Listen to David

I just got off a lean-in, check-up chat with a lovely lady. She was one of my editors when I got my first job out of university. My co-workers then were like me, all fresh grads wet behind our ears in our first jobs, and she mothered us all.

She is mothering me still. This time, from a distance, in Beijing. And despite her own health problems and caregiving issues. Though I think it's the latter that has made us pull together lately.

She ended the chat with "Have a nice cold beer, read a book and listen to David play.".

That the beer was in the fridge, the book next to me, and David mentioned by his first name made it sound like he was in the next room. If only. :)

But a great coping mechanism nonetheless.

A Kind of Magic

I can't remember how old I was when I first heard Queen, but I knew straightaway that the tinny cassette wasn't good enough -- Queen needed to be heard, be experienced "live".

I don't know why I never went for a concert during the years I lived in the UK. Then Freddy died, and after that there didn't seem to be any point.

Still, over the years, the music of Queen continued to pop up in my life, providing some kind of back drop -- a college football cheer, campfire night singalongs, a couple of weddings (both straight and gay), a funeral.

Make no mistake, Adam Lambert is no Freddy Mercury -- but he is the best person to carry the torch. Paul Rodgers tried but never quite got there. Rodgers had the heritage from Bad Company and Free, and when he collaborated on the first post-Freddy Queen album, I got it straightaway. In fact, I tried to get it here before it even came out, and I still remember the quizzical response from the CD shop salesperson when I asked for it -- he wanted to know if I was sure there's really a new Queen album because didn't I know that Freddy Mercury has been long gone? Anyway, that album didn't really work. Rodgers was old school rock, he couldn't bring Queen into the 21st century. And back I went to listening to the voice of a dead man sing.

And then Lambert totally rocked it on American Idol with Brian May and Roger Taylor. It was a work night and when the programme came on, everyone dropped what they were doing and gathered in front of the TV. And look what Lambert is doing with May and Taylor now! Who would've thought.

Freddy's mantle fits well on him. And as if in acknowledgement, he came out for the encore in a crown. (The second encore was May playing God Save the Queen -- and you could tell the embedded pommies in the crowd because they were the only ones singing.)

Speaking of singing, I must've joined in 3 or 4 impromptu choruses (chorii?) of Bohemian Rhapsody with 3 or 4 groups of random strangers, the last rendition on the 1am train out of Raffles Place.

Queen does that to you. It's A Kind of Magic.

Me, keep calm?

I see two problems with this.
1) I don't just want to listen to David Garrett, I need to look at him.
2) How to keep calm when looking at a rock god? Even when he's playing Paganini?

Satisfaction

It was after Christmas when The Rolling Stones posted their 2014 tour dates on their website. That first tour poster had Singapore on it -- which later disappeared from subsequent announcements on their Facebook page. So were they coming or not?

There must be ways to find out. Google alerts, hounding music writers, even friends at the British High Commission -- if they knew Prince Andrew was heading this way, surely they'd know if Mick Jagger was too.

The Stones teased us for two months. Tickets went on sale yesterday morning. Set the alarm clock, got up, turned on the Mac, joined the booking e-queue, and some 30 minutes later ... satisfaction. By then, the selection of available tickets was already limited. They probably sold out in an hour.

March will be a rock 'n' roll month. We have tickets to Eric Clapton, and now the Stones a week later. March is also when I hit the mid-century bump. It's fitting to celebrate it with septuagenarians who are proving that you can still rock at that age. :)

Didn't cook this weekend

(A frozen pizza doesn't count.)
This was the reason why.
Closest thing to a church on Sunday :)

Mixed bag

I had just recharged my iPod so when I plugged in today as I settled down on my train ride to work, the playlist reverted to the "All Songs" library on a shuffle setting. On came Alfie Boe, followed by Guns 'n' Roses, then Vivaldi, Village People, INXS, and a Bollywood song I'd forgotten was even there (years ago I attended a Bollywood dance class, and I must have downloaded it when I was trying to familiarise myself with the music as I memorised the choreography). After that, it pretty much degenerated into 80s rock -- which just about shows you what era I'm stuck in. Still, musical schizophrenia ain't no bad thing. :)

The king of musicals

The Lion King was the reason why I spent one summer in London angsting at the return ticket booth at Leicester Square almost daily when no returns were to be had. So you can imagine how happy I was that the production finally came to Singapore.

