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Susan’s Bookshelves: The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

Anna Maria della Pieta (1696-1782) was a famous Italian violinist for most of the eighteenth century. Probably the child of a sex worker, she grew up in, and remained at, Ospedale della Pieta, the famous Venetian orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was her teacher.

And that is the starting point for Harriet Constable’s debut novel which published last month. Her Anna Maria is totally absorbed in her violin with which her relationship is almost erotic from the age of eight when she first discovers the instrument’s sound and shape. Vivaldi, never named, and always referred to as “her teacher”, spots her extraordinary talent almost immediately. Her single minded focus and ambition costs her almost everything, including two important friendships as she grows up. I loved the account of her being taken, by Vivaldi, to a luthier to choose her own violin and the depiction of eighteenth century Venice is evocatively convincing.

The Anna Maria we meet here is also richly, and fascinatingly synaesthetic, perceiving every sound she makes, or hears, in a panoply of colour. Once the “colours come” she can play almost anything although she also works indefatigably to achieve the excellence she wants. At the same time, she is obliged to deal with the nuns who run the Ospedale strictly and without kindness. There’s a lot of physical punishment. Is it really true that every baby posted through that famous hole in the wall was branded with a P? They and Vivaldi don’t always see eye to eye although the music, with his orchestra and soloists, brings in money for the institution which pleases the governors.

So what, I wonder, was Vivaldi really like? He was relatively young and spent a lot of time alone with nubile teenage girls. Historically, he took one of them (not Anna Maria) away on tour to Vienna and lived with her, although nobody knows exactly how things were between them. One of the Ospedale girls becomes pregnant in the novel and the details are appalling although we are left to speculate about how she got into this situation. Anna Maria has a volatile relationship with “her teacher” and there are often ambiguous sexual undertones.

More interesting, perhaps, is Constable’s idea that the musically bright girls he worked with were all composing music as well. Could he have passed off some of their work as his own? It would, perhaps, explain how he managed to produce such an enormous output. In this novel, the idea for the Four Seasons and most of the work on it comes from Anna Maria, uncredited –  to her fury.

Thus, this is also very much a feminist novel. As Vivaldi points out sneeringly, women are not taken seriously as composers in the eighteenth century. Moreover they have few choices. Any girl who is dropped from Vivaldi’s orchestra is ruthlessly “sold” off by the Ospedale for marriage, a fate not that far from the prostitution which was, presumably, the lot of many of their hapless mothers. Anna Maria passionately wants equality, as well as recognition for her musical ability, as she grapples with her conscience (she behaves very badly several times) and the talent which makes her different from everyone else.

The Instrumentalist is an intriguing novel, strong on story telling and sensuously written. I was particularly interested because I’m an amateur violinist which means that, in a tiny way, I feel the instrument in my hands as Anna Maria does. But, of course, you don’t need ever to have touched a violin to enjoy this.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Atlantic by Luke Jennings

 

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

James Hyland, inspired by Lewis Carroll

Brother Wolf Productions

White Bear Theatre

 

Star rating: 4

Lewis Carroll’s surrealist novel Alice in Wonderland (1865)  predates the development of Theatre of the Absurd in the late 1950s by almost a century but it’s a perfect marriage. Carroll’s plotless original is full of non-sequiturs, circular conversations, word play and puns all of which Hyland’s version runs with in this two hander, 60 minute play. He uses most of Carroll’s material, from The Mad Hatter chapter and from elsewhere in the novel and then takes it  further.

Hyland is a first class character actor and his Mad Hatter is, well, mad as a hatter – seriously and terrifyingly so as we richochet “from rabbit hole to heart of darkness”.  Hyland snivels, shakes, shouts, pants, laughs, weeps, croons, acts with his tongue and does a wonderful job with a farting dormouse glove puppet. There is anger, confusion and fear in this volatile character.

Joshua Jewkes is an excellent foil as the March Hare, white faced and wearing  a splendid long eared headpiece (costumes by A Child of the Jago). He seems to be sensible, throwing cold logic back at Hyland and trying to reason with him although of course he’s actually pretty bonkers too. The comic and physical timing is exemplary.

