ASR – StopPress 102

No pictures
please – no kidding

Mike
gets more culture
21.2.12 – Dick’s MAMIL* mate, Doug Macrae, had purchased
some tickets for the ACO concert at the Town Hall on Sunday
arvo, and as Mary was unable to attend I got the guernsey
in her place. But first, lunch; and after a fraught ten minutes
sorting out a parking spot I arrived at The European at precisely
the agreed time to find Dick, Doug and Terry already seated
inside. Doug’s daughter Catherine arrived a few minutes later
to complete the party, the pinot was ordered and the menu
fretted over. Dick, Terry and I went for the wild rabbit pie.
There was quite a bit of chat, some of which I actually heard,
and a second bottle of pinot ordered – and despatched. After
desserts and teas and coffee we wandered down to the Town
Hall and found our seats on the balcony. (pic) In
no time at all the ACO trouped on stage and began lightly
scraping their instruments with their bows, which turned out
to be the first piece of the program, Paganini’s Caprice on
Caprices. The tinnitus in my right ear was somewhat louder
than all of

this scraping business, which was
when I began to suspect we were seated rather too far away from
the stage to fully appreciate the subtleties that were to unfold.

That aside, I approved of the next offering, the Morricone Adagio,
but then found myself nodding off during the Chopin concerto
– I was however favourably struck by the way the pianist, Ms
Polina Leschenko, lithely leapt from her piano stool immediately
she’d concluded the piece. After the intermission the Henryk
Górecki. Piano Concerto was a bit of fun, (I’ve only
heard mournful Górecki in the past), and a beaming Ms
Leschenko positively bounced from her stool when that jolted
to a stop.
The Russian’s part in the afternoon’s proceedings concluded
the grand piano was wheeled to the side of the stage and Richard
Tognetti and the ACO, sans the bassist and the really
short girl who had her own riser, finished the program off with
Mendelssohn’s Octet, the first movement of which I’ve heard
lots on radio, but which on hearing live, even if a little on
the quiet side, seemed to rekindle itself for me at least and
I marvelled at Mendelssohn’s precocious exuberance and deftness
of touch.
It was a curious program though, and I could perhaps understand
some purist failing to be moved by any of it. Being in the pleasant
position of being gifted the afternoon’s entertainment however,
I enjoyed every moment, even the snoozy bits.

*MAMIL
– middle-aged men in lycra

Denis
and his band sweating
Rehearsal
with Denis
16.2.12 – The couple
of days of heat Melbourne’s been experiencing broke with a desultory
thunder storm an hour before I was due to leave for the Denis
Walter rehearsal I’d insisted on attending, but it was still
oppressively humid when I arrived in Prahran. I wasn’t even
sure where Revolver was, never having worked there, but I remembered
there were stairs. It was only after I’d clambered to the top
of those wretched stairs that it occurred to me that there must
be actual rehearsal rooms somewhere else in the building, and
so I was relieved when a friendly Jack Black-type gently steered
me to the back of the café I’d not suspected was there
and all the way downstairs again to the Revolver Rehearsal Studios.
Eventually I found the steamy room Denis and the lads (pic)
were in, and after they’d run through Ginger Man I
was on. My rehearsal lasted all of four minutes and then I was
back on the damp Prahran streets wondering what was for tea.