Breathtaking staging, wonderful costumes, amazing puppetry.

Loved it.

Saturday night out

Working Sundays for the weeks ahead -- and am facing a six-day week ahead on top of that -- so nipped out to the Mosaic Music Festival at the Esplanade to catch Erik Mongrain and to chill a little, while I can. He played mostly acoustic guitar, which he also turned it into a percussion instrument to accompany himself. And then he set the guitar on his lap and played it like I've never seen before, by tapping it -- air tap, it's called. Blew my mind. I think sometimes, it's OK not to pay attention when your music teacher is going on about Proper Fingering. Or learn it all and then turn it all upside down. Or in this case, sideways on your lap.

Rock on

As much as I like Santana's music, the two best bits of his concert here actually had nothing to do with him.

The second best bit was when Mrs Santana took over from the resident drummer for a set.

The best bit when Santana introduced his band, and when it came to the guitarist, the guy used the spotlight to launch into the opening stanza of U2's New Year's Day.

That's as close as anybody is going to get to two rock concerts for the price of one.

Saturday night out

Went to the SSO -- only because there was the holy triumvirate of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the programme. Couldn't go wrong with any of that.

It was billed as a gala night, so there were none of the usual ticketing concessions. However, $50 bought me a ticket in the fourth row (as opposed to $300 for a seat in the second balcony for THE Berlin Phil -- yes, still harping on that) -- I was so close to the musicians that when a second violinist used his bow to stab down a flyaway page of music, I could hear the thwack as it hit the sheet.

Haydn was Symphony No 44; Mozart was the Prague symphony and Beethoven was his allegedly only violin concerto, with guest violinist Renaud Capucon, but I hadn't heard of him. Liked the Beethoven and Mozart anyway, but I don't know whose version of Prague I've been listening to, thought last night's version didn't have an arresting enough opening.

He's back, all is forgiven

I got tickets to Melvyn Tan's recital without even knowing what he was going to play. But I figured that one couldn't go wrong with his repertoire of Beethoven, Mozart and Debussy. Turns out the programme was heavy on Chopin -- possibly a hangover of the bicentennial last year -- but that's OK too.

I figured that if an ex-Singaporean took such pains and so long to finally stage a concert here, then the least I can do is to go to it. Tan was the Singapore-born emigre who stirred up public controversy when he returned five few years ago and was hauled up for evading national service (two years of military service compulsory for all male citizens). Tan had left the country at a young age and never returned to serve NS. When he did come back -- to see an ageing mother -- he was above 40 and no longer eligible for NS. More importantly, he had given up his citizenship in 1978. Still, he got the book thrown at him and was fined. It was a tremendous media circus, which gave rise to some rather voiceful public opinions. Most people (at least, those who told the media so) felt he deserved the fine. Some pointed out there's also a jail term for evading NS. A letter to the press opined that there is no justification at all for NS absconders to be allowed to return at all. I suppose that last person wasn't at the concert last night. I personally think it was a huge case of the Singaporean dog in a manger ethos -- as I have suffered (2 years of NS), so must everybody else.

Now back for his first public performance (there was a private one last year) in the land of his birth, Tan was lauded as a son of Singapore, with a comment in the programme notes going as far as saying that he is "without a doubt the best pianist that Singapore has ever produced". Which is only accurate in as far as he was produced, ie born, in Singapore. But what did Singapore have to do with his success as a concert pianist?
Aside from his first piano teacher in his childhood -- and we all had one of those -- he probably owes his success to his parents who had the foresight to recognise his potential as a pianist, the gumption to acknowledge that he could make a living from the arts (especially 20 years ago), and -- more importantly -- the means to send him overseas for training.