They are both seated  slumbering at the table as the audience enters and, as the world’s most fidgety fidget, I marvel at how actors learn to hold that stillness for so long. Jewkes in particular is “asleep” for the best part of 20 minutes.

Towards the end of the show Jessica Ivy is drawn from the audience and dances as Alison (or Alice-son – get it?). The sequence is too long and doesn’t add much, although she does it well enough.

This show is James Hyland’s latest dive into nineteenth century fiction from a new angle. I’ve seen him in  Fagin’s Last Hour, A Christmas Carol as told by Jacob Marley – deceased, Jeckyll and Hyde and Dracula. His imaginative writing is as impressive as his acting.

Prom 56, 01 September 2024

BBC Singers

Orwain Park

Berlin Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko

BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall.

Thank goodness (and that’s a bit mild) that good sense prevailed and the BBC Singers were reprieved from last year’s proposed cuts and so are still with us. Their rendering of three Bruckner motets, all unaccompanied, was magically ethereal as their glorious sound soared and dipped to fill the cavernous space which is the Royal Albert Hall. Locus Iste, the most familiar of the three was especially moving not least because these voices blend so beautifully. Orwain Park, principal guest conductor is very good indeed at ensuring we hear every note, word, nuance and harmony. A choir like this is a great deal more than a sum of its parts and their performance was a fine prelude to Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony and the arrival on stage of the Berlin Philharmoniker.

One of the most gigantic symphonies in the repertoire, Bruckner 5 runs for a compelling one hour and twenty minutes. Among many striking things in this splendid performance:  the Berlin Philharmoniker’s perfect pizzicato which, especially in the bass section but right across the strings, resonates with rich warmth – and there’s a lot of it in this symphony. Moreover the Berlin Phil does lush melody like almost no other orchestra. The second movement here was idyllic with especial sweetness at the brass entry. And the delicacy of the horn just before the end was spellbinding.

In a symphony which uses the classical four movement framework but weaves it with expansive and inventive romanticism, mercurial Petrenko makes the third movement feel like sparky fun. He starts the molto vivace section like the wind. At times in the trio he stops beating and simply looks at his players as well as swaying, almost dancing so that he conducts with his whole body. He makes the whole movement smile.

Then, just when you thought you thought it couldn’t get any better comes the finale played with as much drama and dynamic contrast as I’ve ever heard it – and finally sumptuous playing at the end with that fabulous bass tuba at the bottom of the texture. Petrenko is evidently totally at one with what must surely be one of the world’s finest orchestras and this was a concert which will not be forgotten by anyone lucky enough to have been there.

 

 

 

The Railway Children

Adapted from E Nesbit by Lynne Lawrence who also directs

Tethered Wits Theatre Company

Actors’ Church, Covent Garden

 

Star rating: 4

 

This is The Railway Children neatly pared down to a 60 minute four hander and it sits very nicely in the Actor’s Church  garden with a platform built over the steps at the West door and the audience sitting on semi-circles of park-type benches.

All cast members are adept actor-musos and there’s some attractive music – wistful, atmospheric, excited – composed by MD Deakin Vanleeuwen and integrated into the action. Alexandra Clare (Phyllis) playing an arrangement of “The Banks of Green Willow” on clarinet, for example is a poignant moment.

Olivia Warren as Bobby gets the older-sister, half child and half adult right and although it seems initially confusing when she morphs from time to time into the children’s mother, it soon settles. In fact Warren ages 20 years simply by wrapping a shawl round her shoulders and modulating her voice. She’s no mean violinist either.

Joe Keenan’s performance as Peter, the excitable middle child, is very convincing. He doubles as Mr Sczepansky, the deeply depressed Russian refugee who is searching for his wife and family. Keenan communicates the poor man’s despair beautifully.

Clare’s Phyllis is very young, excitable, and cheerfully struggles to pronounce some long words which is a nice touch. She also makes her character’s eyes shine so that we believe completely in this well meaning but sometimes over-enthusiastic little girl.

