A little while ago, I went to a concert at the Royal Festival Hall. And before you ask - yes, this is still about books.
The programme was: Sibelius' Night Ride and Sunrise, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no 2, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony no 6. I am not a classical music buff, but I do love Rachmaninov, and the 2nd is probably my all time favourite piece of classical music ever. And as I have nothing against Sibelius and Tchaikovsky either, I had enough reasons to book a seat in good time.
When the conductor - a grand man called Leif Segerstam - came on stage, I was struck by the fact that he looks very much like a cross between Karl Marx and a biblical patriarch. He is an impressive presence, and although he was moving a little stiffly, he had a very animated and (I suppose) persuasive style of conducting, at times taking the whole orchestra under his impressive wingspan.
The piano piece was performed by Denis Matsuev, a musician I can only describe as a genius and virtuoso. Suffice to say that at the end of the concerto, people clapped so loudly and for such a long time that I remembered the olden days when The Comrade was holding plenary meetings and speechifying. When the texts were published, they were scattered with parantheses such as "Prolonged applause and ovations. The audience is chanting slogans Ceausescu and the People".
Matsuev got three curtain calls and many boucquets, and at the third call he sat at the piano and played his own version of Figaro's aria, unleashing further applauses.
This concert made me think about books with pianists in an important role. Or at least books in which people who play the piano impressed me for a reason.
I thought long and hard and found only three books in my reading list, excluding from the start the piano playing that is de rigueur in the majority of 19th century novels.
The first one that came to my mind is a Romanian classic, La Medeleni by Ionel Teodoreanu, a roman flueve charting the lives and complicated love lives of the Deleanu family's children. The Deleanus were small nobility from Moldavia, and the opening salvo takes place on their estate, Medeleni, in a semi-bucolic arrangement. I don't remember Madame Deleanu playing the piano, but I remember she was doing pianotage, playing an inexistent keyboard when she was in a bad mood.
This led to another book which is not about a pianist, the Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof, better known (not in the UK, unfortunately) for the fantastic children book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson. The Saga of Gosta Berling features, besides the eponymous hero who is a defrocked priest, a strange array of "cavaliers", one of them being a great admirer of Beethoven. His name is Lovenborg and he holds Ludwig in such esteem that he dares not play his works on a piano, but only a wooden table with a painted keyboard. And when he plays it "He hears every note with unearthly clearness. He sits there glowing with enthusiasm and emotion, hearing the most wonderful tones".
The third book is Elfriede Jelinek's Piano Teacher. But it counts only as half a book here, as I only saw the film and read two or three chapters.The Guardian described it as a "demented love story [in which] the hunter is the hunted, pain is pleasure, and spite and self-contempt seep from every pore."
Suggestions of books with pianists welcome.
The programme was: Sibelius' Night Ride and Sunrise, Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no 2, and Tchaikovsky's Symphony no 6. I am not a classical music buff, but I do love Rachmaninov, and the 2nd is probably my all time favourite piece of classical music ever. And as I have nothing against Sibelius and Tchaikovsky either, I had enough reasons to book a seat in good time.
When the conductor - a grand man called Leif Segerstam - came on stage, I was struck by the fact that he looks very much like a cross between Karl Marx and a biblical patriarch. He is an impressive presence, and although he was moving a little stiffly, he had a very animated and (I suppose) persuasive style of conducting, at times taking the whole orchestra under his impressive wingspan.
The piano piece was performed by Denis Matsuev, a musician I can only describe as a genius and virtuoso. Suffice to say that at the end of the concerto, people clapped so loudly and for such a long time that I remembered the olden days when The Comrade was holding plenary meetings and speechifying. When the texts were published, they were scattered with parantheses such as "Prolonged applause and ovations. The audience is chanting slogans Ceausescu and the People".
Matsuev got three curtain calls and many boucquets, and at the third call he sat at the piano and played his own version of Figaro's aria, unleashing further applauses.
This concert made me think about books with pianists in an important role. Or at least books in which people who play the piano impressed me for a reason.
I thought long and hard and found only three books in my reading list, excluding from the start the piano playing that is de rigueur in the majority of 19th century novels.
The first one that came to my mind is a Romanian classic, La Medeleni by Ionel Teodoreanu, a roman flueve charting the lives and complicated love lives of the Deleanu family's children. The Deleanus were small nobility from Moldavia, and the opening salvo takes place on their estate, Medeleni, in a semi-bucolic arrangement. I don't remember Madame Deleanu playing the piano, but I remember she was doing pianotage, playing an inexistent keyboard when she was in a bad mood.
This led to another book which is not about a pianist, the Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof, better known (not in the UK, unfortunately) for the fantastic children book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson. The Saga of Gosta Berling features, besides the eponymous hero who is a defrocked priest, a strange array of "cavaliers", one of them being a great admirer of Beethoven. His name is Lovenborg and he holds Ludwig in such esteem that he dares not play his works on a piano, but only a wooden table with a painted keyboard. And when he plays it "He hears every note with unearthly clearness. He sits there glowing with enthusiasm and emotion, hearing the most wonderful tones".
The third book is Elfriede Jelinek's Piano Teacher. But it counts only as half a book here, as I only saw the film and read two or three chapters.The Guardian described it as a "demented love story [in which] the hunter is the hunted, pain is pleasure, and spite and self-contempt seep from every pore."
Suggestions of books with pianists welcome.
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