There were more young children than usual in the concert hall. And there were a good many students in school uniform, it was a school day after all. Probably piano students, all. Which probably also means there must have been quite a few piano teachers in the audience too. I wonder what mine would have made of Tan's posture. He slouched between movements, hunched as he played, his spine curving more and more as he progressed through the piece until he ended it, nose almost at the keyboard. The piano teacher I had as a child used to stand behind me, and knee me in the small of my back to make me sit up straight.

But oh, the recital was wonderful. Lyrical, technical mastery. He gave three encores to a standing ovation from almost the entire hall, which even THE Berlin Phil didn't get. The second encore was a finger exercise (Czerny? Scarlatti?) that I remember having to hammer out endlessly. I never would have thought that it could make a recital piece, and such a sweet, charming one too.

Not the usual string quartet

Nope, not when they're the T'ang Quartet. They went from Beethoven and the Boys (their last concert earlier in the year, of really old school quartets by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart), to DJ Aldrin, Zouk's finest. Classical meets house. I loved it. I could have gotten up and danced. As they did.

Not the usual programme too -- you could fold this one up into a one-inch cube. It sort of matches the cubes the musicians were sitting on. Not very comfortable for them, I don't think. No wonder they got up and danced.

Name dropping

Actually, no, for those who asked, the most famous name I ever came across back in the heady student days of stewarding at the Warwick Arts Centre wasn't Simon Rattle. It was when Andre Previn came with the London Symphony Orchestra.

And the stewards who worked front of house (FOH) never really rubbed shoulders with the musirati. It was the back of house (BOH) folks who did. The FOH scum like us merely clipped tickets and then got to watch the concert for free after that.

Anyway, Andre Previn. One of the FOH managers, a dear sweetheart of a man, was having kittens over how to address Andre Previn. "Do I call him Mr Preh-veen? Or is it Mr Prah-vahn?" He worried that the former would seem too uncultured but the latter might be too toffee-nosed.

Why not address him as Maestro, was my suggestion. That way, he skirted the surname altogether.

In the end, it was Masetro Andre Previn himself who solved the problem. He strode into the BOH briefing, stuck out his hand and said: "Hi, I'm Andy."

THE Berlin Phil

I knew I was under-dressed for the Berlin Philharmonic when even their stagehands were wearing black jackets.

The last time I saw conductor Simon Rattle's back was 20 years ago. He's still bouncing those curls as he conducts, only they're all grey now.

And the last time that I saw the back of that curly head, I didn't have to pay $300 for the privilege. Instead, I was paid 3 pounds for my trouble. I was a student, stewarding at the University of Warwick Arts Centre. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was the orchestra in residence at the Arts Centre then, and Simon Rattle -- he wasn't Sir Simon back then -- was its conductor.

And that's why it's so hard to see him as the man walking in godlike Herbert von Karajan's footsteps at the Berlin Philarmonic. THE Berlin Phil. Not when you remember Simon Rattle tossing his curls at the old dears in the CBSO Chorus, and the way they tittered everytime he so much as spoke a sentence to them. Does "not C sharp but D flat, Muriel dear," qualify as a sentence?

Anyway, back to THE Berlin Phil. It was a faultless performance (Haydn's Symphony No 99; Brahms' Symphony No 2 on the first night. I skipped the second night because it had Mahler and I cannot do Mahler. Besides I couldn't afford to go both nights). I suppose you could say it was faultless because the audience, having forked out so much (my $300 was but a cheap seat in the second balcony. The gallery seats behind the orchestra went for about the same. Front row VIP seats were close to $600.), were determined that it had to be faultless.

But really, they were good. For a behemoth, they had the softest, gentlest pianisimmo, a smooth caress for the quiet bits in the Brahms. Before erupting into an awesome powerful finish.

The Philistine in me confesses that I don't get Alban Berg. I never could get that second Viennese school. Does a wooden mallet brought crashing down really count as a percussion instrument?

I think the nicest bit actually wasn't in the programme. It was during the intermission, before the orchestra came back on for the Brahms symphony. One of the double bassists lingered onstage as the (jacketed) stagehands moved chairs and music stands about. He started playing very quietly to himself Brahms' Lullabye, and then a fellow musician walked over, pulled up a chair, sat down and listened. An extra recital for the $300.