Rory Dulku sports an attractive suave RP for the children’s father and a rich Yorkshire accent as the down-to-earth Mr Perks. He plays the two roles so differently that you hardly notice it’s the same person.

Of course some of the incidents in the novel have gone in this succinct take on The Railway Children but most of the key things are in, or at least referred to briefly. Mr Perks’ birthday is included for example, as is Peter’s stealing coal from the station. We also get the train which has to be stopped to prevent a land-slip related accident – with the children in the audience all waving red flags. They are invited to help hold up the sign to attract the old gentleman’s attention too.

There are no trains as such in this production. Instead the cast create appropriate noises and create an illusion by watching and pointing.

Tethered Wits is a Cotswold-based company which tours outdoor venues. I’m very glad that this, and the sister production Jeeves and Wooster, are in London for a few performances because this company really is rather good.

 

Prom 50, 28 August 2024

Czech Philharmonic

Prague Philharmonic Choir

Jakub Hrusa

 

The Czech Phiharmonic is one of the world’s finest orchestras and it’s a joy to see and hear it filling the packed-to-capacity Royal Albert Hall and living up to its well deserved reputation with an engaging all-Czech programme. That unmistakable Czech sound is, I suppose, as much in the blood for these players as Strauss waltzes are for the Vienna Philharmonic.

Goodness knows why few of us have heard of Vitezlava Kapralova who died tragically young (aged 25). Maybe being female didn’t help. Her 1937 Military Sinfonietta has waited nearly 90 years for its first Proms performance. It’s an interesting piece, played here with splendid dynamic control. It was written as a patriotically defensive statement against Nazi incursion but was never intended to be aggressive. The tone is often wistful with attractive solo work fron two violins and from oboe and bassoon. And I really liked the way Hrusa drove the relentless, escalating rhythm in the strings with brass over the top just before the end, then arriving at a rather moving, grand melody. This piece deserves to be heard more often.

Dvorak’s Piano Concerto in G minor isn’t performed as much as it should be either. It came  early in his career (1876) before he had made his name, Mao Fujita, who evidently had lots of cheering fans in the audience, sat, hunched, boyish and unassuming but brilliant, to play a piece in which much of the piano part is seamlessly integrated with the orchestra from the understated opening onwards. Orchestra and soloist really excelled in the exquisite Andante sostenuto. There was a deliciously creamy sound from the horns and phenomenally well controlled string work while bassoon and horn wove an aural filigree – all in partnership with the piano. Even at this relatively early date, Dvorak writes stunningly well for wind.

The second half of the concert was in a different mood with the arrival of the Prague Philharmonic Choir, a quartet of soloists and organist Christian Schmitt for Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass, always an arresting work, not least because the composer was an agnostic with pantheistic leanings so it’s a freshly flavoured take on the traditional mass.

The choir, in fine form, made the repeated word Veruju (Credo or I believe) resound wistfully across the huge Albert Hall space and there was a very pleasing balance between chorus, all four soloists and brass and percussion in the Sanctus. Another high spot was the ethereal choral sound in the Agnece Bozij (Agnus Dei) along with impeccably controlled crescendi.

The piece ends with a grandiloquent organ solo and a short orchestral conclusion. It’s always a pleasure to hear the Royal Albert Hall’s mighty Henry Willis beast in full throttle and Schmitt brought out all Janacek’s drama – rather touchingly also crediting the organ itself when he took his bow at the end.

Le Nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Arcola Theatre

Ensemble OrQuesta Company and HPO Ensemble

 Part of the annual Grimeborn Opera Festival, this small scale version of Mozart’s 1786 masterpiece is  fresh, compelling, theatrical and musical magic from beginning to end.

The production includes a seven-piece chamber orchestra playing Marcio da Silva’s re-orchestrated score which works perfectly. He gives flute parts to clarinets and strings operate as quartet with double bass and harpsichord, conducted by Kieran Staub. The players are part of Hastings Philharmonic which da Silva and his wife Helen May (Susanna in this production) run along with opera company, Ensemble OrQuesta.

