of the Society are all volunteers, but they manage to entice a surprising number of excellent ensembles to make a stop in San José. Many of these also perform in San Francisco or elsewhere in the area, but sometimes they save their best work for us.


Beaux Arts Trio

Two concerts in this past season demonstrate the point. The Beaux Arts Trio, on its farewell tour in April, gave Schubert and Dvořák at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco see review. But on the same tour, they played both the Schubert Trios, Op. 99 and Op. 100, in San José, a rare pairing of two blissful, enchanting works. (Music@Menlo is doing them together this year as a special concert.) The tiny gossamer notes chirped out by violinist Daniel Hope might not have been heard in any larger hall.

The TinAlley String Quartet, fresh from winning the triennial Banff International String Quartet Competition, played a free concert of Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Berg in San Francisco in early March. But when at the end of the month they appeared in San José, they substituted for Berg the Bartók Quartet No. 4, which was the highlight of the program, a lucid, engaging rendition that outclassed their work with the older composers, and which was the best performance of a Bartók Quartet that I’ve ever been fortunate to hear.

The upcoming season’s San José Chamber Music Society schedule includes the Escher String Quartet, a notable group at last year’s Music@Menlo festival that is returning there this year, as well as the Afiara Quartet, the Leipzig and Daedalus quartets, the Poulenc Trio, and the Trio con Brio Copenhagen.

It looks fair set to be another good year for music in San José. You should come on down.



David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.


©2008 By David Bratman, all rights reserved.

Millions of pounds have been set aside for a festival that no one needs and fewer people want, argues Rupert Christiansen

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 11/06/2008
Telegraph


With budgets soaring, factions quarrelling and deadlines approaching, there's quite enough to worry about in the run-up to the London Olympics without the question of "culture" raising its pretty little head. Yet there it is, demanding to be addressed.


From the end of August until 2012, Britain will host (and pay for) a "Cultural Olympiad", programmed by order of the International Olympic Committee as an essential ancillary to the sporting events.

I'd like to ask bluntly: who wants it, who needs it?

As yet, the plans for this rolling four-year jamboree have only been announced in outline -­ more detail will emerge over the summer - but the thinking behind them so far seems drearily predictable and uninspired.

Any number of people can be held responsible ­ Minister for London Tessa Jowell has the Olympics as part of her brief, but Andy Burnham's Department for Culture Media and Sport also supervises a cultural advisory forum of the great and the good, while the ubiquitous Jude Kelly chairs two programming committees at Locog, the Olympics delivery authority, where culture is under the executive management of Bill Morris.
advertisement

The budget cannot be simply computed, as it will be up to participating arts organisations to fund their events, but £40?million filched from the National Lottery is available from central government. Basically, a lot of money will be doled out to anyone who can tick the access/disability/ethnic diversity boxes.

While there is still time to reconsider and change, I would like to draw attention to the vacuous blah-blah which constitutes the Cultural Olympics' mission statements. They aim "to inspire and involve young people", "to generate sustainable long-term benefits", "to promote contemporary London" and "to promote culture and sport".

There will be a "world festival of youth culture", a world festival of Shakespeare (didn't the RSC stage that last year?), and museums and galleries will reinterpret their collections to tell "stories of the world".

Guess what, musicians will also compose, new art works will be erected, videos will record things, and in 2012, to cap it all, there will be "a world cultural festival".

To be fair, we don't have specific names and dates yet, and I live in hopes of some lovely surprises being sprung, but these sorts of clichés commit nobody to anything and, to date, not one glimmer of originality or urgency has emerged in the planning.

Has anyone paused to ask what the Cultural Olympics are actually for, what relation cultural exhibition has to sporting competition, and why precisely a "world cultural festival" is required when everyone will be glued to the running and jumping?

Go back to 1912, and there was an actual Olympic arts contest -­ artists competed for medals in five fine arts categories. But this proved unsatisfactory and petered out, and it was only in 1992 that the arts made their way back into the programme when the Barcelona games promoted Catalan culture.

Atlanta followed with a celebration of the Deep South, while Sydney highlighted the creativity of its Aborigines. In Beijing, China has used the Cultural Olympiad to score propaganda points by showing the freedom its artists are allowed.

