I am looking at the fantastic images of the Thames Jubilee Pageant in London today which are streaming over the BBC website,
Canaletto's painting of the Lord Mayor's Day pageant in 1746 shows remarkably accurately what London is seeing again today! It is hard to be in Chicago while this is going on.........
Chicago from the lake front at Lincoln Park 6:30 pm June 1 2012
So my last day with COT was all a bit of an anti climax! I handed in my keys - actually by mistake I handed in my apartment key not the office key! That really shows how confused I was! I will have to re run this on Monday!
I treated myself to dinner at my favorite local Greek restaurant after a reflective walk along the lake shore. It was cold bright and brisk.
I will be writing more tomorrow. Meanwhile I am just changing the title of the blog!
I wrote last week about the likely popularity during Memorial Day weekend of the boat trips on the Chicago River organised by the Architectural Foundation. Well the weekend is over but the trippers continue - here they were at 11 am today in the comparative cool. Just in the 80s instead of the 90s. Paradise!
This evening my dear friend and colleague Gerard McBurney, and Emanuel Ax are tracing the evolution of the piano concerto with the Civic Orchestra. This will be a fun evening - ending with Emanuel Ax following his Emperor on Saturday with the Beethoven 4th concerto this evening. What riches!
Yes, we were up in the 90s again today and I made my way to my local Trader Joe's to buy milk. This is a good 750 yards away and on the return trip I could not resist stopping off at my local ice cream parlor, the wonderful Bobtail, favorite of children of all ages. I must introduce Emanuel Ax to it......
I indulged to the extent of two scoops of vanilla in a bowl, and a pint to take home. And I am now listening to the divine and late lamented Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's wonderful recording of Les nuits d'été with Nicholas McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque. The CD also includes some stunning singing of Handel. No surprise there. It is available from Amazon. A CD to treasure.
For Piano Day at Orchestra Hall yesterday Steinway had provided no less than eight concert grand pianos. And they were all played together at the end by 16 pianists!
But before this grand finale I enjoyed a series of mini events starting with a charming interview conducted by the CSO's Martha Gilmer with Emanuel Ax. His infectious youthful enthusiasm for everything musical, his passionate emotional response to music communicated through the keyboard as well as in conversation, and his relentless inquiring nature makes him one of the most beloved pianists around. And this youthful enthusiast is 63! What a great idea to get this remarkable man to design this Piano Day!
But it wasn't just pianos. The CSO has a beautiful new Harpsichord built for them by Paul Irvin. And we were treated to a demonstration of it by young Mark Shuldiner who also happens to tune instruments for COT.
This was followed by one of America's most gifted young pianists, Jonathan Biss, playing Beethoven's Opus 7 sonata. He is embarked on recording the complete 32 sonatas over the next ten years. His remarks in an interview after his absorbing performance of the sonata revealed his deeply serious approach as well as the light charm of his manner. Yes they are human beings too!
All these events were in the Grainger Ballroom. But I then moved into the concert hall proper where a remarkable jazz piano duo Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes were showing us, to impressive effect, some other brilliant uses for the piano.
And that was followed by the glamorous Valentina Lisitsa. I suspect that she divides opinion - the audience loved her anyway. There appeared to be the curious phenomenon of the other seven pianos on the stage reverberating with sympathy as she attacked Rachmaninoff and Liszt with vigor.
This was a good place to be yesterday with the temperature outside feeling like 97. Today it will be down in the 80s again!
If I may be excused - I can not resist showing you this great shot of three uncomfortable looking young men. I am assuming that my readers have been following the Murdoch saga in the UK - Murdoch the proprietor of Fox News. The gentlemen above are left to right: the UK's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Jeremy Hunt the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport aka the Minister for Murdoch by some critics, and the Prime MInister David Cameron.
Photograph: Reuters Tv/Reuters
PS - A propos this read this piece in the Daily Telegraph
The Chicago Architecture Foundation's "Chicago's Little Lady"
We have another long weekend, this time a statutory holiday - Memorial Day on Monday which signals that it is ok to wear white shoes. And therefore no doubt to carry a white handbag.........well be careful not to wear them or carry one after Labor Day. Actually we have had splendid white shoe weather for some days, and we had some in February as well. And late September can be gorgeous too.
We will no doubt be having more visitors to Chicago this weekend that natives leaving. So the stores no doubt are in for a busy time as well. But the perfect trip for visitors to this magnificent city is one of the Architecture Foundation's boats on the river. But book ahead - it is going to be popular relief from temperatures that may be rising into the 90s again.