I’m normally opposed to the superimposition of action on overtures but in this case it was a good idea to mime the back story, while the orchestra soared through all those familiar semi-quavers, although I’m not sure I would have grasped it fully, had I not known it already.

And so to da Silva who plays Figaro and is a remarkably musical polymath and strong actor. Figaro could have been written for him. He is assertive, loving, angry, astonished – and does it all to the manner born, his baritone voice by turns, silky and abrasive. His high notes resonate and his low ones are totally in character. I’ve seen him on the podium many times, even on one occasion playing guitar with his orchestra, but I had no idea he could also sing a three hour opera in Italian at this level. But from the moment he produces his tape measure in the first scene he is spellbinding. Moreover he has directed this show himself (assistant director, Jay Rockwell) and uses the square space (seating on three sides) imaginatively with some fresh physical theatre touches.

Helen May delights as Susanna too. She has a subtly expressive face and a soprano voice which soars in solo but blends beautifully. She conveys affection, exasperation and intelligence convincingly and there is an unusual depth of  chemistry between her Susanna and this Figaro, possibly because they are a couple in real life.

The rest of the cast of the cast of ten are strong too – impeccable singing and fine acting, important in this space because we’re so close that that we can see every facial gesture. Anna-Luise Wagner as Cherubino, for example, conveys plenty of boyish, gleeful longing for the girls and when she sings her love song to the countess in Act 2 she feigns nervousness and sings the first verse hesitantly and out of tune – it’s funny, original and effective. There’s a lot of humour in this production. That wonderful “sua madre” moment, for example, when Figaro realises incredulously that Marcellina (Rosemary Carlton-Willis – good) is actually his mother is as hilarious as I’ve ever seen it.

At the performance I saw Hollie-Anne Clark was unwell so she acted the part of Countess Almaviva while Elinor Rolfe Johnson voiced it from the side. The singing was outstanding especially the exquisite “Dove sono” during which I had to swallow the lump in throat several times. Clark hadn’t, however, quite got the hang of how to make this work and should have been mouthing the words.

This show is a good example of how you can make a timeless piece glitter brightly for modern audiences, even on a low budget. It’s more or less modern dress (costumes by Gill Jenks) and the set comprises simply a small desk/dressing table, an office chair, a pot plant and a rail of costumes. Go for the singing, playing and drama. You won’t be disappointed.

 

 

 

It’s unusual for me to feature a newly published young adult title here but I was bowled over by this one and want to share my reasons. Besides, the principle behind Susan’s Bookshelves has always been to keep the range it as wide as possible. And actually I liked this book so much that I gobbled it up as if it were an adult novel and cried at the end. As ever, it’s anyway a bit daft to categorise books, especially fiction, at all. A good book is just that, irrespective of who the reader is.

Hannah,11, and her three siblings live with their nice, hardworking but somewhat ineffectual, widowed father on the family farm. It’s very hard to make ends meet. Then the landlord’s agent announces that it is to be sold, probably for redevelopment. The only hope is to purchase it but the price is £2m plus £80,000 stamp duty. At this, nothing daunted, the four children and Hannah’s friend Lottie, decide that when their father isn’t looking, they will start a farm café (12 year old Martha is a good cook and organiser), and at the same time, sell some of the functionally useless old machinery which is lying about in the barn. Then Lottie’s mother who works in PR starts to help along with Adam, the farm worker and Alan who’s an accountant. They deal with journalists, TV, opposition and lots more. Various people volunteer  to promote the concept of a community farm. It’s eleventh hour stuff but no surprises for guessing that there’s a happy ending..

At the same time, lots of other things are going on in this meaty book. Hannah is bullied at school by another girl who is evidently deeply troubled but it’s very painful for Hannah who has been cast in the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The rehearsals become an affectionate critique of the play which, I suspect many a young reader enjoying this book will want to see, having encountered it here. (Hurrah for Shakespeare!). The teacher Ms Ellis, who is directing the play, is an interesting character because, decent as she is, she fails to see how she is being manipulated by Miranda and therefore misjudges Hannah. Let that be a lesson to all teachers.