But here in Britain, there is nothing to home in on. Read the arts pages of this newspaper and you will see that we are blessed with one long "world cultural festival" of wonderful richness and diversity.

At the same time there are lean economic times ahead, with sponsorship harder to find and the Arts Council hard-pressed.

To pay for the Cultural Olympiad, Peter is being robbed to pay Paul, with money diverted from the National Lottery, and arts organisations in Greenwich are already complaining that the local authority has cut their regular funding to create a cash pot for 2012. Why the famine, why the feast, when you could be sustaining a healthy regular diet?

"Legacy" is another buzzword. There's an idea that the Cultural Olympics will create "a buzz around the UK that will last long after the Flame is extinguished" and "a new awareness of cultural activity". More wishful-washful thinking here, and one is not reassured by Craig Hassall, manager of the Sydney Cultural Olympics, who admitted in a recent article that "the legacy elements withered on the vine".

What is much more important - if we are talking about arts and culture in relation to the Olympics - is that the 2012 games are beautiful.

By that, I mean that they should not be blighted by any more horrors like the hideous and illegible logo; that the opening and closing ceremonies are fun and fabulous in the noblest British tradition of parades and processions, and not a Millennium Dome-style mishmash of steel bands and spluttering fireworks; that the best of British architecture, design and craftsmanship is evident in the stadia and the village, finished without the usual pennypinching tattiness which has become a national disease; that any music accompanying the games is a well-composed, dignified tune rather than some ghastly nul-points banality warbled by Katherine Jenkins and aimed at the lowest common denominator of juvenile taste; that the competitors wear a uniform that doesn't make them look like they're employees of a budget airline; and in sum, that elegance rather than a quick buck should be the watchword.

To get all of this right this will take a great deal of time, taste, trouble and creative energy and, so far, this Cultural Olympics seems to promise nothing but an unnecessary distraction from the central business of the sporting competition. I suppose it's too late to cancel the sideshow, but I wouldn't be at all sorry if they did.


Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited and must not be reproduced in any medium without licence. For the full copyright statement see Copyright

５月11日（日）
バービカンホール

Schoenberg： Die glückliche Hand, Op 18
Matthias： Pintscher Osiris (British premiere)
Bartók： Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Pierre Boulez conductor
Michelle De Young mezzo-soprano
Peter Fried bass
BBC Singers
London Symphony Orchestra


初めて「青髭公」を聴いたのですが、すっごい迫力。ただ、ソプラノがかなりオケに飲まれていてちょっとあっけなく聴こえるときもあったのが残念でした。
ブーレーズ、いいです。

---

５月13日（月）
Christie's South Kensington
Japan Society主催
日本美術コレクション鑑賞会


無知って怖い。Christie'sでそう思いました。日本担当のキューレーターのガイドで10点ほど見て回りました。日本美術は細部まで細かく繊細に作り込まれていて完成度が極めて高いことは、中国美術品とは比べ物にならないそうです。特に1851年に開催されたGreat Exhibition（Crystal Palaceがハイドパークに建設されたのもこのとき）で、初めて英国内（たぶん欧州内）で「日本の美術品」が公に展示されて、そこから一気に異邦地ジャパンへの憧れと興味が沸騰したそうです。それまでは、本当に王侯貴族のみの楽しみだったのだろうと推測されます。日本の美術品が江戸時代の鎖国中にも、貿易商品として高値で世界に出回っていたことは知っていましたが、その中の品物が目の前にあると思うと、不思議な感覚です。おまけに触れる手＆写真が撮れるオークションなので、どんなに高価なものでも触れるのが良い所です。過去に落として割ってしまった人もいるらしいですが…（そういう場合って、落札推定価格を代償金で払うのかな？）

伊万里焼、薩摩焼、七宝焼、象牙彫刻、印籠、刀、浮世絵、水墨画、巻物、根付け、…。色々ありました。気分は美術館乙女座どれも美術館所蔵並の品ばかりなのですが、なにせ「本物」なので、推定落札価格をみて、気が遠くなりました。お年玉２〜３年分ぐらい叩けば、なんとか買えそうのもあったけど…、上は私の修士学費分ぐらいのもあったな