I do not have visitors to town this weekend - I will be devoting much of my time to the piano. Tomorrow evening Emmanuel Ax is playing the Emperor Concerto with the CSO. And on Sunday there will be the huge fun of Chicago Piano Day. This is a marathon event which I will dip into and generally browse around. This whole event is such a brilliant idea - good for Emmanuel Ax and the CSO.
Yes, these are for protection against the sun although they probably do the job with the rain as well. But there was no sign of that as Chicago sweltered again. But we are not tired of the heat yet.
I had a pretty quiet day in the office, and then set out for a quick bit of shopping up at 900 Michigan before going on for a drink with one of our finest and most enthusiastic board members and his wife. We then went on to the delightful busy Piccolo Sogno, a popular "Italian " haunt. It is a splendid and crowded place - but I would not say it is a very good Italian restaurant, just a rather good Chicago one. We had a lovely happy chatty evening. It is very good to be with people who appreciate so much what COT has been doing.
I think that we are getting into the slow moving days of the summer. Certainly the crowds were out this early evening at the Cheesecake Factory under the Hancock Tower. As you can see below it was very busy at 6pm. They are in for a bumper summer we hear.
"The Haydn Quartet" - Julius Schmid
Jane Glover had the brilliant idea of building a program around the four composer/string players who made music together in Vienna in the 1780s - Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart and Vanhal. So this evening Music of the Baroque put on a delightful program - and they employed four of the principals of the orchestra to play concertos. And what a show it was!
Johann Baptist Vanhal is hardly a household name. He was the cellist of the quartet - and his charming Sinfonia in G minor opened the program this evening. Barbara Haffner, MOB's principal cello, and also COT's, then showed off Haydn's C major concerto with considerable panache; after the intermission Collins Trier amused us with a Dittersdorf Bass concerto. Last week it was a Tuba concerto, this week a double bass. These low life concertos are all very well - but Collins did a fine job.
The best was last. There is no argument, least of all from Haydn, that the greatest composer of this quartet was the Viola - W.A Mozart. And the etherially beautiful Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola was quite splendidly delivered by the MOB's concertmaster Rob Waters, and the uncommonly fine Roger Chase - a really wonderful violist whom we are so fortunate to have in Chicago. Here was a pair of musicians in perfect sync. This is just the kind of music making that this evening was about. Totally fulfilling it was - an unusually satisfying concert.
The Chicago Shakespeare Theater has the most lovely position on Navy Pier - because of the view back to the city (above) rather than for the convenience of getting there. But get there one can and this evening it was worth the effort big time - an epic performance of Timon of Athens by Ian McDiarmid in the title role, and a wonderful ensemble in an immensely effective production set in 2012 by Barbara Gaines.
This is Shakespeare's shortest play - shorter even than the "Scottish play." We were out by 9:38 after a 7:30 curtain ( there is no actual curtain in the Shakes' most gorgeous theatre) - and we then repaired to the bar and had a nice drink with Timon himself. The topicality of this play, and the resonances that Shakespeare (and Middleton?) have created for our world post 2008, is somewhat shocking. Which all goes to show..............
Ian McDiarmid is in town to play Timon of Athens at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I will be there this evening - the first time I will have seen Shakespeare's rarely produced play. Jane Glover, on her day off before the MOB concert tomorrow evening, will be joining me. She is a passionate lover of, and considerable expert on, the plays of Shakespeare and never misses the many opportunities provided in Chicago. I hope that she will keep me up to speed about this play which is notoriously obscure.......
This one of the pleasures of our off season - time to indulge in these extra treats.
The so called demonstration on Randolph by the Prudential Plaza building was a perfect example of what these events should be - a generally benign mood of mutual respect with everyone behaving impeccably. It appears that there were some more confrontational incidents yesterday but by and large everything seems to have gone smoothly.
The mood today was of a street party in the beautiful afternoon sunshine. It was cooler than the stifling 90 degrees of yesterday so possibly tempers were cooler as well. The points have been made and it remains to be seen as to whether anything changes. But I detect a slight turn in the tide......wishful thinking? Probably!
Of course the police presence was overwhelming, outnumbering the "demonstrators" three to one. They came from all over, some even from Philadelphia. But as you can see below they really didn't have a lot to do. There is a handful of other shots on my photosite added to the ones from Saturday.
Oak Street Beach 11:30 am May 20 2012
Yes, well the temperature is 90 degrees - actually quite unusual for May. But it is not so humid and is therefore quite comfortable. As you can see the sensible people repaired to the beach. Please note, there are not a lot of men around!
The NATO meetings seem to be passing off quite calmly although there has been a good deal of traffic disruption inevitably. The security folks seem to be doing a brilliant job, low key and efficient. And the demonstrators likewise are just getting on with it peacefully. Much the most persuasive way to proceed.
