It had been a long time coming: our last live concert was on 6 December 2019, also at the Barbican, for a recital by Russian pianist Arcadi Volodos, who performed a programme of works by Liszt and Robert Schumann.
By the end of that year, we’d been to five concerts/recitals (plus four operas together – one further one for me – and one play). Hopefully, this doesn’t make me sound like a dilletante in the culture vulture stakes.
Yet I had realised by late last autumn that while concerts were hardly an everyday experience for us, they were the form of entertainment outside the home that I missed most deeply. Perhaps there’s a sort of spiritual basis for that? Whatever.
On Friday 11 December last (my birthday, as it happens) I’d optimistically booked tickets for the Barbican on 10 January, for a recital by the wonderful young British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. That went the way of all flesh only shortly thereafter, as London was plunged into tier three – and then the whole country into lockdown three.
As I said, the return has been a long time coming – and not least for all the musicians and backstage and front of house staff. The UK government, as with all bombastic, flag-shagging, populist regimes, seems determined to play down and denigrate the arts in general, irrespective of what they give to the country as a whole – even in terms of being a major attraction for tourism and, therefore, a big earner for the economy.
But hey ... if we had a half-way decent government in Westminster, it’s possible that we wouldn’t be where we are now.
Anyway, Wednesday was one of three socially distanced concerts at the Barbican being given by the London Symphony Orchestra, under conductor laureate Michael Tilson Thomas, and featuring Yuja Wang on piano.
The programme opened with the five very pleasant minutes of The Last Spring by Grieg, from his Two Elegiac Melodies, opus 34.
Then came Ms Wang to the stage for Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto – the Brief Encounter one.
After 35 minutes of that, we were served up Beethoven’s fifth symphony – synchronicity allowing that it takes the same time to perform.
It was a relatively short concert with no interval, but superbly chosen. Both of the main works are iconic – or at least, have iconic musical moments and phrases that possibly do the full works a disservice.
Personally, Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto is my favourite and I have rather dismissed the second because of the over-familiarity of its theme.
But here, it became new, the musical quotes back in context and not dominating the whole. Wang’s playing can be both muscular and exquisitely delicate. It was a glorious performance.
I teared up so often, but I remain slightly unsure as to whether that was the music itself, the performance and/or simply Being Back. Probably a full house. It had the feeling of a religious experience (and I do actually know what those are like!).
The Beethoven was a revelation for similar reasons to the Rachmaninov. Freed from being reduced to that brief, opening quote, the symphony becomes so much more. Not least, it can be viewed as a sort of struggle between the Classical and Romantic eras of western music that Beethoven bridged – and indeed, created the bridge between.
The first movement has a sense of the revolutionary – a hint of sturm und drang. The second then seems to leap back to a more courtly approach.
Only a week or so before, the OH and I had listened to a classic von Karajan recording of the sixth symphony, The Pastoral, on 180g vinyl. There, it is so easy to comprehend Beethoven, in effect, painting pictures in music. Here, you feel the struggle to reach that – and that is fascinating.
This week’s concert also made me consider my relationship with Mozart and why I don’t want to spend much time with his music. It’s as though Beethoven brought the emotion – and Mozart avoided it.
That’s a slightly simplistic view, of course – but not that much. My favourite piece of Mozart – and it’s one of my favourite pieces of music per se – is the requiem. But I think that’s because it has real emotional heft rather than simply being a bonbon for a not-very-intelligent emperor.
The playing throughout was wonderful. Ms Wang is a superb pianist – I have ordered several of her recordings on the basis of what we saw and heard.
I’ve been shielding for much of that last year – and fortunate enough to have been able to work from home throughout. It’s not all been bad, but it’s not all been great either.
And getting back to hear music like this, played like this, was special almost beyond belief.
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