フランスから来たコレクターのご夫婦がいらしたり、中国人のパワフルな買い付けおばちゃん（たぶんプロ）がいらしたり…、あ、アシスタントのお姉さん、日本刀をお客さんに見せてたときに指切ったそうですたらーっ（汗）今も首の皮一枚残してバッサリいける状態保持らしい←強盗には気をつけないと。

初めて印籠触れてルンルン。広重の東海道五十三次の世八カ所目と、鯉のぼりの浮世絵を超接近してみられてウキウキ。象牙の彫刻で、江戸の粋を感じて興奮最高潮。象牙彫りの江戸人をみていると、今にも会話や音楽、周りの喧噪が聴こえてきそうなんですよね。やっぱりこういうの好きだな。

日本人にうまれて、それが当たり前過ぎて、何がどう素晴らしくて価値があるのか、今まで自国文化や美術品への理解が薄かったですが、これを機にもう少し積極的に勉強したいと思います。蛇足ですが、会場にあった燃えるような赤ピンクの八重の芍薬がそれは見事でした。

---

５月17日（土）14：00
Royal Ballet
Mixed Programme: Dances at a Gathering / The Dream

Dance at a Gatheringはショパンのピアノ曲集でした。なんだかショパンに踊りがつくというのも、理解出来る様で、不思議な様で、なかなか腐れピアノ科の私には新鮮でした。The Dreamは、メンデルスゾーンの「真夏の夜の夢」でした。結婚行進曲もしっかりありましたが、結構劇中ではあっさり進んでしまうんですね（苦笑）
この日は大ハプニングがあって、The Dreamのパックが、途中で足を負傷。明らかに「！？」とおもったのですが、やっぱり途中で中断、ステマネがステージに出てきて「今、新しいパックを探しにいきますので、そのままお待ちください」と言ってから15分。「新しいパックが運良く見つかりましたので、続きを始めます」。聞いた所によると、このパック役はトリプルキャストで、既に２人が負傷していたそうです。なので、常に舞台袖には代役ダンサーが控えていたらしいです。にしても、舞踊はこういうことも想定して当日を迎えないといけないのだと、変な所で冷や汗をかきました。

---

５月20日（火）19:30
Royal Opera House
プッチーニ作「トスカ」

Director：Jonathan Kent
Designs：Paul Brown
Lighting：Mark Henderson

Conductor：Antonio Pappano
Floria Tosca：Martina Serafin
Mario Cavaradossi：Jonas Kaufmann
Baron Scarpia：Paolo Gavanelli
Spoletta：Hubert Francis
Cesare Angelotti：Kostas Smoriginas
Sacristan：Enrico Fissore
Sciarrone：Darren Jeffery
Shepherd Boy：Thomas Payne
Gaoler：John Morrissey

またもやハプニングのROHで、本当はトスカ役がMicaela Carosiだったのですが、急病で急遽ダブルキャストだったMartina Serafinになりました。開演前にアナウンスがあり「昨日突然代役をたてることになり、急遽呼び寄せた」そうです。にしても、本番はすばらしかったです。
Gavanelliは本当に貫禄があって、存在感が抜群でした。
が、絶対に泣くと思って心構えをしていったのに、涙すらこみ上げてこず、私としては少々不完全燃焼でした。前にDVDを観た時は、心が動いたのに…。うーん。

---

５月26日（月・祝）13：30
Royal Ballet
プロコフィエフ「ロミオとジュリエット」
マクミラン版

バレエは、どうしても牽制がちなのですが、折角ロンドンにいるのだしとチケットをとりました。プロコのロミジュリ組曲は、昨年にLSOxゲルギエフでも聴いてますし、何せ有名曲なので一体どんな振りがつくのかと楽しみでした。全体的に「クラシック」な印象を受けました。セットも衣装も、時代通り。ステージの転換がオペラ以上激しく、そちらにびっくりしました。
もうちょっと上のレベルで楽しめるようになるためにも、色々みないといけないかなと。