In an interview with the local daily English broadsheet, Simon -- sorry, Sir Simon now -- justified the high ticket prices by saying that a rock group of just a few people could play to a stadium of thousands, so they could price low. While an orchestra of so many people could only play to a few hundred. So that's why it costs more to listen to a bunch of penguin suits. Which was why I almost choked when I was reading the programme notes where Sir Simon was quoted as saying that "music is no mere luxury, but instead a fundamental need". Excuse me kind knight, but $300-$600 for a ticket IS luxury.

Eric Clapton plays here in February. His most expensive ticket is $300, which is THE Berlin Phil's cheap seat. Both ways, I'm paying the same. The way I see it, Haydn pretty much sounds like Haydn, whether it's done by THE Berlin Phil, the CBSO, or even the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (cheap seats $12). But only Clapton can do Layla like Clapton. I think my money's on Slowhand.

Gone Chopin

It's funny how I hated Chopin when I was a teenager with piano lessons and practice sessions forced upon me. Chopin then was all trills and trouble, more stress than soother. But now, it's the Chopin CDs I automatically put on when I want soothing music.

This year's installation of the annual piano festival had a largely Chopin theme, in line with his bicentennial. I missed most of the week-long concerts though, as I work weeknights, and could only go on the final night, which had little Chopin. But it was OK, that night featured Piotr Anderszewki and he played Bach (English Suite No5) and Beethoven (Piano Sonata No31), my favourite B-boys.

I had the last seat at the end of the row, and on my left, an empty seat separated me from the guy who sat two seats away. It was as if he had bought three seats for himself, he had a nice space of an empty seat on either side of him. In a full house, at that. Halfway through the Bach, I was amused to see him playing air piano along to the music. He got up to leave even before the lights came on for the intermission. And he never came back. Strange guy.

There was also Schumann in the line-up, and it wasn't until I leafed through the programme that I realised Schumann was born in the same year as Chopin. Which means that this year is also Schumann's bicentennial. But he's been completely overshadowed by all the fanfare over Chopin. I knew it right from the start, that guy was trouble.

I want more

To have the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) play here is already a big deal. To have Joshua Bell perform, an even bigger deal. To have Bell lead ASMF, well that just about caps everything. And two for the price of one, at that.

The first time I heard ASMF in a live recital was more than 20 years ago when I was a teenager (well, maybe a little bit more than 20 years ago then). I don't remember them as a large orchestra. They were a chamber group then. Perhaps there was woodwind but I don't remember a brass section then, and definitely no timpani. Well now, they're more like a symphony orchestra, quite capable of taking on Beethoven -- Symphony No 7 on opening night, and Symphony No 4 on the second night -- "angry music", as L calls Beethoven.

We went on the second night. It was a lovely concert but ended somewhat abruptly -- no encore, no nothing, despite a standing ovation at the end of the evening. A gentleman sitting next to us said that he was there the previous night, and not only was there an encore at the end of the evening, there was also one at the end of the first half of the programme, before the intermission -- which is pretty unusual. L thinks that Bell wanted an early night. Or maybe he thought we were Philistines -- there was scattered applause in between movements in the pieces. At the end of the night, there was a queue for autographs but signing was restricted to just 30 minutes. Yup, the man probably wanted to knock off early. Can't really blame him -- he didn't so much lead the orchestra, but danced to them. I still can't believe that he's my age, he looks like a 20-year-old kid!

We enjoyed the concert very much, but were rather disappointed -- cheated, even -- that there was no encore. When I first heard ASMF all those years ago, it was the encore that stayed with me over the years, whatever else they played has been long forgotten. The encore was Pachelbel's Cannon, and I remember that they dedicated it to someone in the music world who had passed away then. I had heard the piece countless times before then (and I've heard it countless times since, mostly as a wedding processional, and only lately, at a state funeral for a former deputy prime minister -- which will probably do it in for the next person who wants it in a wedding). ASMF was the first time that I heard it live. You know what they say about snapshot moments -- that one vivid moment that will stay in your memory throughout your life. ASMF and Pachelbel was one of those moments for me. It was then that I realised how much a live performance can add to a piece that you only knew as a recording. When you're a teenager still trying to decide whether you prefer Bach or Bon Jovi, that can leave a lasting impression.

