Resurrection!

ozymandias_cat is very disappointed: I have left my bed after a rather unpleasant 36 hours of not-quite-migraine* plus general infirmity.

I don't think this was post-Eastercon slump, but it's not impossible that convention life contributed: late nights, booze, chocolate, lack of natural light ...

Now I can do all the stuff I was going to do on Tuesday (con write-up, photos, housewerk) and Wednesday (Song of Time write-up, emails, sociability). And all the stuff I'd already planned for today (Putney, Rachmaninoff).


*the Migraleve, blessed be its name, kept the skullsplitting headache at bay, ditto the vomiting; I was left with dizziness, visual disturbance -- could not read, what is the point of being ill if you can't read? -- sensitivity to sound and light, and tendency to fall asleep at the drop of a cat.

Russian Percussion

Russian Percussion
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

Since Flickr lost my wordage (basically: "here I am in RFH, not staying for Stravinsky in second half as still wobbly post-migraine") I may as well write up the concert here ...

Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead and Piano Concerto #2: Philharmonia Orchestra, cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste, pianist Nicolai Lugansky.
Isle of the Dead was dark, intense, complex: I liked the gradual construction of the 'totentanz' theme, creeping in via the bassline, but found some of the brass/percussion/bass chords physically unsettling (see above under 'post-migraine'!)

Piano Concerto #2 is not Piano Concerto #3 (obviously) but it does share texture -- little scratchy squares of strings, urgent crescendos (crescendi?), bright fanfares on French horn, simple haunting melodies just this side of sentimentality, underlaid with a restless dissonant continuo -- with its successor, and it does end with the exact same flourish. Now I want to hear Lugansky play Rach 3 because his laid-back skill and passion really brought #2 to life for me -- in contrast to Saraste who was elegantly competent but seemed too controlled, restrained, polite for Rachmaninoff.

Other observations: the melody, in particular, reminded me of Tchaikovsky; lovely sly playful jocose 2nd movement, surreal straying piano line in 3rd movement.

Have been trying to work out why this reminds me of WW2: aha, used in soundtrack of Brief Encounter (also, apparently, of The Seven-Year Itch).