The Chamber Music of Camille Saint-Saëns. With Renaud Capuçon and Bertrand Chamayou

The sonata for violin and piano No.1 in D minor Op 75 of Camille Saint-Saëns has long been a favourite of mine (as it was a favourite of Jascha Heifetz). The sonata is beautifully written, passionate and melodic, and it is difficult to understand its comparative neglect by violinists who usually trot out yet more performances of the Franck, Debussy and Ravel sonatas. I have been listening to the sonata on a recent CD by the French violinist Renaud Capuçon, ably partnered by Bertrand Chamayou; a truly excellent performance of a work that benefits greatly from the sophisticated playing of violinists from the Franco-Belgian school of playing. (Heifetz, of course, was a chameleon who could expertly adapt his playing to the French repertoire. He recorded this sonata twice in his career, both recordings excellent, and those are the versions I grew up with).

It is difficult to understand the comparative neglect of the music of Saint-Saëns. His “Organ Symphony” is trotted out from time to time, as is his Carnival of the Animals. He wrote a great deal of music during his long life (1835-1921) and much of it, like this sonata, is truly first class. But one does not come across it often. The CD continues with the better known substantial trio for violin, cello and piano No.2 in E minor Op 92. A lovely work in five movements where Capuçon and Chamayou are joined by the cellist, Edgar Moreau (what happened to Gautier Capuçon?) Also on the 75 minute CD is the sonata for cello and piano No.1 in C minor Op 32, a work I have never heard before in my entire life. I'll save it for later, not being especially partial to cello and piano sonatas.

Like Arthur Grumiaux in the previous century, Renaud Capuçon is a major violinist who really comes into his own in chamber music. This CD (Erato) is expertly recorded and balanced; balancing a violin, cello and piano is not easy. The CD is warmly recommended to lovers of chamber music, fine music, and the playing of three expert instrumentalists. Not a CD that I will file away; I'll keep it near at hand.

More Emile Sauret from Nazrin Rashidova

Emile Sauret is best known for his fiendish cadenza for the Paganini D major violin concerto. His 24 études-caprices Op.64 are little known: until Nazrin Rashidova came along and she has now recorded all 24 in four volumes. Four and a half hours of solo violin playing.

There is a lot of double-stopping in these études-caprices. Each lasts for around 12-15 minutes, and Sauret was obviously a stickler for intonation, and for varied and versatile bowing. Etude 21 lasts for 15 minutes and is double-stopped throughout. The works will fascinate aficionados of violin playing; in general, they are less overtly virtuosic and have less “circus tricks” than comparable pieces by Paganini or Heinrich Ernst. I can think of no criticism of Ms Rashidova's playing. For the current volume, she again plays a Stradivari of around 1685 that once belonged to Sauret.

Congratulations and thanks to Ms Rashidova, and also to courageous Naxos. Where would lovers of classical music be without companies such as Naxos, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, and others. Ms Rashidova wrote the excellent liner notes for this release, and also co-produced the (excellent) recording. Quite a talented young woman; she looks attractive (from the one photo Naxos features) so thank goodness she did not record for Warner or DG where 8-10 photos of her would be plastered throughout the booklet. Naxos's cover features a large picture of .... Emile Sauret.

Christmas 1948

Things would start around October when my mother would assemble the ingredients for The Christmas Pudding. We children were all invited to stir the mixture, into which were incorporated sixpenny pieces (unwashed). The puddings were then boiled overnight for eight hours, with the family on alert to ensure the puddings never boiled dry. On the 24^th December, two chickens were selected from the bottom of the garden to suffer the ultimate penalty. My father tried to kill the two by tying their necks in knots, but the chickens broke free and ran squawking around the room. Mr Pooley, the local butcher, was summoned and dispatched the two fowls with a blow to their necks. My mother then plucked them, decapitated them, and cleaned out their entrails, watched by her appalled children. On 25^th, the family settled down to a Christmas dinner (food, at last!) and devoured the chickens, the vegetables, and the “custard” with the Christmas pudding.

Fast forward to 2020 ......