This novel is full of feisty, intelligent, proactive, plausible people – especially the five children at its centre who strive determinedly to get things done. We’re firmly in the present. They use computers and mobile phones but there’s a faint, and rather gorgeous whiff of the Famous Five in the idea of children achieving miracles when adults can’t or won’t.  They are all, in their different ways, so admirably capable. Moreover, I loved the animals such as Jasper the tame, hand-reared sheep who eventually gets a role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  And of course, if you’ve followed Susan’s Bookshelves thus far (over three and a half years now) you won’t be surprised to know that I pounced on The Great  Farm Rescue with glee, when sent it for review in a magazine, because there isn’t a dragon, talking insect or magic potion in sight – just fiction depicting real people in the real world which is what I like.

The Great Farm Rescue is actually the third in the Hannah’s Farm series. I hadn’t read the earlier books (although I might now) and can assure you that it reads perfectly well as a standalone.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable

Prom 46

Royal College of Music Chamber Choir (Upper voices)

Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra

Sibelius Academy

 Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Sakari Oramo

Soprano: Anu Komsi

Photograph: Chris Christodoulou

This concert was a rather moving collaboration between two fine conservatoires: London’s  Royal College of Music and Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. We were firmly in Finland for the whole of the first half and then very much in Britain after the interval.

The Wood Nymph is not one of Sibelius’s better known tone poems although it’s full of the composer’s trademark brass fanfares, quivery strings and excitable crescendi as the melodramatic narrative behind Viktor Rydberg’s poem unwinds. It was beautifully played here by the massive combined forces of the two orchestras (eight horns) and I loved the sweet tone achieved by the principal cellist who gets a substantial solo in this piece.

I was, I’m afraid, less impressed by the world premiere of  Lara Poe’s Laulut maaseudulta (“Songs from the countryside”). It comprises seven songs several of which are about cows. Anu Komsi rose to the challenge, however, and is very good at those big intervals involved in kulning – a traditional way of calling cows. She achieved remarkable purity of sound, almost without vibrato although she dropped the dynamic so dramatically at one point that she was drowned out by the orchestra, softly as Sakari Oramo had them playing. It was interesting to see Oramo, a fellow Finn of course, mouthing the words as part of his conducting. Moreover, a new piece of this complexity is evidently very good experience for young players. Nonetheless I didn’t find the work very appealing and noted that it ran for much longer than the estimated eighteen minutes.

And so to the glories of Holst’s most famous work. The Planets premiered at Queens Hall in 1918, conducted by Adrian Boult, (whom I saw live several times when he was very old and I was very young) but it sits so well in the grandiloquence of the Royal Albert Hall that it’s hard to believe Holst didn’t have this space in mind. Mars opened with all the rattling menace that the unsettling 5|4 rhythm requires and the string sound was terrific. Incidentally, in my distant youth I played for a mysoginist conductor who said that girls were innately incapable of playing percussion because they aren’t assertive enough. I wish he could have seen and heard Julie Scheuren hitting those timps at this concert.

There was contrasting gentle lyricism in Venus with some outstandingly fine horn work and plenty of sparky insouciance in Jupiter although the big tune was over milked. The whole work is an instrumental showcase – the bassoon in Uranus and the magnifence of the organ for example. No wonder the boy (maybe 10) sitting  in front of me with his parents and younger sister was so excited he was miming snare drum, trombone, violin and more.

An otherwise excellent account of this splendid work was spoiled for me by Neptune. The movement is marked pianissimo throughout and when the choir enters it should be an almost imperceptible  sound creeping in ethereally. It shouldn’t be so loud that it’s almost strident as it was here. Moreover, it wasn’t blended and you could hear (from stalls Block H) individual voices. Even the final fading away felt brashly mechanical.

And a final gripe. I do wish the tech people would stop fiddling about with lighting effects at the Proms. A performance of The Planets is not a sound and light show and I do not need the irritating distraction of different coloured lights to put me in the mood for each movement. I know lighting designers are glad of the work but …