I think that the majority is just staying out of the way. And in the same spirit we have closed the office tomorrow and I imagine downtown Chicago will be pretty quiet. Michigan Avenue was pretty quiet at noon today as you can see below. I guess the stores are doing terrible business. Bloomingdales appeared to be deserted. They will probably survive.........
I was very happy today to get away from our stresses, and those of the NATO troubles. I had a delightful rather early lunch with Jane Glover who is here in Chicago for another programme with Music of the Baroque - in Evanston tomorrow and at the Harris on Wednesday. The schedules for all have bee changed as a result of the NATO conference. It has cost money........
We went to the excellent Fox and Obel bistro, and had a table overlooking the river. This was all very simple and delicious - and something of a refuge from the goings on with police and demonstrators. Jane has been commuting back and forth over the last three months - this is I think her third MOB programme in eight weeks. And she had a gig in San Francisco as well. She is complaining about jet-lag.......really not surprising.
Otherwise I avoided downtown which seems to have been somewhat tense, and certainly less benign an atmosphere than that created by the nurses yesterday. So I returned to the safe haven of Lakeview where this gentle community's normal family activities continued. The excellent Bobtail, on this extremely hot day, was doing cracking business.
Bobtail Ice Cream Bar, 2951 Broadway, 5:00 pm May 19 2012
The demonstration that I showed up to in Daley Plaza this morning was a peaceful civilized affair. The primary organizers were the nurses in their Robin Hood outfits - and a good many other good causes tagged along. But the orderliness of the whole affair should not lull the 1% into thinking that this is a non-issue. It is just that 99% of the 99% are civic minded and civilized, and working together to get the politicians and the 1% to get it. Whereas I am not sure what 99% of the 1% are up to!
It was all rather impressive; this was was not a band of revolutionary terrorists, just ordinary Americans who care about their country and each other. There is a gallery of photos on my photo site which I hope may illustrate the point.
It has been a glorious day here. We are set for a great weekend possibly ending with a thunderstorm on Sunday afternoon.
Photograph: Jean-Regis Rouston/Getty
The greatest Lieder singer of my adolescence and twenties was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, whose death at the age of 86 is reported today. His recordings of Wolf, Schumann and Schubert can still remind me of my magical introduction to that repertoire - I was at so many of his appearances in London with Gerald Moore during the 1960s. His passionate immersion had a profound effect on me and has, no doubt, greatly influenced my analysis and appreciation of fine singing.
And of course he sang opera too - his Mandryka in Arabella in Munich in 1961, with Lisa della Casa, Anneliese Rothenberger and Otto Edelmann was an unforgettable first opportunity for this 21 year old to see this ravishing opera.......wonderful memories! Enough of that - but let us be grateful for the good fortune to have encountered such great artists.
Alex Ross has put it well, as he always does, on his blog post today. And do listen to listen to his link to Der Leiermann from Die Winterreise which encapsulates the genius of DFD.
I was able to get to the Roy Lichtenstein show at the Art Institute this afternoon. It is a sensation, a revelation, and a must see. And the joy of being a member is that there were so few others there that for once I could really enjoy it, taking my time, not having to line up behind rubbernecked gapers ruining the view! Pure pleasure indeed.
My Paris and London friends will be able to see this tremendous exhibition in 2013 in the Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern respectively. Do NOT miss it. I will certainly go again..........not just next week but next year!
But the Art Institute may have missed a trick. Two decades or so ago in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts there was a Pop Art show (including much Lichtenstein of course) and I am told that their director of Development persuaded Kellogg's Pop Tarts to sponsor it - Cute idea!
By an odd coincidence on Saturday May 19 there opens, in that very same Montreal Museum, a retrospective of another great American pop artist Tom Wesselmann. Funny that!
We have had another gorgeous day today. The build up to the NATO summit has begun, and the demonstrators are out in peaceful but large numbers. We are closing the office tomorrow and Monday and working from home. But I may come out to do a little reportage!
But for the rest of this evening it is something completely different - Albert Herring.
Adaptistration
Drew McManus on orchestra management
Butts In The Seats
Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management (Joe Patti)
Double Bass Blog Jason Heath on all things bass and culture from the ground up
Neo Classical
Holly Mulcahy on the future of classical music
non divisi
Frank Almond writes a column instead of practicing
Scanning The Dial
Marty Ronish and Jack Allen on classical music in broadcasting
Sticks and Drones
Two conductors, on the beat with Bill Eddins and Ron Spigelman
There's Always Room For Cello
The adventures of Rosin Hood; he stays on the pitch and gives you the score (Lynn Harrell)
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