Sigiswald Kuijken and the Bach Brandenburgs

Having much enjoyed listening to Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande during my traversal of Bach cantatas, I decided to invest in La Bande and Kuijken in the Brandenburgs (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1993-4). Bach's music needs expert players, and a well-balanced recording so that the many parts of Bach's polyphony can be heard and enjoyed. This Kuijken set conforms to those requirements. In particular, with Kuijken in charge, the frequent important solo violin input (for example, in the 4^th Brandenburg) can be enjoyed. Tempi in this set can be somewhat brisk (for example, in the final movement of the third Brandenburg), but I was never unduly disturbed.

One oddity of the set is that there is no trumpet in the second Brandenburg; a horn is used instead. I can't say I am unduly bothered nor, I suspect would Bach had been; he was always varying instrumentation and vocal parts according to what performers were available for the occasion. And, secretly, I prefer the sound of the horn (“Clarintrompette”) in chamber music, where a traditional trumpet is a bit strident and does not blend well with the other chamber instruments. For the “missing” second movement of the third Brandenburg, where Bach just left just two cadential chords, Kuijken offers a short solo violin flourish before the chords. Personally, I prefer Kati Debretzeni's improvisation in the Pinnock recording, but almost anything is better than just playing the two chords; better to omit them altogether and just go into the last movement unless one is going to insert something tasteful and appropriate. The first and third movements of no.5 dance along impressively and, for once, the harpsichord is well-balanced and not too dominant. The slow movement has some lovely duet playing, particularly the violin playing of Sigiswald himself. Sigiswald is ably aided throughout the set by his extraordinary brothers: Barthold (recorder and flute) and Wieland (cello). An all-star family.

Well, that is probably the end of my Brandenburg listening for a few months. They are, however, eternally enjoyable and I never grow tired of listening to them, particularly if the recording is well played, well-balanced and one can hear all the parts. Nearly 70 years ago when I first met them, the Brandenburgs were the province of large symphony orchestras. At least some things in music are done better nowadays.

Yet More Shostakovich

 Hiding away in lockdown, unable to travel anywhere, I tuck into my favourite (easily available) foods: scallops, mussels, and fresh squid. Forget soles and crabs; England does not boast many venues that sell these two. And my listening choices are narrowing. With many, many hundreds of CDs to choose from on my shelves, I now rarely buy additions – though if someone would like a few hundred cast-offs, please contact me. My current narrowed listening preferences centre increasingly on the music of two composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The former is self-evident; the latter a bit of a mystery. Why Shostakovich and not, for example, Vaughan Williams, or Prokofiev? Whatever; my two CD additions are Shostakovich's piano quintet (of which I now have eight versions), Shostakovich's Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, and Shostakovich's late violin sonata. Dmitri is raking in the royalties. The Blok Seven Romances appear rarely in recordings, probably because they need a piano trio and a soprano who can sing in Russian. This is totally unjust, since they are meticulously crafted and make engrossing listening even if, like me, one does not speak Russian. The piano quintet is played by the augmented Trio Wanderer; it sounds good (Harmonia Mundi) and is probably at least the equal of my other seven versions. The Blok songs are sung (with members of the trio) by Ekaterina Semenchuk; I have no comparisons to make, but all seems to go well and I listened with great enjoyment. This is late Shostakovich (Opus 127).

More late Shostakovich on my second CD purchase: the late (Opus 134) sonata for violin and piano really well played and recorded. Both the violinist (Natalia Prishepenko) and pianist (the late Dina Ugorskaja) are new to me. They make an excellent duo and, for a change, violin and piano are well balanced. The CD also contains Sergei Prokofiev's first violin and piano sonata, a work understandably much recorded and superior to the Shostakovich sonata; late Shostakovich is often somewhat threadbare and meagre.

Back to this evening's meal: Saucisson de porc de l'Ardèche, and ... scallops (salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil). My “house wine” is now a red from the region of Carcassonne (where I spent many happy days with two friends in September of this year). And Bach's cantata BWV 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen. Happy lockdown.

Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

A few years ago, I visited Schloss Köthen (not too far from Berlin) with one of my sisters, in a kind of Bach pilgrimage. Bach worked in Köthen from 1717 to 1723 as Hofkapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, and much of his instrumental music, including the six Brandenburg concertos, dates from that era.

