Songs, Stories and Interludes: the fabulous Margaret Fingerhut in Sunderland

A bit of careful googling brings up information for a good few concert societies in the region, including the very well established Sunderland Pianoforte Society. I have been meaning to attend one of their events and finally made the trip to Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens yesterday for the final piano concert of the current season, featuring Margaret Fingerhut with a full programme including Chopin, Schubert, Liszt, Debussy and more. A first for me in artist as well as location!

Arriving in the Museum I had chance to at least glance at the displays in the Pottery room; enough to notice that the Museum is definitely worth a detailed visit. I also noted the fabulous Steinway ready and waiting. I had heard about the 'Sunderland Steinway' from a few musical friends and even from the first few notes the character of this centenarian Model D shone through: warm, mellow and very classy. Fantastic.

Margaret's programme for the evening was centred around ballades and songs, interspersed with interludes; lots of maidens and lakes! To summarise, the components were:

Schubert, Two Impromptus from Op. 90 (D899): No. 3 in G flat and No. 4 in A flat
Chopin, Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 38 and Impromptu No. 2 in F sharp, Op. 36
Liszt, Transcriptions of: Schubert 'Ave Maria', Chopin 'The Maiden's Wish', Schumann 'Widmung'
Gershwin: selections from the Gershwin Songbook
Debussy Ballade
Poulenc, Hommage à Édith Piaf (Improvisation No. 15)
Fauré, Impromptu No. 3 in A flat, Op. 34
Chopin, Ballade No. 4 in F minor Op. 52

Margaret's performance was stellar throughout her 2 hour recital: classy, thoughtful and sensitive. I enjoyed hearing her informative introductions between segments of the concert which added detail to the printed notes. In particular, she provided one potential 'story' for Chopin's 2nd Ballade, providing a brief overview of the poem Świtezianka, the lake of Willis by fellow Pole Adam Mickiewicz. The whole evening was superb and I enjoyed the mix of well-known and more obscure pieces. In particular the 'French set': the early Debussy Ballade (which reminded me of Edward MacDowell) worked well with the contrast to Poulenc, concluding with Fauré's very textured Impromptu - shades of songs without words and a touch of jazz! I liked the Liszt pieces the least although that is far from being a negative. All in all an excellent evening and I look forward to the 2014/15 season, which starts on 9th September.

Angela Hewitt Week, 14th-20th May 2012

I just received information from a friend about Angela Hewitt Week in Ottawa, 14th-20th May as declared by Mayor Jim Watson. Ms Hewitt is performing with Chamber Players of Canada on Friday 18th May; there will also be An Afternoon With Angela Hewitt on 20th May at the National Arts Centre hosted by the Canadian Friends of the Trasimeno Music Festival .

Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

The Venezuelan maestro comes to Cardiff

A highly anticipated evening of entertainment for M and I, we headed to St Davids Hall to see the conductor of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel , conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra . Highly entertaining, too, and the place was pretty full, though possibly not sold out. We had anticipated the first piece to be Antonio Estevez' 'Mediodia en el llano', but a last minute change meant the first work was (I believe - the posters up in the venue were rather short on info!) Berlioz' Roman Carnival. Initially we may have been a tad disappointed but the replacement work was excellently peformed, cue many smiles. Unfortunately, the smiles soon evaporated, as the second, and for us, least interesting piece, was Mozart's Piano Concert No.17 K453 with Emanuel Ax on piano. M described Ax as mellow, I described him as dull. That may be because neither of us are really into Mozart, but compared to previous visits to St Davids Hall to see pianists Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf, we really...

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