---

５月27日
ロイヤルフェスティバルホール
クリスティアン・ツィメルマン　ピアノリサイタル

Bach：Partita in C minor, BWV826
Beethoven：Piano Sonata No.32 in C minor, Op.111
Brahms：Klavierstücke, Op.119
Szymanowski：Variations on a Polish Theme, Op.10

おもしろかったです。
1つ目は、バッハからベートヴェンに移る時に、鍵盤取り替えたんです。会場中に「!!」の嵐。でも、聴いて納得。音ががらりと変わりました。固くて強い近代的な音に。さすが細部にこだわるZ氏です、してやられたりといった感じでした。
2つ目は、シマノフスキ。ああ、もうこの人、血で音楽作ってるなと思いました。バッハやベートーヴェン、ブラームスで感じた「学術的」な感覚がないのです。すべてを超えて、心にずーんと伝わってくる演奏でした。
やっぱり音楽はこうでないといけないですよね、頭でつべこべ考えるのも大切だけれども、心に響くものがないと。やっぱりZ氏は、私にとって世界で最も敬愛し、いつも考えさせる音楽を奏でる音楽家の一人です。

４月１日（火）18：00
主催：国際交流基金
白玉羊屋／指輪ホテル、トークイベント

日本でもなかなか面白いことが発信されているということを知りました。
と、同時に通訳の大切さ、難しさを知ったような。

---

４月２日（水）19：30
ロイヤルフェスティバルホール
内田光子ピアノリサイタル

Schubert Piano Sonata in C minor, D.958
Kurtág Antiphon in F sharp major
Bach The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus I
Kurtág Tumble-Bunny
Kurtág Portrait 3
Kurtág Dirge 2
Kurtág Hommage à Christian Wolff (Half-Asleep)
Bach French Suite no.5 in G major, BWV 816: Sarabande
Kurtág Spiel mit dem Unendlichen
Schumann Symphonic Etudes, Op.13

詳しくは、こちらで。

---

４月３日（木）19：30
バービカンホール

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Stravinsky The Firebird - Suite (1911)

Daniel Harding conductor
Midori violin
London Symphony Orchestra

東京に帰ったかと錯覚をするほど、日本人率が高かったです。
すごく緊張してました、みどりさん。

---

４月５日（土）19：30
コロセウム (London Coliseum)
"Push"
Sylvie Guillem & Russell Maliphant

Sadler's Wellsで制作され、昨年の公開シーズンには常に完売。
満を持して、コロセウムで上演されたわけですが、非常に新感覚で、とても面白かったです。敢えて不満があるとすれば、やっぱり700〜800席程度の規模の会場で見たいですね。

↑のリンクに飛ぶと、短いビデオクリップがみられます。

---

４月６日（日）19：30
バービカンホール

Britten Violin Concerto
Brahms Symphony No 2

Daniel Harding conductor
Midori violin
London Symphony Orchestra

チャイコより、のびのびした印象をうけました。
休憩時間中にfoyerに出ていらしたミドリさんと一緒に写真を撮って頂けて、嬉しかったです。

---

4月14日（月）
Hampstead Theatre, 16:00-, 19:30-
"War and Peace" by Shared Experiennce

舞台の使い方が上手かったです。全６時間近い上演時間もまんざらでもないです。
会場も設計の仕方が面白かったですね、でも、ちょっと不便。
（去年すごく近くに住んでたのに1回も行かなかったことに後悔）

---

4月17日（木）18:30-
Alison Weir
新作『The Lady Elizabeth』朗読会
Hampton Court Palace

インターンでのお手伝いでした。が、今回のインターンのおかげで、最近すっかり英国王室史にハマっている私。しっかり本にサイン頂いて大満足です。恐怖の大魔王（＝修論）が去ったら、読みます。笑

---

４月30日（水）19：30
バービカンホール

Bartók Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion
Schoenberg Five Orchestral Pieces, Op 16
Stravinsky Chant du rossignol
Pierre Boulez Notations I, II, III, IV, VII

Pierre Boulez conductor
Pierre-Laurent Aimard piano
Tamara Stefanovich piano
London Symphony Orchestra