I have seven sets of the Brandenburgs on record. Busch and the Busch Chamber Orchestra (1935) and Klemperer and the Philharmonia (1960) are personal favourites, since I greatly respect both Busch and Klemperer in Bach. Menuhin and the Bath Festival Orchestra (1959) have a sentimental value, since I was at a concert in the Festival Hall in London and heard them play all the Brandenburgs (with Menuhin making a real cat's breakfast of the violino piccolo part in the first Brandenburg). Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra (1968) are good middle-of-the-road recordings. Britten and the English Chamber Orchestra (also 1968) do not greatly appeal to me, neither does Adrian Boult conducting the LPO (1972).

The Brandenburgs are usually described as “orchestral” works, but they sound best when played by a small chamber orchestra. Like septets, octets and nonets, they do not really require a conductor, although someone to organise balance and tempi is often useful. Bach called them six concerts avec plusieurs instruments in his dedication to the Margrave of Brandenburg. In the Festival Hall performances by Menuhin's band, I particularly recall the visual effect in the third Brandenburg of seeing the counterpoint travelling from left (first violins) to right (basso). An example of stereophonic listening.

To succeed on record, the Brandenburgs need a fine set of instrumentalists, a good balance so the polyphony and counterpoint can be heard, and a good recording. My favourites of the six concertos are numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6. I am not over-fond of brass instruments in chamber works (numbers 1 and 2, although David Blackadder's trumpet in no.2 with Pinnock almost converts me). I am currently renewing my acquaintance with these works by listening to my seventh set, the European Brandenburg Ensemble directed by Trevor Pinnock (2006). This is the best of my bunch of seven recordings. For the missing second movement of the third concerto where Bach left only two orchestral chords, almost certainly expecting some kind of improvisation, Pinnock's band inserts a highly appropriate solo violin piece (a superb improvisation by Kati Debretzeni); to me, this is the best solution yet to the (maybe) “missing” music. In the first concerto, the violino piccolo really does not make much of a mark (Menuhin would have been thankful), but what can a violino piccolo do against two horns, three oboes and a bassoon? It's as much Bach's miscalculation as one by the recording engineers. You can combine a violin solo with flute or clarinet, but not with oboe or brass, Herr Bach. For a change in these works, the brass instruments do not give cause for unease concerning intonation where Pinnock's band is concerned. I also do not note one single movement in the whole set where I would disagree with Pinnock's chosen tempo for the music.

Anyway, around 300 years since they were written, the six Brandenburgs make superb listening. Eternal music. Not too much music written today is going to make 300 years, I suspect. I love the intense polyphony of the Brandenburgs; number six sounds positively seventeenth century. Music to keep to hand.

Joseph Haydn's String Quartets

For most of my nearly 70 years of listening to music, I usually passed over the music of Joseph Haydn. I probably thought that a man who wrote 106 symphonies and 30 or so string quartets could not be a serious candidate for anything other than Tafelmusik. My loss; Haydn's music rarely explores the heights and depths of human emotions, but it is highly engaging music to listen to as I am currently discovering exploring Haydn's string quartets in a giant 10-CD box recorded for Naïve by the Quatuor Mosaïques, recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Not being a Haydn fan in the past, I must have bought the box many years ago as an impulse buy.

Haydn was always so bloody cheerful! Not for him the depressions and fears in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert .... and Shostakovich! Haydn is characterised by the inventiveness of his music, his ever-present good humour, and the sheer professionalism of his writing. The recordings by the Quatuor Mosaïques come over well, with only an occasional rasp from the violins to remind us that this is a recording “on original instruments” (as the saying goes). The playing suits Haydn's music. So far I have listened to the three quartets of Op 77, and the six quartets of Op 76. Next up: the six quartets of Opus 64.

Sabine Devieilhe - Chanson d'Amour

The best song writers come from Germany-Austria, France, and Russia. Not much from the Spaniards, the Italians, or the British (the latter not since the 17^th century). I have been listening to a new CD of French mélodies, sung by Sabine Devieilhe. Titled “Chanson d'Amour” it collects 29 French mélodies by Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel and Debussy. I never tire of Devielhe's voice; it is a young, attractive soprano. Happy listening.

