Keith Jarrett

July 16th, 2009 music

Listening The Cure – in particular, Blame It On My Youth, which was also in The Melody At Night With You at work, I decide I much prefer the version in Melody. I don’t understand why everyone didn’t like this. There isn’t a lot of improvisation but I don’t mind it: I like his melancholy.

But Bremen (Solo concerts) is seriously hot stuff. The only piece of music I’ve heard that made me actually jump up, burst into applause and holler 好阿! like how old men in chinese movies shout at the wayang in the dead of the night while at work.

Not Bearded in Heaven

July 1st, 2009 Uncategorized, music

She has long fingers, blunt and graceful as nudibranches – sometimes in my head, just as many. When she plays, her fingers, white as the sun, plays. They bounce over phrasings with a flourish and she rolls the wrist laguidly over the keys – as if taking a merry stroll in a park. She has long slim hands that she keeps very smooth and white as the sun, although I have never once seen her put any lotion on her hands. Intermittently, she would wipe the keys using the piece of cloth kept at the side of the piano, for the perspiration, she explains.

Come, memory, let us seek them there in the shadows.

All of us hold our hands the way she does, with varying success. Only one other person succeeded changing her hands to an exact copy. She was an older student and while taking the teacher’s diploma, she taught the younger students. She looks like a conventional pianist:  pale and slim with tidily permed hair. In other words, she looks like my piano teacher.

We shall not ever meet them bearded in heaven,

It was with difficulty that I found a fuzzy video of her accompanying her husband on the piano. I didn’t know it was her until her hands bounced and then I’m fourteen again, in the carpeted music room, feeling woefully inadequate, wanting to be elsewhere.

Wubai & China Blue show

May 23rd, 2009 music

Lunchtime in a darkened office:

Me: I’m going to tell you what happened at the concert.
V: [arranges face into polite interest]
Me: What is that face! I don’t care: I’m going to tell you anyway.
V: What? He shook your hand? Smiled at you?
Me: [stopped my jaw dropping] Kinda…
V: WHAT?! [begins to laugh]
Me: It’s sooo funny. I was waving my hand see, then, my God, it’s so funny [I start to crack myself up.] He was singing onstage and he saw my hand and was going to take it, then, had second thoughts… hahahaha… I saw his face and I laughed…hahahaha… and he laughed…..hahahaha
V: What? I don’t know what you’re…. So, he took your hand?
Me: Yes! Yes! It’s so funny! That look. Then, there was this song… something ‘Ai Ni’ and he pointed ‘Ni’ [I point an index finger at my heart]
V: [yelps in laughter]
V: You know… [stops herself]
Me: What?
V: Nothing
Me: WHAT?! Say it!
V: No lah, spoil your….
Me: Of course he didn’t mean it! Are you mad? Do you think I’m mad?
V: [bangs the window sill, helpless with laughter]
V: You know, incase you were thinking of not marrying anyone else other than Wubai. [wipes face]

Joja Wendt Live In Singapore

February 3rd, 2008 music

The MGM lion parody at the start signaled this was no stuffy piano concert. Wendt is a charismatic performer – hardworking, humourous and eager to please. He did some jazz, classical, his own stuff and a lot of comedic effects. He fell off the chair and picked himself up, playing pretend piano all the way to the edge of the piano and on his arm, the grand piano rose and rolled and pretending alarm, he rolled with it.

“….you could almost hear the whisper of the ocean” (He begins and the audience hears the sweeping sound of the ocean overlaying on the intro.)

“For my parents, who made this night possible. And for my children, who made it necessary.”

I can’t recall listening much to the music because he was being so fun and I was distracted by the real time video of his finger work. At the end, the audience loved him back – giving him a well-earned standing ovation for a fantastic night.

Three Rach twos and two Rach three

December 13th, 2007 music

Fry put it so elegantly: “In each of us exist a chord which we wait for someone to strike”.