I still like both Bach and Bon Jovi, and I even see a Bach structure in Guns n Roses' November Rain, much to the amusement of a professional rock musician I once told that to. But that's another story.

Advance booking

I thought I was so damn forward looking, buying a ticket for a concert in November. November! Six months away. I've never been that organised so far in advance, not even for things like vacations, where one has to book plane tickets and hotel rooms way ahead.

The ticket was for the Berliner Philharmoniker. Yes. *A* ticket. Just one. Could not afford two. L will have to stay home with the dogs that November night.

They went on sale over the weekend, and already, all the cheap seats were gone. Although cheap seat is a misnomer in this case. At $250 for the seats behind the stage, they weren't really that cheap. I had to buy a mid-range seat, and that was on the third level balcony, the level from which I couldn't hear Prospero. And that was $140. The distance this time round cost me $240. But I'm pretty sure that I'll hear something this time round.

Comparatively, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in a couple of weeks is a mere $53, and a Chopin recital the following week cost me just $28. Even if the former was under the auspices of the Singapore Arts Festival and the latter a CIMB sponsored annual piano festival, ticket pricing boggles me.

But then again, this is THE Berliner Philharmoniker.

Still, it isn't the Berlin Phil with Herbert von Karajan leading, but with Sir Simon Rattle. And that only kind of twists the knife for me. The last time I saw Simon Rattle, he wasn't a Sir, he was conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), which was the orchestra in residence at the University of Warwick Arts Centre. As a student, I spent some evenings working as a steward at the Arts Centre, not so much for the money (a few paltry pounds per evening) but for the free concerts and plays I got to watch as part of the job. That's why it's hard for me to imagine Rattle taking on von Karajan's god-like mantle, not when my lasting impression of him was reducing the old dears in the CBSO chorus to giggly fits. And not to mention that I saw him for free, and even got a few pounds at the end of the night in the bargain!

Giving voice

The first time I heard Susan Boyle, I didn't know who she was. A colleague sent me the link to the YouTube video of her appearance at Britain's Got Talent. This frumpy woman walked onstage to a dismissive sneer from Simon Cowell. And then she sang. And a thousand jaws had to picked off the floor, including Cowell's and mine. Not surprisingly, a group of us at the office followed the show on the Net (we don't get it on TV here), rooting for her at the final. She didn't win. But again, not surprisingly, we knew there'd be a CD out soon.

When I first heard Wild Horse on YouTube, I knew I would have to get the CD, just on the strength of that. And so I did. I knew she outsang Mick Jagger on that cover. What I didn't expect when I got the CD was that she'd also outsing Madonna and the Monkees on other covers.

The funny thing is that this CD, an album of ballads and covers, isn't the sort of music I usually listen to. There's no thumping backbeat, no snazzy bass hook. But damn good music is damn good music, and should be listened to.

Giving voice

I went to Tempvs Fvgit yesterday. I've heard polyphonic sacred music before, but I've never seen it in a performance. What the group of six men did was to stand in a circle and sing. Which meant that each individual was singing in another person's face. It's sort of interactive, in the sense that you had to listen to your neighbour as well as yourself. And they had their arms draped over their neighbour's back or shoulders, so each person could literally feel the other breathing, and as they went on, you suddenly realised you weren't listening to six men singing but one organic entity with six voices. Lovely.

PS, this link might be better if you want a listen.

If music be the food of love, pay on

I just bought four concert tickets -- for Tempvs Fvgit (just one ticket, going alone because they do sacred music and L thinks that it'll be too churchy for him), T'ang Quartet (going alone again because L thinks that they're just a bunch of Nigel Kennedys, ie nothing more than spunky haircuts) and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (finally, a group that L agrees with me in that they're brilliant) -- and altogether, they cost me less than *one* cheap-seat ticket to Sam Mendes' The Tempest. From where Prospero could not be heard, I again add.