The Handsome Trpčeski Strikes Again

Tonight's concert on a cold and rainy night was the following:

KEN YOUNG Remembering for Violin and Orchestra (World Premiere)
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No 12 The Year 1917

YOEL LEVI Conductor
SIMON TRPČESKI Piano
VESA-MATTI LEPPÄNEN Violin

We did something that we should not have... we ducked out at intermission. I am working hard these days and while we did have the symphony on the stereo most of the day, it just seemed like too long of a day and it was nice to be back home cuddled up with the dog, instead still in the hall with the earnestness (and some beauty actually) of the Russian Revolution set to music.

SO, we missed the symphony.

The opener was a lovely tone poem, as it were, for violin and orchestra. Elegiac, poised and beautifully textured---- I want to hear it again and I want to hear more from this Ken Young, who came on stage to acknowledge the warm applause. Lovely lovely piece.



As you can imagine, though, it was all about teh Trpčeski for us. Rachmaninoff's warhorse, whose rhetoric can seem a little shallow sometimes (and it shouldn't!), was presented as the masterpiece it is. The tempos when fast, raced; when to be slow and reflective, they were certainly that. He made my eyes water in the 18th variation. He found the melodies in the fastest and most chaotic sections. He and Levi were always together. Levi is great! The conclusion was exciting! The performance was classicaly elegant, yet fully and utterly romantic (which tells you any number of things about him as a performer and about the aesthetics applicable to the superlative). He had this thing as carefully thought out as I imagine De la Rocha has her Mozart or Albeniz. Really amazing. It appeared to be note perfect according to my memory grooves of this piece (and believe you me I know it like I know the other Rachmaninoff concerti). I hope to hear him again and I hope his reputation explodes across the firmament and all the world is abuzz!

I am teh rave. Yep.

Mas, siempre mas.

PS: While I was wandering toward the door in a fog, TRH met the man of the hour and talked to him. OMG, as the young people might write/text/say.

PS, the second: When Trpčeski was not having to play, he was chewing the scenery with grimaces or arms deliberately raising to a point to mark a point of articulation in the orchestra's phrasing. He was totally into the drama of this piece of quite dramatic contrasts and minus the presence of his sovereign muscial mastery this behavior would have been irritating. But it was present, and so all the divo behavior was both charming and electrifying.

Mas de Pictures from January Trip to South Island

On the way to Dunedin:





Panoramas of, a monument above, and the botanic gardens in Dunedin:

Does not do it justice...

...but this is a picture of a double rainbow (see the ghost to the right for the other arc) that was resplendent in the sky for almost 40 minutes around 5:00 PM today. If I may say so, we deserved this show. It was a dark and rainy day all day. This is out our window.

By way of NJ...

... by way of D --who is not much of an opera person (D, that is, NJ is a fanatic about teh opera)--so that it got their attention could be an argument in its favor, or not, come to think of it....well no more of that-- is the following bravura aria from Rossini's Zelmira. It is Juliya Lezhneva who is only 18 years old, evidently, and the winner of the Grand Prix in the 6th International E.V.Obraztsova Competition (documentation of all the foregoing available on YouTube). This looks like part of the competition itself (the climactic victor's lap, as it were, or something?) and did I see Felicity Lott on the jury (or have I forgotten what Obraztsova looks like? Or?)? So many questions. ANYWAY, besides the final note, which reminded me of last year's Lucia around here (Private to Juliya: "Listen, girlfriend, don't do it if you can't hold it!"), it's pretty damn good. Listen and see for yourself:

More pictures from our trip down south last January

Here are some Summer shots. Oh how it aches to see the summer sun and the shadows when they fall that way NOW when we have this sun and the shadows falling this way in the depths of Winter. That said, today was gorgeous in Wellington... so ache is not so sharp (for the moment! [as I must add cuz I must rock the cranky on teh "angry" blog, of course])

Anyway... first up is

He who must be obeyed:



Queenstown:





Milford Sound:




South coast to the west of Invercargill:



More to come, at some point...yeah.

Not Something You See Every Day

Don't ask. It will take too long.

Noted with Pleasure

Virginia Burrus (pg. 64 in her 2004 The Sex Lives of Saints: An Erotics of Ancient Hagiography) on St. Jerome's Paula:

"What Lynda Coon has dubbed ‘the patristic theology of the cosmetic’ is more than a matter of simple inversion. Resisting Jerome, Paula claims her ascetic practice as her own. Seeming to swap beauty for ugliness and pleasure for pain, she is making herself over as the bride of Christ. Her fasts are heroic (17), her illnesses frequent (19). Face furrowed by grief, body practically a corpse, her mortal flesh betrays an immense desire. Good looks disordered, her power to please is out this world."

"Her power to please is out of this world!"

[!]

You go girl, as the young people used to say.