Lang Lang’s Rach 2 is absolutely yuck. I think he’s showing off what he can do with all the delicate notes and strong loud notes. There’s a sense of exaggerated romance which makes the piece feel as though watching a bad drama – annoyed and cheap. Worse: when the piano and orchestra are not fighting with each other for my attention, the piano sounds cold and boring.

I’ve got another Ashkenazy and this time with Haitink. There is some difference between this and Ashkenazy/Previn but not the kind you can hear at first go. Took me three goesand the volume all the way up to hear it: slightly sweeter, young girl less drama queen. I prefer the one he did with Previn’s conducting, however. I like the big solemn grandness.

Hough/Litton’s treatment makes it almost like an Audrey Hepburn movie, full of light, beauty and happily-ever-afters. The grand gestures are so restrained you leave the top floating down. The whole time, actually, I kept thinking of one of the scenes in a movie – perhaps it was Roman holiday? – where she was walking in the dappled sunlight next to a river heading for a date.

I’ve read that Argerich’s Rach 3 is a keeper. I can’t say I am mad about it but she caught my attention. She was simply amazing at the fast parts, if I were told she had twenty fingers I would have believed it. Her version it didn’t strike the chord I had hoped it would – I felt she was rough. Out of curiosity and mainly, I liked the way they did #2, I listened to Hough/Litton’s Rach 3. I’m not sure why speed is so important to those who were doing Rach 3 – Ashkenazy took a leisurely pace – but Hough/Litton wasn’t speeding just because they can: it sounded dreamy and just right. The sort of music for a night drive with the windows down, I think.

Young Frankenstein

November 9th, 2007 music

Mel Brooks has a new musical in faraway Broadway.
Interview video on Broadway.com

Reviewed online by Bub’s Studio and New York Times here. Bloomberg’s reviewer John Simon also liked it. (“Young Frankenstein” is meant to be a hit, and a hit it assuredly is.)

哎呀! I want to watch!

Feelings…nothing more than feelings

September 7th, 2007 music

It is difficult not to be impressed with Helfgott’s Rach 3. The music is seriously fantastic and it sounds incredibly difficult. He didn’t make a hash of it, and he didnt type out the piece on the keyboard and only a handful would know if it’s done wrong. If a person without specialised knowledge never hears any others would still declare it a favourite work and Helfgott quite alright when in fact he’s like a billionaire who gives his guests porridge and a small piece of fermented beancurd for lunch because cook is out.

I still can’t tell which parts are pallid, erratic and incoherent. Helfgott sounds ok. There is a noticeeable difference, however, between his and Ashkenazy/Previn’s interpretation. When Helfgott plays he reminds me how difficult the piece is with the crashingly loud sounds and the numerous notes crammed together. Ashkenazy/Previn sound effortless. I forget the difficulty of this piece and that first lifts the experience to allow me to wander through the music. Ashkenazy/Previn gave the different sections of the movement more contrast – loud, soft, rapid, slow – to bring out the passion of the piece. His soft notes are achieved with delicacy not volume and his loud bits sound grand. I hear it being softer, warmer, alive, more colourful and more passionate. He gave the listener a full and satisfying meal. But I must say that Helfgott has got a better piano than Ashkenazy. The latter got a what I usually call china-made sounding piano. (An article on piano brands in case you need one can be found here – even if you’re buying it to hold up picture frames, get a good brand.)

This Rach 3 however, did not captivate me as the Rach 2 of the same CD. I almost swooned at the deep rich opening that rings to the depth of one’s soul. I love the romance and the drama. No 2 is marvelous. Life is enriched with this piece in existence. I’m keen to hear other interpretations.

~

Listening I made the connection why – amongst the other faults – I could never play with feelings. Emotion is not from the heart of the pianist even if it sounds as though it is. Emotions arrive from thinking about how the piece should sound – an innate musical ability – and the technical ability to replicate the music in one’s mind. I am not naturally musical and I cannot understand why doesn’t the composer give better instructions if he wanted it that way. My technique is poor and my fingers not clever enough to coax beautiful sounds from the piano. To play with emotion, so I believed that the musician has to be brimming over with emotions first and let it pour through music. So I used to rock back and forth on the piano chair like a bad actor expressing grand romance, light comedy or deep melancholy. My teacher, very kind, did not laugh at me. I would have hooted myself out of the door.

