Back in business

I was going to jump straight back into music but i thought maybe some of you might want to know if in the meantime i had been abducted by aliens or something....

Sadly, no such thing happend...now, that would have been something to write about!!!

I just moved from the Auld Reekie to the Big Smoke... Or for those of you not from round here from here :

to here:

I won't bore you with horror details of the move, just take my advice: if you are thinking of moving, unless it is a matter of life and death...forget it!!!!

As to Edinburgh.... I will always love it and although there is not a drop of Scottish blood in my veins, there will always be a wee corner of my heart which has become Scottish and will stay that way forever :-)

I don't know if i will ever love London.... it will never have the spicy homey smell of malt... it will always be dusty and crowded ...or maybe i am just too provicial... i guess, in the end i will learn to live with it. And whenever i will find myself disliking something about it, i will just keep reminding myself that at least i adore one part of it, which is the ROH :-)

Inbetween the boxes and the stress there was music, because there was the Festival! It began with Hvorostovsky, but luckily it didn't end there: there was the London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev and the fascinating Prokofiev, Leonidas Kavakos and Tatjana Vassiljeva, there was the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov, Ades and Messiaen, there was Christine Schafer. I promise to come back to them and tell you all about it. I am sorry, it will be old news by then, but at least it will be good news.

It was a long, long and pretty cold summer, in which i terribly missed the warm voice of Jonas Kaufmann. The radiobroadcast of the Montpellier concert with Nathalie Dessay provided some relief and i wrote and wrote and wrote about it (unfortunately in every prossible language but English and not in my own blog :-( I wish i was a less distracted person! I might try and at least leave here a post with links to some of my digressions on the subject). The preview on his upcoming Romeo next year was amazing to say the least! Even I was surprised by the utter sweetness, tenderness and dreamlike quality of his love duet with Juliet!!! And the bits from Manon with Nathalie almost drove me to buying a Lottery ticket in the hope of being able to make that trip to Chicago... Alas, i am poorer then ever (a move does that to one's budget!) but thanks to generous American sponsors we all will be able to indulge in the premiere of the event via radio ( check out Marion's page for details). I will stop myself from going on about the subject, but don't worry, you will not be dissapointed! as i am sure rivers will flow from my pen after the broadcast :-)

But i did say i was back in business and i am still talking in past tense...

Yesterday night the moving blues gave way to joy thanks to my personal kick off of the London music season. In this post i will just say one name: Joyce DiDonato!

PS Thanks so very very much to everyone who showed, told, wrote me their support and sorry if i was a pain from time to time...it is all over now :-) And thanks to all of you, i didn't jump of a bridge, down a hill or even down the waaay to narrow stairs of my house ;-)))

Dmitri Hvorostovsky - Russian passion at the Edinburgh festival

My festival started with a bang!! And probably started the way it should have ended, in absolute mind blowing, soul filling superlatives!

Translation: I experienced my first live “song evening”! And it was to be a memorable one, by the hand of Dmitri Hvorostovsky and in Russian no less! I say if you decide to do something new, do it properly!

Usher Hall was packed but one cannot say it was dressed for the evening... It looked more like a bombed place where big holes in the walls were hidden behind wooden panels. However, it is still a miracle they are able to hold concerts there at all considering that just a few days ago the place was totally uninhabitable.

In the middle of a song we also heard a loud bang, which could be either of – the first set of firework at this year’s Military tattoo or the workers dropping some boxes 3 floors down. Hvorostovsky reckoned the roof didn’t tremble too much during the evening ;-)

Considering that my vocabulary in Russian is reduced to “vodka” , which I don’t like, and “spasiva” which probably sounds like everything else but thanks, I was quite apprehensive about enjoying the evening. So in order to prevent linguistic frustration I did my homework and read all possible translations of what would be the program of the night; some I did not find at all but I armed myself with trust in the wonderful performer which I had first heard in a ROH Traviata.

But I found that homework wasn’t necessary, because the artist translated with his voice, tone, gestures and gazes all you would ever need to know about Russian. It did give me however the freedom to ignore the program pages in my lap and tie my eyes to Dmitri. Some would think that “fun” is not the right word for describing an evening of Russian songs, but it is exactly what I experienced. They are often depicted as being an endless road to depression, but I found them much more intense and multifaceted than that. Yes there is winter cold, and sadness about lives’ struggle, there is hope of end and fear of betrayal but there is so much more and so much more powerful. And with such a passionate and consummate performer the songs grew to impressive dimensions. Even if you didn’t understand the word, you saw the sadness in his eyes, you heard the suffering in his tone, you saw the rage and frustration in his hand. And you heard sarcasm flow from his lips, just as you saw them curb in the most lender of smiles.



It is a true artist’s achievement to spellbind an audience of thousands in a foreign language with just your voice and a piano. Gradually people forgot about their programs and just listened to Dmitri tell us wonderful stories. There was a strong connection there, a dialogue of smiles, eyes and ears, which thankfully survived even the constant interruptions of applause after each song. It became more relaxed and familiar than such evening might be, but I don’t think it lost any of the intensity of the performance.

For more details on the program of the evening please see intermezzo! I felt that I had little to tell about the songs after this, but I decided that it gave me such an unforgettable experience and such pleasure that I had to say thanks once again to Dmitri and Ivari Ilja, who so sensitively and finely accompanied the songs with his piano.

I liked all songs, the sad ones, the melancholic ones, the furious ones and the merry ones, but above all the ironic ones. Watching Dmitri sing Tchaikosvky’s Pimpinella is just pure fun!!!

And he has the most amazing technique and endless breath, guaranteed to make the audience’s jaws drop to the floor where they stayed for pretty much of the evening ;-) My only slight disappointment was not hearing Goethe’s “Gluckliche Fahrt” and “Uber alle Gipfeln ” in original, but Medtner’s music and Dmitri’s singing fully compensated for that.

Dmitri was also dressed for the part, all black silk and flowing lines around his shoulders and arms which made his movements even more gracious.

This was and evening of pure, refined Russian passion to die for!

And for me one of many many more song evening to follow, whatever the language.

Watch out for the repeat later this year at the Barbican and on the 15th on BBC for the broadcast of the evening in Edinburgh.

Here is a small taster of an older version of PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY "In the Midst of the Ball," Op. 38, No. 3

Thanks for the video dokoleg1

For further reviews please see the Scotsman and the Herald