Urlicht by Gustav Mahler

This was Sir Simon Rattle’s farewell concert with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, which he led for 18 years. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, of course. I wish I’d been there.

Brown Bread: Professor Hubert Rees

Professor Hubert Rees: scientist and bomber pilot | Times Online Obituary

I only recently learned, with deep sadness, of the death of Professor Hubert Rees DFC FRS, the highly respected scientist and Second World War pilot who was reported missing in action in 1944.

The Times obituary is a fine tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life.

I got to meet Professor Rees, his wife Mavis and their family through their daughter Jude (with whom I lived nearly twenty years ago) and enjoyed their excellent hospitality and generosity many times in Aberystwyth and Swansea.

Those were my drinking days, so my memories of that period are incomplete, but one thing I remember clearly is the “Doctor’s Nightmare”, an enormous fried breakfast served up in the staff bar and dining room of Aberystwyth University, a highly effective hangover cure when washed down with a couple of pints of bitter.

R.I.P. Professor Hubert Rees 1923 – 2009

Falling Down

The “I want breakfast” scene from Joel Schumacher’s excellent 1993 film is probably the one most people remember, although there are funnier and more powerful scenes (I’m thinking of Michael Douglas’s first encounter with the Hispanic gang members, or his visit to the army surplus store).

I’m sure the reason this particular scene is so famous is that every person in the world who has ever eaten at a restaurant where there are pictures of the food on the menu can identify with it.

What makes it memorable for me is the outrageous scene-stealing performance of Dedee Pfeiffer (Michelle’s younger sister) as Sheila the Whammyburger waitress. I wonder whether she was asked to play the part this way. Anyway, just watch her.

Richard Wagner: Idle Thoughts

The only pig in Afghanistan

Wagner’s music has long been easiest to take in “bleeding chunks”, and indeed in chunks which are purely orchestral, from which that is to say the singers are excluded. The reason for the popularity of such chunks is not as might at first be thought their comparative brevity, but simply the absence of singers.

Therefore the solution to the Wagner problem suddenly becomes obvious: get rid of all the singing! It is in fact the singers who, with their groping for the note, their wide vibrato, their frequent lack of correct rhythm, and their inability to sing quietly, spoil the music and are putting potential audiences off.

Just three changes, then, will suffice to render Wagner good for the 21st century:

replace all the voice parts with suitable instruments – either singly or in combination – as is already often done in the case of Isolde’s Liebestod;

display the words of the libretto (no longer sung) on a rolling screen over the stage of the opera house, or (at home) as sub-titles superimposed on the screen of one’s audio or video player – one language at a time should suffice;

introduce ballet dancers instead of the singers – dancers, freed from the obligation to warble, will be able to portray the action of Wagner’s operas in a much more effective, energetic and striking way.

Igor Stravinsky conducts L’oiseau de feu

Here are some of Stravinsky’s thoughts on other composers, taken from Robert Craft’s less than reliable book Conversations with Igor Stravinsky:

I remember seeing Mahler in St. Petersburg. His concert there was a triumph. Rimsky was still alive, I believe, but he wouldn’t have attended because a work by Tchaikovsky was on the programme (I think it was Manfred, the dullest piece imaginable). Mahler also played some Wagner fragments and a symphony of his own. Mahler impressed me greatly, himself and his conducting.

Rachmaninov’s immortalizing totality was his scowl. He was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall scowl. He was the only pianist I have ever seen who did not grimace. That is a great deal.

Ravel? When I think of him, for example in relation to Satie, he appears quite ordinary. His musical judgement was quite acute, however, and I would say that he was the only musician who immediately understood Le Sacre du Printemps.

Satie was certainly the oddest person I have ever known, but the most rare and consistently witty person, too. No one ever saw him wash – he had a horror of soap. He was always very poor, poor by conviction, I think. His apartment did not have a bed but only a hammock. In winter Satie would fill bottles with hot water and put them flat in a row underneath his hammock. It looked like some strange kind of marimba.

We – and I mean the generation who are now saying “Webern and me” – must remember only Schoenberg’s perfect works, the Five Pieces for Orchestra, Herzgewächse, Pierrot, the Serenade, the Variations for orchestra and the Seraphita song from Op. 22. By these works Schoenberg is among the great composers. They constitute the true tradition.

If I were able to penetrate the barrier of style (Berg’s radically alien emotional climate) I suspect he would appear to me as the most gifted constructor in form of the composers of this century. His legacy contains very little on which to build, however. He is at the end of a development.

I would like to admit all Strauss operas to whichever purgatory punishes triumphant banality. Their musical substance is cheap and poor; it cannot interest a musician today. I am glad that young musicians today have come to appreciate the lyric gift in the songs of the composer Strauss despised, and is more significant in our music than he is: Gustav Mahler.

Lera Auerbach

Pianist Lera Auerbach, who defected from the Soviet Union at 17, makes her New Orleans debut Friday, writes Chris Waddington @ nola.com:

She was just 17. She had no money, no contacts, and couldn’t speak English. She knew that she might never see her family again. And yet, on a day in 1991, Lera Auerbach decided to stay in New York City, joining the last generation of artists to defect from the Soviet Union.