Khachaturian's Violin Concerto, and Antje Weithaas (again)

My taste in music centres on the 18^th and 19^th centuries, plus the first couple of decades of the 20^th. I have little interest in most of the music of the past 100 years (with significant exceptions, such as that of Prokofiev and Shostakovich). Around the middle of the past century, however, appeared four violin concertos that appeal to me greatly: the concerto by Benjamin Britten with a very English flavour, the concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold with a very Viennese flavour, the first violin concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich with a very Russian flavour – and the violin concerto by Aram Khachaturian with a very Armenian flavour.

I have been listening to a recording of the Khachaturian concerto played by the German violinist, Antje Weithaas. It is difficult to decide what to admire most about Weithaas's performance: her extraordinary sense of rhythm, her consummate technical expertise, or her exemplary ability to adapt to a music written in a very different idiom. She joins Julian Sitkovetsky (with Niyazi) and Leonid Kogan (with Monteux) on the podium for this concerto, thanks also to excellent and idiomatic support from the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie conducted by Daniel Raiskin. Highly recommended listening to counteract the morbid world of Covid-19.

From the Archives: Katrin Scholz

Raiding my archives of recordings, it is tempting to imagine that those who become really famous are always la crème de la crème, but it's not always so. Country of birth, financial supporters, powerful agents, international recording contracts, racial or nationalist supporter groups and critics, confidence in performing in public ... all can count for even more than sheer top talent at playing the violin. I have a large number of recordings featuring Vilde Frang, Katrin Scholz, Antje Weithaas, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Adolf Busch, Gerhardt Taschner, Erich Röhn, Georg Kulenkampff, and many, many others that are hardly household names. Then there are good violinists who achieve media fame through eccentricities – such as Gilles Apap, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Nigel Kennedy, Nemanja Radulovic. And meteorites such as Ginette Neveu and Josef Hassid.

Katrin Scholz was born in Berlin in 1969 (the same year as the youngest of my three children, as it happens). Her Berlin Classics recordings mainly date from the period 1997-2006 when she would have been in her late twenties and early thirties. She recorded for the German company, Berlin Classics. One of the company's most welcome features is listing the composers for the cadenzas used; few companies do this, and it's vaguely annoying when they do not. In the Beethoven concerto, Scholz plays the cadenza by Joachim (with Kreisler's in the third movement). In Mozart's 4^th and 5^th violin concertos, she also uses Joachim's cadenzas. For the Beethoven concerto first movement, I prefer Kreisler's to all the other many contenders.

Scholz appears to have remained Berlin-based for much of her career, and I have five CDs from Berlin Classics, many of them with the Kammerorchester Berlin. They include superb, classical recordings of the Beethoven violin concerto, plus three Mozart concertos, and the Brahms concerto. She also recorded the Sibelius concerto, Saint-Saëns' third concerto, and Martinu's second (why bother?) In addition there is a Spanish Dance CD where she plays miscellaneous pieces by de Falla, Sarasate, Ravel, et al. Katrin Scholz playing “Spanish” is an unexpected success; pigeon-holing her as a superb player of the German classics, one does not expect her to play the 21 tracks of Spanish dances as to the manor born. But she does, with a real sense of style and rhythm. Bravo, Katrin. Her five CDs will never go in my throw-out bin.

In praise of skimming and skipping

Although I'll be 80 years old next year, I am no technophobe: to prove it, I have three PCs (why?), two laptop computers (why?) and two mobile phones. Plus a CD player with all the peripherals, and a portable DVD player. I listen to CDs. I play my violin (occasionally), I read paper books of which I have hundreds, I read books on my Kindle (wherein lie probably another hundred). All alone in the civilised world: I do not have a television, and have not had one for over 30 years now.

Music CDs are fine: you insert them in the player, push “start” and listen to Kreisler playing Kreisler, or whatever. If you are interested in the names of the recording engineers and the transfer artist, you can read it later in the booklet. Books are fine, either on a Kindle or on paper. You can skip over the boring bits of text (“get on with the plot!”). If you are really interested in the names of the editors, sub-editors and typesetters, you can usually look this up later. But DVDs of films are another planet. You have to endure endless lists of those who did the make-up and the hair styling, and whatever else, and there is no skipping. (At least, there probably is, but every time I touch a DVD player button I find myself back at the beginning of the film, with all the stuff about hair stylists, or whatever). From family visits, I have gathered that television is far worse: no “fast forward” button so one has to endure endless adverts for sanitary products, or news bulletins where the only thing of real interest comes at the end of the bulletin after twenty minutes of trivia. One good reason I don't have a television (I get my news from the Web, where I can skim and skip). I like skimming and skipping. No one under the age of 60 will understand my aversion to video programmes. I am currently watching (on my portable DVD player) a Swedish television adaption of Henning Mankell's Wallender books. Well done, but I have to watch all the stuff that is of no interest to me. If I go back to the books on my shelves, I can skim ! Different planets.