なんでしょうね、なんかバランスがわるかったです、バルトーク。
Aimardが出てたり豪華だったんですが、しっくりこなかった。
友人曰く、レコードで聴くには良い曲だね、と。
違う友人は、ブーレーズの指揮はすごく解りやすい、とのこと。
確かに拍感がこまめに変化するので、基本に従った指揮法でしたね。

知人者智　自知者明
（人を知る者は智なり　自ら知る者は明なり）
〜老子


他人を知るのは単なる「智者」にすぎない。自分を知る者こそが「明知の人」だという意味。この言葉の後には、「人に勝つ者は力あり　自ら勝つ者は強し」と続く。他人に勝つことよりも、自分に勝つほうが、はるかに難しい。


【きょうの言葉】産經新聞より

Audiences, unlike critics, can't seem to get their fill

ARTHUR KAPTAINIS
The Gazette

Saturday, May 31, 2008


"Not enough audience," concluded the headline last week, this being the natural and inevitable corollary of the first clause: "Too much classical music." Maybe there are too many concerts for cantankerous critics to review. But paying customers are, in fact, abundant. The Gazette regrets the error.

Take, for example, last Monday. We shall call it Big Monday. The Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano and featuring the Austrian pianist Till Fellner, filled 2,880 seats in Salle Wilfrid Pelletier. Meanwhile, across the Place des Arts concourse in Théâtre Maisonneuve, the Montreal International Music Competition enjoyed a gate of 969 (including about 150 freebies for host families, but not including a live national radio and Internet audience in five or six figures).

Up at Pollack Hall, the McGill Chamber Orchestra under Boris Brott sold all 500 seats for a concert featuring the Vancouver-based American pianist Sara Davis Buechner. That makes about 4,200 paid admissions on the same night for three concerts, each involving piano and orchestra.

Nor was Big Monday a sudden oasis amid a Sahara of inactivity. Nagano sold out the first performance of the Beethoven-Shostakovich program on Sunday afternoon and the third the evening after. The Montreal International Musical Competition packed in 1,121 on Tuesday, when the Armenian teenager Nareh Arghamanyan handily won the Grand Prize.

This night could almost be said to be oversold, since people started to invade the corbeille level, which was reserved for judges and other elite types. And bear in mind that the competition had been fielding quarterfinal and semifinal recitals the previous week, afternoons and evenings. Attendance in Salle Pierre Mercure was robust.

All this while the Montreal Chamber Music Festival was winding down in St. James United Church (the organizers claim a month-long attendance of 5,000) and while the Opéra de Montréal was busy selling out its entire six-performance run of Madama Butterfly.

Now take a deep breath and think about it. Twice as many people - 17,400 - will see Puccini's opera than will hear Leonard Cohen at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Oops. Check that. At least three times as many will do the Puccini thing, if we factor in the free outdoor projection of June 7. Eric Clapton at the Bell Centre on Wednesday? A mere 14,200 tickets. Mr. Clapton is cordially invited to eat Puccini's dust.

The wonder is that all this happens at the end of a long season, when one might suppose classical fans to be financially drained and musically saturated. Opera tickets, while not quite so stratospheric as Leonard Cohen tickets, peak at about $140. The onset of Nagano has also inflated some MSO tickets to the three-figure plateau. But people keep coming.

Not enough audience? Not likely.

Judges and journalists gathered on Wednesday for a postfinal scrum on the Montreal International Musical Competition. Some interesting points emerged.

Why was the piano concerto repertoire so limited? Tchaikovsky 1, Rachmaninoff 3, Prokofiev 2 or 3 are the faves. Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Ravel get honourable mention. What about Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Grieg? To say nothing of offbeat choices like the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2.

The Belgian judge André de Groote, well known himself for his unusual repertoire, disputed the viability of Tchaikovsky 2 (ever heard of it?) as a choice because of textual problems and the need of an orchestra (in this case, the Orchestre Métropolitain) to be familiar with the music.

As for Schumann's Piano Concerto, it is widely regarded on the competition circuit as a "death trap" - a piece with which you cannot win first prize. (Montreal judge Marc Durand, however, recalled one exception to this rule.) What do judges listen for? Piotr Paleczny of Poland had an interesting answer: Nothing. "The most exciting moment is when I am lost. I only listen." He could think of only a few occasions when this happened in Montreal.

