Friday 24 May 2002

I'm on the train to Aberdeen for a couple of RSNO gigs: it's been a while since I wrote anything here, because I've spent every spare minute recently practising the piano. 

Last weekend's gig with Mhairi and Adrian was very enjoyable, the audience were responsive and appreciative, and although I played plenty of bum notes in the Brahms, Mhairi's Frauenliebe und Leben was very moving: the sense of desolation in the last song was tangible. There was a chance for a bit of jamming too, in Ade's Oswald fiddle variations. A very nice review in the Herald (scroll down a bit to find it after following the link). I had time afterwards for lunch with Nicola and her family - she was our cellist (and is playing on the Clerk CD) before deciding quite rightly that she had more vital things to do with her life! 

On Monday night I bumped into Michael Tumelty (who wrote the Herald review) at a careers night at Glasgow University, where a few diverse people including us had been asked to speak about how we got where we are today, wherever that is. 'Career' and 'music' are of course almost impossible to combine in the same sentence without giggling, but it was an interesting evening nonetheless. Composer Bill Sweeney and I both discovered that we'd learnt more from clarinettist Alan Hacker than anyone else, he about composition and me about fortepiano playing.

Yesterday I met Rob Mackillop for lunch so that we could develop our idea of a weekend of folk-early music collaboration and experimentation. Rob came up with the title 'Roots in Suits' which I think is going to be impossible to beat. One of the things I have to do on this train journey is write up our discussion and start circulating it to interested parties, and to parties who probably aren't interested, but who I would like to be.

Last night I was back at Glasgow University again for a fascinating lecture by Bartók authority László Somfai. When I lecture at the RSAMD, one of my opening gambits is to ask the students to imagine that they are learning a Bartók piano piece, and to give me reasons why they shouldn't copy what Bartók himself does on the 78s. It's a way of getting them to think about how we deal as musicians with the historical evidence presented to us about the music we play. Somfai made a stunning demonstration by simultaneously playing two recordings of the same piece played by Bartók, recorded a decade apart on different continents: not only were they almost in sync the whole way through, but they differed hugely from the published version of the piece in tempo, dynamic, and rhythm. So the composer's idea of the piece was clear, and clearly not the same as his own published version. There was also an intriguing look at the second violin concerto, in Bartók's working copy and the recording of the premiere, which added to my suspicion that it's only in the second half of the 20th century that classical musicians have been taught to play their instruments in such a homogenous way. You learn to play an instrument rather than to make music, and as a result, delicacies of style, groove and meaning (if you'll excuse the 'Grease' reference) get ironed out of you. 

But the most bizarre moment of the evening was when we all sat and listened to a field recording of a folksong that Bartók had transcribed in all its intricate detail. After hearing it once, we listened to it again played at half speed, which with all the disc noise made for a very psychedelic experience.  Chill out or what?