Two decades later, that gifted young pianist from a small Siberian town has emerged as an in-demand international soloist and is widely regarded as one of the 21st century’s most compelling composers.

“To stay in New York was a very spontaneous decision,” Auerbach said. “I was a sheltered child, so coming to America was a shock, like travelling to the moon. But I had an intuition that this would be my chance to grow as an artist and as a person. Fate gave me a chance at that moment.”

Princess Michael gets arty with Emin

(Sunday Times)

The Queen once quipped that she was “too grand for us”. Now Princess Michael of Kent has struck up an unlikely friendship with Tracey Emin, the one-time bad girl of Brit Art, to modernise and “educate” her artistic tastes.

The princess, who is married to the Queen’s first cousin, used to live in Nether Lypiatt, a Gloucestershire manor house filled with antiques, family portraits and porcelain, but her new friend is giving her advice on starting a modern art collection. They have recently been visiting galleries together, discussing possible purchases.

The backgrounds of the pair could hardly be more different. Emin, 46, the daughter of a Turkish Cypriot father and an English mother, spent a turbulent and troubled childhood in Margate, Kent. She is known for her raucous, often sexually explicit art. Princess Michael was born to central European aristocracy, married Prince Michael of Kent, and now lives in a flat in Kensington Palace after selling Nether Lypiatt to Lord Drayson, the Labour peer, for £5.75m.

Recent developments have allowed the tastes of the two women to converge. While Emin’s wildness has mellowed, the former Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, 64, has cleared out many of her heirlooms as she is forced to make economies and downsize her lifestyle. Last week, the princess told The Sunday Times she was “gently starting to collect contemporary art” with help from her “great friend Tracey Emin”. In addition to their tours of dealers and arts world functions, the pair have been seen lunching at the St John Bread & Wine restaurant near Emin’s flat in east London and have taken tea at Kensington Palace.

This month, the princess was spotted at the Frieze art fair in London eyeing a pair of works by Georg Baselitz, the German neo-expressionist painter. She has also taken to Emin’s own art. At one auction, she bid for a piece featuring a comment about the artist’s love life scrawled in neon, but did not win it.

“She clearly likes the woman and she’s stimulated by her,” said a friend. “They’ve obviously found a connection and she’s learning from her.”

Related:

Tracey Emin @ Aberdeen Art Gallery
Tracey Emin: My LIfe In A Column

Roasted vegetables with goat’s cheese and smashed tomatoes

This makes a lovely lunch dish on its own, or can be served as an accompaniment to simply grilled meat. The sweet zingy topping is delicious on just about anything. Sometimes for a snack I spread it on toast, perhaps with a little ricotta.

For the smashed tomatoes:
12 cherry tomatoes
salt and freshly ground black pepper
200ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves only
3 good-quality anchovies packed in salt
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 tbsp good-quality red-wine vinegar

For the vegetables:
1 sweet potato
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
4-5 stalks of sprouting broccoli, trimmed but leaving some dark leaves attached
the juice of one lemon
80ml extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
120g little cooked white beans, such as cannellini
160g soft goat’s cheese

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the tomatoes in a roasting tray with a little salt and pepper and drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil. Place on the middle shelf and roast for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes are bursting from their skins. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a large mortar and pestle, place the rosemary leaves, anchovies and garlic and pound until you have a rough paste; now add the tomatoes two or three at a time, pounding in small increments, otherwise they tend to go everywhere.

Keep adding until all the tomatoes are incorporated, then add the vinegar. Stir well, then pour in the remaining olive oil, stirring as you go. Set aside to allow the flavours to become acquainted.

To make the vegetables, keep the oven at 200°C. Place the sweet potato in a roasting tray, pour over the olive oil, maple syrup and tamari, toss together with your hands and roast in the oven until caramelised, which should take 20-25 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool to room temperature. Boil a large pan of well-salted water and plunge the broccoli in; cook for two minutes. Drain, dress with the olive oil and lemon juice and season with the salt and pepper. Arrange the broccoli, beans and sweet potato attractively on a plate, crumble over the goat’s cheese, spoon the crushed tomato over the top and serve.

Katherine Jenkins “Almost Raped” 10 Years Ago

To coincide with the release of her seventh album Believe on October 26, Katherine Jenkins has revealed to Piers Morgan how she was almost raped.

“I remember him grunting at me. He started dragging me and I remember my purse was there so I knew he wasn’t just trying to mug me and somehow I managed to get out of his grip and I thought ‘My gosh, I’m going to get away from him’.”

“He kind of threw his weight against me and I hit the wooden wall and then I just thought, ‘Right, he is actually going to try and rape me, so if I can get in a ball on the floor … then he won’t be able to do it.’ So I did that and he kicked me a few times and tried to get me to open up, and that didn’t work … and then eventually I gave him my purse, which didn’t have much money in it because I was a student. He ran to the end of the road and then stopped and looked back at me and laughed. And I’ll never forget his face.”

The star was not able to identify her attacker.

Ah guarda sorella by Mozart