Exploring the Archives: Sigiswald Kuijken, and Wilhelm Backhaus

As I have remarked before in this blog, recording quality and balance are often highly influenced by one's playback equipment. What sounds unsatisfactory via speakers, can often sound a lot better through headphones. I once drove a salesman to despair when I wanted to replace my speakers around a decade ago. I played my test CD through speaker after proposed speaker, with the salesman exclaiming “just listen to that bass!” But I wasn't too concerned about the bass sound, since so much of my listening is to violin music, and I was more interested in the feeble treble that came over. After many changes, I left without buying anything at that establishment.

I am currently diving back into my CD archives. Having gone through innumerable Bach cantatas as recorded by Suzuki and by Herreweghe, I am now on to innumerable Bach cantatas as recorded by Sigiswald Kuijken and his La Petite Bande. Balancing Bach cantatas is a problem, with the small orchestra, soloists and a choir all vying for attention. Too often — most noticeably with Suzuki — the recording emphasis favours the solo voices, with the orchestra in the background. Not so with Kuijken, and I am sure Bach would be happy to hear the band playing loud and clear, since Bach's vocal soloists are said often to have been a mixed bag, and Bach devoted much of his compositional skills to making sure the band was doing interesting things. The Kuijken recordings date from the period 2006-11. Unlike Suzuki and Herreweghe, he does not use a choir, but gives the choral work to the four soloists. I don't mind this in Bach cantatas, since I am not a fan of choirs and choral music. Kuijken also favours female altos, rather than males, and I nod approvingly. Male altos usually get up my nose. Suzuki, Herreweghe and Kuijken recorded dozens of Bach cantatas over more than a decade, with changing soloists. There is no "best buy", as so often, but I am grateful to have so many Bach cantatas recorded by all three men.

Also from my archives, I am re-listening with great pleasure to Wilhelm Backhaus playing five Beethoven piano sonatas. This is the kind of piano playing I enjoy; Backhaus was a formidable technician, but his playing draws attention to the music, and not to the star pianist. In this, Igor Levit somewhat resembles Backhaus; my kind of piano playing. I am not a great fan of the Beethoven piano sonatas, and listen to them rarely. When I do listen, I like them played by no-nonsense Backhaus or Levit.

Next off on my archive re-listening will be the violinist Katrin Scholz; not a household name, but a superb violinist.

Igor Levit and Beethoven Piano Sonatas

I was surprised recently reading a survey of recordings of Beethoven's final piano sonata, Opus 111 by the commentator Norman Lebrecht, to read that of the 150 or so recordings of this work, Mr Lebrecht did not mention that by Igor Levit. Levit's recording was extravagantly praised when it arrived (not least by me). After nearly 70 years of reading critical opinions, I have gathered that they are 70% subjective, and only 30% objective. Opinions can be distorted by fashion, nationalism, racial preferences, political animosity, advertising and sponsorship. I recall the mother of a prominent violinist telling me once: “But we paid for international distribution!” And anyone in the current social media climate daring to voice any kind of opinion, is bound to attract a negative claque.

I have been re-listening to Igor Levit's recording of the five final Beethoven piano sonatas (omitting the Hammerklavier, that I have never taken to). Levit is a serious pianist who does not play to the gallery, and I always feel that the music coming from his finger tips, is the music as he feels it in his bones. He remains my kind of pianist. If there are indeed around 150 recordings of Opus 111, there cannot possibly be a “best”. But Levit's is up there in the top 10%, for me.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

A big cheer for Simone Kermes and her new CD of twelve arias from "18th century Naples". A CD I really hesitate to file on my shelves; I need it close to hand! Astonishing, and scandalous, that nine out of the twelve arias are claimed to be "world premier recordings". The music from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Nicola Antonio Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo and Johann Adolf Hasse is as delightful as strawberries and cream on a warm summer's day. Nearly as delightful as Kermes' singing is the band of Le Musiche Nove conducted by Claudio Osele. A 24 carat gold CD. I am next in line for whatever Simone Kermes comes up with in the future.