Reception

Is this a "family blog"?-- I hate that term, effing "family blog", by the way, AND all those terms that talk about family this or family that. There is a big presumption there (a family has children in it, duh) and in the end it has less to do with children (who tend to be cruel and filthy-minded, anyway--- I mean I was there and So. Were. You.), and more to do with adults pulling a power-play on other adults. Could people mind their own business and not brandish the kids in this way? It's a thought.

That out of the way--- (and, btw, is this becoming an "Angry Blog"? Possibly.), check out what I have to *deal with* on our very own street in sweet Ngaio in Wellington:

TWO VEHICLES, PARKED


VEHICLE ON RIGHT:


VEHICLE ON LEFT:


Um...teh provocative... what I will say is the following: "interpretation happens at the point of reception." Or Pehaps "Othay Reekgay actionshay in teh Ulcay de Acsay."

Consumatum est. I give too much.

Later.

Moonrise on Cape Sounion

Look what I found at Aprile Millo's blog:



This is the most recent full moon rising right behind the temple precinct at Cape Sounion in Greece.

I of course visited this gorgeous temple (to Poseidon? Yeah? For the Romanist it is use it or lose it!) with the students in 2006 (and am slated to take another group to Greece in 2009). Here are two of my shots from 2006:





Now it is back the mines and my final labors on my book project which just seems to go on and on. (People are all like-- though they don't quite say it--- what is taking you so long?-- and all I can say [and they still don't get it] is that the demands of what I want to say and how I want to say it require that certain labor intensive things need to happen...maybe I am deluded about this.... but I have had success in the past in presenting results and in other ways, so I should follow my judgment here...and so I WILL... but...) Um, Mark, STFU and BACK THE MINES ALREADY!!

New Zealand Symphony Concert

Am I back? Well for the moment. At least. We will talk this one step at a time. First right, then left, and then we will see if I can get back into the swing.

What I did not tell you about, and which I should have I suppose, was the La Boheme back in May. The cast was good looking and they sang well enough and the Mimi in fact was even better than that. She was Antoinette Halloran who I suggest that you should try to see if she comes your way. She does have the goods. BUT, on the whole--and I am bucking the tide here, everyone "loved it," I tell you, they just "loved it"-- it was fairly provincial in terms of the expertise of most of the singers. The Rodolfo was nice, but I am so over these facsimiles of a ping when it is just tightness with just a glint of something more. But you know I need to get over myself and remember that I live in the provinces--- BUT all the same it gets irritating when the whiff of a possibility of a suspicion of ping gets the ladies and gents a-swooning--- can we not get SO excited. It is too much to ask? Clearly, it is.

Anyway, tonight TRH and I saw our excellent symphony in this program:

RAVEL La Valse
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No 2
TCHAIKOVSKY Manfred Symphony

Here are the conductor and the soloist:

YOEL LEVI Conductor
SIMON TRPČESKI Piano

It was a really good concert. The La Valse was quite engrossing and was making a nice big sound by the end. This Yoel Levi is good. He really made sure the orchestra was articulating cleanly and carefully. And he really demands and gets gradations in volume.

The concerto was a treat. Everyone and their dog of course knows this warhorse like the back of their hand, and we around here are no exception to this. Though not French, Trpčeski (how is that for a bunch of consonants at the beginning of his name!---FYI he is Macedonian), he played as though he were as French as Thibaudet. Lines were clear, clean, classical and surely St. Saens had to be smiling from somewhere as he heard his work played so elegantly and yet with fire that it needs in spots. Trpčeski, handsome devil that he is---- check him out!:



--- will be back in two weeks to play the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Rachmaninoff and we are certainly looking forward to that.

The last work on the program was the rhapsodic Manfred Symphony. I really enjoyed this too. Again the careful control that Levi has over the orchestra paid dividends (as it did in the concerto, where the two of them combined efforts to bring out St. Saens' musical argument). The first three movements came off well. The banging conclusion to the first movement caused applause to erupt and that was not suprising, given the excellent playing and conducting. TRH found the finale somewhat rambling but I rushed to Peter Illych's defense in the car on the way home--- talking about what the audience of the time would have known about Manfred and such. (I will admit here that I sort of agree with him--- but don't tell him.) I did like the quiet ending with the great man finally after all his struggles finding rest.

(This orchestra is not provincial, by the way.)

Trip Down South (Many Pictures Here and To Come)

We were away from late January until about the 11th and I missed the birthday of one of my sisters. Guilt, guilt! I think I will call her like this weekend. Anyway, we went down to the deep south of the South Island.

First up was Christ Church. The first two pictures were taken at a place that we had breakfast in this city. Sophie, the proprietress, is a total character. She and TRH, needless to say, got along well, as he is a character too.

The remaining pictures were taken in the Botanic Gardens. The terrier was not allowed in, so you will not see him. Imagine him sulking in the car under a nice shady tree, for that was where he was. More pictures from this trip will be posted in due course. I am working on research and teaching and they are keeping me very busy!