The flesh pimples in ecstasy!

September 4th, 2007 music

The No. 2 is seriously fantastic and I’m getting the feeling that I will be collecting the various recordings available.There is a recording available online for download – Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto 2.

On seriously sucky sounding youtube so bad there is no point watching it but if you really want to, Horowitz plays Piano Concerto No 3:

Allegro Ma Nan Tanto
Intermezzo, Adagio
Finale, Alla Breve

I found a fan forum discussing the merits of various Rach 3 recordings.

Rachmaninov Piano Concertos No 1 – 4

September 2nd, 2007 music

I have been blasting Shine Soundtrack, in particular Rachmaninov Concerto No 3 – the “pallid, erratic and incoherent” version according to critic (although not that I can tell the difference). Accompanied a friend to the shops this afternoon and picked up the Ashkenazy/Previn version from HMV – I really want to hear what it’s like when done right. I think I need more than a few more listens before I can tell where it is pallid, erratic and incoherent. No.2, however, is fantastic. I love it! (The adagio sostenuto is in a pop song or a movie, I’m sure of it.)

This is a sweet story of a man chucking his day job to play the Rach 3.

Bavarian Radio Chorus & Cognito

June 10th, 2007 music, theatre

Bavarian Radio Chorus (2nd June)
Art is for the damaged not the tired and hungry masses. Having been at the pool daily and by nine, I would be sleepy, which is no good for enjoying performance. I was awake for Bach (Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf), Orlando di Lasso (Lamentatio No. 1: Prima secundi Diei), Mozart (Ave verum corpus) and the last three bits of Mendelssohn (Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen; Richte mich Gott; Warum toben die Heiden). The bits I heard were beautifully sung. (The bits I didn’t hear gave me entertaining dreams.) I was touched by the Lamentation especially – it was sweet more than mournful, it was melodious than grave. The chorus wholly deserved the three curtain calls. Encore pieces were two chinese songs. Chinese choral groups have a fondness for roundness in the words, which meant that the first word blends into the next. I could never understand what they were warbling about. The Bavarian Radio Chorus sang with lovely crisp diction. I even recognised one of the folk song – something my mother hummed when she worked on her accounts.

Cogito
I like Sulaiman when he was pretending not to be serious: his point is sharper and the play is fun. He could be either tired of being commercial and wanting to be seriously arty – he did turn out in a suit this time – or this is his true self. Whatever the case may be, I don’t like this one.

The premise is interesting: a man created three versions of his wife. The meeting of these three women is so unrealistic (nobody was shocked, nobody was fascinated, nobody wanted to kill the doppleganger, nobody wanted to learn about the clone) that it makes me think that Sulaiman wanted to get this inconvenience out of the way to begin his mental meandering. The lack of other characters (there is only one other person on stage) and of stage settings (except some lighting on the floor), also made me wonder halfway through the show if this is an exercise in the mind of a suicidal woman. If so, I can accept that there is no conclusion of what makes up an identity because the woman is tired of meandering at the end one hour plus.

Yes, it’s very clever, and it wants to make me think about what makes me me, but seriously, do you need to spend all these money to make me think about that, or more to the point, make me spend the money listening to other people ramble on about identity without a conclusion? (I know that some writers crank out experimental plays where there are no conclusions, supposedly to effect a mental inquiry in the audience but usually the effect turned out to be like a writer too lazy to finish a thought or too worried to take a side.)

I think it is better off a short story, re-written multiple times and kept at the bottom drawer for a few years before resurfacing for another re-write before it is presented in a complilation of short stories. Play – no, and most vehemently so.

Celeb sighting: Lim Kay Siu, Ivan Heng (one row away from me!), Hossen Leong and George Chan. They must be really give face to Sulaiman to have turn up.