.
So my Berlin music season is underway. A little ahead of schedule. The Pianosalon had a late change of programme for last night, and the replacement was a nice sounding concert – Rachmaninov, César Franck – by Bernard Klöckner (cello) and pianist Anna Fedorova. So we put on our shoes, and headed up the road to our favourite concert venue.
So my Berlin music season is underway. A little ahead of schedule. The Pianosalon had a late change of programme for last night, and the replacement was a nice sounding concert – Rachmaninov, César Franck – by Bernard Klöckner (cello) and pianist Anna Fedorova. So we put on our shoes, and headed up the road to our favourite concert venue.
A night at the
Pianosalon – alas! Their programmes always start anywhere between 8.30 and 9pm
– is traditionally prefaced by a meal at the Uferlos restaurant, so a huge plate
of spätzle and salad was the start to the evening …
It was grand to be
back at the Pianosalon. It is such a warm, characterful place, just made for
music. I was sad to hear that it is going to have to shift premises, but
apparently not far and into another characterful building, so fingers crossed.
And let’s enjoy this version of the venue while we can.
The well-attended concert
started with a piece called, inexplicably, ‘The Enchantment of Venus’ by Howard
Blake. I don’t know whether that was Venus the goddess or Venus the planet, but
I found it rather nothingish. And the sound was odd. The piano sounded as if
the pedal had got stuck (it hadn’t, I looked), and the cello sounded, from note
one, like honey. Which is lovely, but too much honey becomes … well, too much.
There is nothing wrong with the accoustic in the Salon, was it the placing of
the instruments? The cellist spent a lot of time looking off stage right (and
half the audience looking thus at nothing but his left elbow). I don’t know.
The Franck was
somewhat livelier and definitely more tuneful, the Rachmaninov … well, was the
Rachmaninov. It’s hard, listening to young artists playing works that you have
heard played by the greats. For me, something just didn’t click wholly. The
young man is a very facial player, somehow the expression in his features just
didn’t seem to come down the bow and out of the instrument. And I was
irresistibly reminded of that painting of Edith Sitwell (was it?) with a cello
or bass.
Then came the
unscheduled programme. Calling additional numbers ‘encores’ is a bit silly.
And, strangely, when the players let loose on a Chopin polonaise, the
constraint seemed to have gone. As if saying ‘well, we’ve got through the big
stuff, let’s have fun’. And it was fun. So (apart from another smidgin of
Blake), we ended on an upbeat.
One lingers a
little in the atmosphere of the Pianosalon, but the hour was tardy, and we’ll
be back soon … so off to the Hochstrasse and bed. If that night out hasn’t
killed my jetlag, nothing will.
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