A Bit of Bling
31 May


Well, we're nearly half way through the Capital of Culture year here in Liverpool and I've been to see a few but not many and certainly not all of the special events.

From my point of view, there has been

Of course, I've been to a number of other notable events but these haven't specifically been part of the Capital of Culture. And there have been any number of events which I'd planned to attend but didn't make it to.

So, it's good to go to the first major visual arts event of this year long festival.

Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Mada Primavesi I took the afternoon off work and Ross and I went down to the Albert Dock to Tate Liverpool where we took advantage of out Tate Memberships to visit the private view of the Gustav Klimt exhibition. It's a comprehensive look at the man, his works, his patrons and his times. There's design work, there's portraiture, there're landscapes, there're sketches and drawings.

The Secessonist school drew part of its inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain and there were clear links back to Blackwell which Ross and I visited at the beginning of April.

And there's links to the surface glitter of the music of Richard Strauss and Korngold as well. Both Strauss and Klimt took Salome as a subject. Freud was active in Vienna at the same time so a nervy preoccupation with sex is not surprising.

Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi All in all I liked the show. It was of the right size for me; not so large that I lose focus and energy but large enough to give a broad enough picture. In the view of the general public however, I think that they are probably two iconic works short of full customer satisfaction.

There's a view abroad that there are hardly any Klimt's in the show. This is a nonsense - there are loads. It's simply that there's aren't many in the be-jewelled style that Klimt is most known for. It's not all wall-to-wall bling. And if people are going to turn up wanting just to see The Kiss then they will be disappointed.

I shall probably return at a later date for a second view without Ross. Nothing against him but we have different speeds and needs when we go round an exhibition together. For example, I wanted to spent more time with the reconstruction of the Beethoven frieze; he wanted to get past that bit very quickly. And I want to read up in the catalogue before I return.

Gustav Klimt - Apple Tree This painting was one that Ross particularly liked. It's of an apple tree. Near the exit, they were selling prints - some framed and some not. This one was available loose or in a frame. Anyhow, I've bought one for Ross for his birthday. Yes, I know that this event does not occur until 30 September but I'd rather get him something now that he would want rather than fretting nearer the time.

So, an excellent experience with the promise of more to come. [Four Stars - Excellent]

I should also make mention of my first encounter with some of Liverpool's more recent and ongoing physical developments. We parked up near the new Liverpool Echo Arena and Conference Centre in a new multi-storey car park. The Arena certainly looks good from the outside and colleagues who have been there tell me that it is OK from the inside. Parking was easy but then, on a Thursday afternoon, you'd hope for that. £2.00 for two hours is, I suppose, about the going rate these days for a busy inner city area.

And, at last, the roadworks which have bedevilled the waterfront for the past eighteen months appear to be coming to an end. The Strand is looking good and the first phase of the new shopping centre is open for business. Gradually, the cranes will disappear. That site has been under construction since I did my jury duty in 2005.

And there was more of Vienna to come on Saturday night with another RLPO concert. This time we heard Beethoven's Piano Concerto No3 and Mahler's Symphony No5.

I heard pianist, Paul Lewis earlier in the year with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No4 - he'll be doing the other three in the autumn. I enjoyed the performance and I like Lewis's thoughtful, sprightly and fluid way with the music. Whilst he's certainly ware of the intellect behind the notes, he's not lost sight of the joy of the music-making.

Vasily Petrenko goes from strength to strength. His Mahler is a force to be reckoned with though I'm not sure that it was a very Viennese performance that we heard. There's both gemütlichkeit as well as angst in this score; whipped cream and bitter chocolate.

Mahler 5 is one of those works I have lived with since my student days and must have heard it performed live at least half a dozen times. As you'd expect from our Russian maestro, there were great shifts in the dynamics of volume. He's very good with rhythms too, crisp and precise. I wasn't always convinced by the choice of tempi. I suspect he was fast and slow according to his needs rather than the score's.

But it was a real achievement and in some respects, as in the gipsy string quartet in the middle of the central movement, better than I have ever heard elsewhere. No doubt I'll hear more of his Mahler in future seasons. [Three and a Half Stars - Very Good]

One final thing... we've had the outside of our house painted - well almost but that's another story. I had been organising this and was going to use Becker's who have done all of the work on our house so far. However, Ross was able to get a deal with someone he knows.

I suppose that we have had a job done. But it's not really been the proper craftsman's job that I'd wanted. Instead we have a bodged tradesman's job. The sash windows are now more difficult to open. The insides of the sashes haven't been painted so that there are still areas of flaking paint when the windows are opened. Not all of the cracks have been properly filled. The doors and other woodwork have not been painted. Moreover, the front garden has been trampled and the wormerie had one of its legs broken off when it was moved.

The two guys say that they got the job done in a day because the weather was good. I think they got it done in a day because they cut corners and scrimped.