Simone Kermes, and Handel

Not too many composers or compositions have survived in the top ranks of my nearly 70 years of listening. One who has survived, however, is Georg Frideric Händel (however his name is spelled through the ages). To this day, I listen to a lot of Handel's music (mainly arias from his 50 or so operas, or his many Italian cantatas). Like Richard Strauss, Handel appears to have loved the soprano voice (and I join them in this). For 18^th century baroque music, I often turn to the German soprano Simone Kermes. She is a lover of 18^th century baroque opera, and this shows in her singing, her dedication, and in her choice of musical partners. My current listening is a CD of Handel's music with the late Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco. A wonderful selection of arias by lovelorn sorceresses billed as La Maga Abbandonata. One hour of listening to some of the greatest music of Europe, sung by a supreme coloratura soprano. A recording from my “keep at hand and do not file away” selection. Who can possibly resist “Pena tirana” from Amadigi, or “Ah, mio cor” from Alcina? Not I. Music for eternity, music to die to.

 

Domenico Scarlatti, and Yevgeny Sudbin

I have just been re-listening with enormous pleasure to two and a half hours of 36 piano sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti. The variety and powers of invention found in these works is truly amazing; few last for longer than four or five minutes, but I much prefer two and a half hours of Scarlatti to two and a half hours of Chopin, Liszt or Brahms. Many pianists include some of the sonatas in recitals — on disc, there are pianists as varied as Clara Haskil and Yuja Wang — but my 36 for this session were played by the pianist born in St Petersburg, Yevgeny Sudbin. He is a pianist with a relatively low profile – no Yuja or Lang Lang, he. But he is a highly musical pianist with an immaculate technique and he takes to Scarlatti like a duck to water. He plays, thank goodness, on a modern piano; although the sonatas were written for an 18^th century harpsichord, they sound so much better when played on a good modern piano whatever learned musical pundits may decree. Three stars for Sudbin, but also three stars for Scarlatti. This was only a sampling of the 550 or so keyboard sonatas by Scarlatti (who was born in 1685, the miraculous year that also saw the births of Handel and Bach).

Eating in Cambodia 2011

In 2011, with two friends, we hired a taxi and were taken from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (Cambodia). The 300 kilometres journey took five hours. Halfway, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. The menu was rice, plus either vegetables, fish, or chicken. The mother and (presumably) daughter, served. The granddaughter, aged around 12-13, translated and calculated the bill in Cambodian riel, Thai baht, American dollars, or European euros. The rice came from the field behind the restaurant; the vegetables likewise, the fish likewise (there was a lake) and the chicken likewise. All was delicious, freshly cooked, and cost us around $3 per person (because we were obviously foreign tourists ready for fleecing).

Since 2011, I have eaten thousands of restaurant meals. But that roadside meal in Cambodia still sticks in my mind with great affection. I hope the family restaurant is still there, and thriving

Antje Weithaas in Brahms with a poor conductor (Revised)

To Portsmouth on 9th December 2004 (!) to hear Elisabeth Batiashvili play the Brahms violin concerto. Only, it transpires, it wasn't Batiashvili (again) but a substitute young woman of exceptional talent, but with an inferior violin; she appeared to be playing on a violin that did not respond to pressure -- forte on the E and A strings came over as being harsh. But you could have heard a pin drop during the cadenza; she really made the audience concentrate on what was being played. Her name: Antje Weithaas. The orchestra plainly did not like the conductor, Rolf Gupta (Norway). Conducting without a baton, his arms became two flippers that twitched up and down, which plainly left the exposed, high, pianissimo violins at the start of the Prelude to Lohengrin, all at sea. From grim faces all round, it seemed as if hard words had been exchanged during the interval; the conductor came on late for the second half (Schumann second symphony) and the orchestra only managed a slight smile when he tripped and nearly fell at the end of the concert. I doubt we'll be seeing him again with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.