Lots of brain and soul food this month.
It was a shock to realise that my last complete cycle was in the same hall in June 1980 led by the outgoing Chief Conductor, Walter Weller. My only other cycle before that was with the London Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink with Vladimir Ashkenazy performing all of the piano concertii as well. It was 1974. I was a student. Now, I'm looking foward to this September treat.
I bookended the ticket purchases with drink and food. I made a quick pit stop on the walk up the hill to the Philharmoninc Hall for a tasty pint in The Roscoe Head. On my way back down Bold Street, I just fancied a nibble before going home and so I dropped in on Mowgli Street Food for a bit of a nosh.
Days later, I was back in the Philharmonic Hall for the end of the current Phil season which was billed as a celebration of the ten years that Vasily Petrenko has been at the helm of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As was befitting, we had English and Russian (mostly Russian) music.
We started with Elgar's supposed concert overture In the South: Alassio which comes over as more of a tone poem, inspired as it was by the sites, sounds and history of the area around Andora in the Italian Riviera. Personally, I hear an awful lot of Richard Strauss in the score. Anyhow, the music was given the full welly, very strongly characterised and sonically lush.
Then Truls Mørk took centre stage as the protagonist in a wonderfully realised performance of Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No1. It was sensational, quite terrifyingly so at times. The whole thing felt like a very ordinary person in the sound of the cello being pursued by unknown means and for unknown purposes by a terrifying social machine of some sort in the shape of the orchestra occupying a totally different sound world from the previous piece. And the awful thing was that there was no joyful release or happy ending. There was simply an abyss. Edge of the seat stuff and no mistake.
Rachmaninov's first Symphony will remain my favourite out of the three that he composed. It matches Tchaikovsky's Pathétique step for step in its descent into a personal hell. The Third Symphony is a Russian symphony written from an American perspective written in Switzerland. It's about nostalgia and loss whilst celebrating a good life. Vassily and the band gave it the full treatment and it was very apparent that this performance was a culmination in the journey that Vassily has undertaken with his players over a decade through the works of Mahler, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Haydn.
After some short words of appreciation from the great and good, Shostakovich's Tahiti Foxtrot made a suitably festive end to the evening.
We in the circle rose as one at the very end to acclaim the man and ten glorious years.
Ross and I encountered an unepected treat when we sat down to watch Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales. It was an absolutely stunning film. I don't think I've witnessed a film which magically weaves so many plots and leaves so much unanswered since Pasolini's Medieval trilogy of the early 70s or Fellini's Satyricon of the same era.
Sumptuous design. Ensemble acting. Laughter. Thrills. Resolution. Embrace. Anguish.
It's been a while since I've had such a totally immersive cinematic experience.
Similarly on the literary front, it's a long while since I've been as utterly consumed by a narrative as I was by Frances Hardinge's Fly by Night.
Towards the end of the book, the main character (Mosca, a young girl of great enterprise) is offered a safe and secure future and responds
Nah! I don't want a happy ending - I want more story.
I like that idea.
To the cinema to watch a relay of the Almeida Theatre's production of Richard III directed by Rupert Goold. The headline attraction was Ralph Fiennes as Shakespeare’s most notorious villain but, for me, the main draw was Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret.
The first half was chilling as Ralph Fiennes' Richard plotted and hacked his way to ultimate power. You couldn't wish for a more appropriate commentary on the current state of The Nation. I wasn't so sure about the second half which wants to take us into the happy ending of release from barbarity by the fabulous Tudors - the production didn't really want to take us there at all.
Nevertheless, the whole evening, for me, was crowned by an astonishing cameo from Vanessa Redgrave. Well into her senior years she was peerless as Queen Margaret - a wholly understated assumption of a woman bitter, grief-stricken and completely fearless in her direct gaze onto a living hell.
My month was brought to a close with something in a lighter vein - Star Trek: Beyond at the Odeon near Switch Island with Ross.
It was his treat.
I tagged along to keep him happy.
Just sayin'.