Memory slips? They are less important than the way a pianist handles them. The case of Elizabeth Schumann, an American with a lyrical touch but a memory problem, was much bandied about. She should have improvised in the preliminary rounds rather than fitfully restarting a passage when she ran into trouble.

Arnoldo Cohen, a Brazilian judge, revealed that Schumann (no relation to the composer!) was upset because conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni dragged the tempo in her Tuesday performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1.

"He slowed down the tempo because you allowed him to do so," was Cohen's ruthless response. All the judges look for professionalism, for assurance under pressure. Thus the inexperience of the OM as a concerto ensemble (these musicians are more into opera) could be taken as a positive thing. A great orchestra can hide weakness in a soloist.

A few judges identified Arghamanyan's semifinal performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2 as the highlight of the entire event. On the question of what a competition win can or cannot do for such a player, Cohen had this to say: "This is not a passport to a great career. This is a passport to a chance."



akaptainis@sympatico.ca
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

天生我材必有用　千金散尽還復来
ー李白

（天、我が材を生む、必ず用あり。千金、散じ尽くせば還（ま）た復（ま）た来らん）
「将進酒」から


【大意】
この世には才能をもって生まれてきた。必ずどこかにその才を必要とする場がある。大金は使い果たしても、いずれ戻ってくるものだという意。「将進酒」から。

昨年末から頻繁に読むようになったブログの一つに『ゴルドーニ』があります。
そのなかで、バイエルン歌劇場総監督だったSir Peter Jonas（2006年8月退職）の講演語録があります。

そこで、面白いと思う言葉を見つけたので、ご紹介したいと思います。


「オペラは、人々の考えを刺激するためにあるのです。」

オペラだけが人間の営みで一番創造的な分野ではなく、芸術に仕えるからといって特権的であるのでもない。我々オペラ・カンパニーで働く者の大義は、オペラという芸術様式によって、我々の精神の内なる声を探る、社会における我々の役割を探る、そしてこの地球という惨めな惑星の中にいる仲間とともに、我々の存在という問題について語り合う場を作るということである。



この言葉を読んだとき、ミュンヘンに住むイタリア系ドイツ人の友人の言葉を思い出しました。
「Arts should be provoking.」

彼は、一緒にバイエルン歌劇場に『白鳥の湖』を観に行った帰りに、何回も繰り返し言いました。公演の演出自体は、私には十分モダンでドイツらしい解釈の仕方だなと思ったのですが、彼の目には「保守的」で「クラシックすぎ」て、面白味に欠けていたそうです。翌日、彼の研究室の友人と、３人で話をしている時にも、やはりこの話題が出て、彼も「芸術は社会にとって、常に何かを発信するべき存在で、だから人間社会にとって大切なんだよ」と言っていました。

私が驚いたのは、彼らが頻繁にクラシック音楽や芸術（いわゆるhigh art）に触れなくとも、彼らの社会生活に必要だと思っていることと、それに関連して政府がサポートするのは当然だと思っていることでした。ミュンヘンというドイツの中でも、水準の高い都市にいるからなのかもしれませんが、そういう考えの人は多いという話にも驚きました。

一方で、日本人の知人たちの話を聞いていると「今日の演奏会はとてもリラックスできて良かった」というような感想がとても多いように思います。確かに仕事を終えて疲れて演奏会に行くことが多い日本社会では、演奏会は「リラックス」の場としての需要が高いのかもしれません。日本の文化の流行傾向として、一時「癒し」や「リラックス」が主流になっていました。

これを考えると、「触発」をもとめるのと、「リラックス」をもとめるのでは、プログラム内容が大きく変わってきます。プログラムも変われば、マネジメント側も色々と違う方向で動く必要性がでてきます。

社会的に私たちの感覚を触発するような音楽や芸術が、日本にはどれぐらい求められているのか、少し疑問に思います。日本社会に求められる「芸術」というのは、もしかしたら根本的に違うものなのかも知れないと思います。