PrettyInScarlett

Following on from my recent post, last night was our first visit to the National Arts Centre for pianist Radu Lupu 's show Rapture and Fire. The pieces performed were: Peter Paul Koprowski 's In Memoriam Karol Szymanowski ; Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op 54 ; and Brahms Symphony No 4 in E minor Op 98 . We went early for the pre-show talk 'Constant Farewells' by music critic Jean-Jacques Van Vlasslaer. Something of a new concept for us, but it was interesting and helpful to have a short explanation of the evening's programme, complete with audio samples. Van Vlasslaer was describing the social and musical links between Schumann and Brahms revolving around (amongst other themes) Schumann's musical theme for his wife, Clara. Following the talk, we headed into Southam Hall, and were very pleasantly surprised both by the near-capacity crowd and the broad range of people attending. For many of our visits to Cardiff's St Davids Hall and Wales Millen...

Taking a day out from a very busy music weekend, all sorts of new experiences! Thursday, M and I ventured to the Wales Millennium Centre for a somewhat unusual (for us, anyway) evenings entertainment from Welsh National Opera. The first half of the performance was a performance of Prokofiev’s orchestral score to Eisenstein’s 1938 Russian film Alexander Nevsky. The story of the film centres on Nevsky, the Grand Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir in the 13 th century. The film is a portrayal of Russia under and fighting Mongols in the east and Germans in the west [a very suitable accompaniment to recently released Sergei Bodrov film Mongol, then], and is apparently an impressive work, although I haven’t seen it (very tempted now, though!). Prokofiev’s work (reworked for voice and orchestra after the release of the film), is very good, although from some of the lyrics it is obvious that the film, and score, was written in 1938 –very nationalistic and, according to M, labouring the point ...