I've posted a new video online of me doing Ross Harris' Violin Concerto wth the Auckland Philharmonia and Ilya Gringolts. It's coming out on Naxos. It's a very difficult piece, with numerous tricky tempo changes and temporal relationships, but it's a really fabulous performance, and really tight.
Blog
April/May
The next couple of months sees me totalling up large numbers of air miles with trips to Australia, New Zealand, Rome, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and even Glasgow. All very exciting projects, with repertoire as diverse as Brahms and Bartok, Mendelssohn and Ades, Chopin and Prokofiev, Brett Dean and Hamish MacCunn. There is also an interplanetary journey with Holst, which will be paid for through the air miles I am accruing.....
Herald Article about Role at Royal Conservatoire
German press announcing my appointment as Chefdirigent in Koblenz
A personal tribute to the Sea King (and their pilots).
"August 15 Walker, (25) injured leg on steep path on south side of Ben Vrackie. Rescue by RN Sea King.Taypol S and R. Kinross MRT. 40 [man hours]
August 15 Paramedic descending from above rescue twisted knee and was aided down to a Land Rover by Kinloss MRT."
Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, 2000.
"I'm off," was all he said,not shouted, as he slid down the crumbling gully, gathering speed. Then he simply went airborne before hitting, out of view, the scree slope below. He burst into sight again in a cloud of dust and sulphur.
"Are you alright?" I shouted, partly angry, partly worried and more than partly desperate. It was a silly question.
A very pained no was the reply.
"You stay there .....[as if he was going to nip off for a cup of tea]..... And I'll get help."
I remember the waves of panic. Not only was my friend possibly very badly injured, but, as far as I knew, I was the only one to witness the accident. If I fell off, then no-one might ever know. The gully had become hellishly loose the higher we had gone. The SMC accident report mentions a steep path. There was no path. This was virgin territory, and I could see why. Fighting off the waves, I steadily went higher until, quite soon I seem to remember, there was a way off right onto heather and the open hillside. I recall being incredibly out of breath. It wasn't exertion; simply horror. I met our two girlfriends on the path on the way down, though I had been shouting towards them from a long way off. They had gone up the tourist route; we had looked for a bit of adventure, and certainly found it. I don't remember at all getting down to the lochan, but I do remember seeing with some relief two guys already attending to my friend on the scree slopes about 50 metres higher up.
"Your friend's very badly injured!" was shouted down. Somehow this is the sentence that I remember the best from the whole day; it still chills me. I mistook the concern in his voice for anger, as if the accident was my fault. Until that point, this was my own private dream with people in it that I knew. When a stranger's voice entered it, I knew it wasn't a dream.
"I'll go and get help," said one of the men. "I live in the village. I'll phone." I'd like to say it was the day before mobile phones, but it wasn't. We all had phones, but no-one thought to take them up such an innocuous hill.
When I got to him, I remember my friend looking remarkably pale. His lips were the same colour as his skin, and his eyes had a curiously distant look. We tried to move him, as he was in considerable pain lying on sharp large scree stones. He immediately passed out when we lifted him ,but thank god came-to almost as quickly. I shan't dwell on the injuries. The most serious we were not aware of. The most obvious were, well, obvious. "Injured leg," as the SMC Report mentions doesn't do it justice, and anyway, it was both legs.
I will never forget his quiet bravery and calm. Maybe there is no other way to be. I remember my only determination was that he wasn't going to sleep. We were rather slow to realise that he was getting dangerously cold. It was August, and a reasonably pleasant day, but at 2500ft and being stationery, it doesn't take long to chill. I recall being unusually preoccupied with the weather, and particularly some grumbling clouds to the west. We put as many things on top of him, underneath him and around his head as possible. There was no possibility of dressing him.
Time seems to have contracted over the years. It doesn't seem long now before we could see two police officers, one male, one female, and a rather large gentleman dressed all in green, coming round the lochan. I remember the intense frustration of how totally ill at ease they were on the terrain. They were wearing Dr Martin type shoes, with soles that are better suited not to make indentations on old ladies' shag pile carpets. The male police officer was perhaps not in his first flush of youth. The female officer stayed with the Jolly Green Giant who was taking an absolute age to get to us. It was hardly a surprise; the terrain was horrendous and very loose.
It never struck me at the time that this wasn't the rescue party. I naively thought it was. This was the party to co-ordinate the rescue, but as I assumed this was "the help" I started to get increasingly frantic. I guess because I was in a state of shock, or perhaps because I now just don't remember the detail, I don't think I ever asked the PC "Is there any back-up?" For some reason I think I became aware that the RAF Mountain Rescue Team were training nearby. This elderly police officer, his colleague below and the paramedic were all that I thought we had. I am ashamed that I felt so frustrated at the time. I now realise just how important the police and paramedic were to the situation (the radio link was presumably absolutely crucial) and I apologise for my black thoughts at the time. If memory serves me right, I didn't express my silly concerns to them!
The paramedic never seemed to get any closer. The guy who had run for help had rejoined us, and was carrying the emergency kit-bag. Just a couple of metres below us, the paramedic suddenly started to scream. The police officer went straight onto his radio.
"The paramedic is having some sort of seizure, I repeat, seizure. "
In a moment of gallows humour that my barely conscious friend seemed always to remember, I apparently said, "Christ. That's all we need. The paramedic needs a paramedic."
"I'm no havin' a f***ing seizure!" came a rather strangulated response from the not so Jolly Green Giant. " I've twisted my f***ing knee."
By this point, I'd lost almost all hope. Everything seemed against us. There were spits and spots of rain. My friend had gone a rather unpleasant grey colour, and we seemed no nearer effecting a rescue.
Then everything changed. The policeman's radio crackled with something about HMS Gannet, and then we heard the Sea King inbound. It flew around the hill, then came back much nearer. Then, it started to drift in crab-like towards us. The noise was tremendous; the downdraft very frightening. I was acutely aware of how close the helicopter's rotars were to the cliff face, and the consequences of having 10 tonnes of flying machine above us if those rotars should come into contact with the rock face. Down came a man on the winch with a stretcher,spinning like a 78 record, and the helicopter disappeared off again. His professionalism and calmness immediately put me at ease. The paramedic had bravely crawled to assist us by now, but had had no luck finding a vein. The winchman was completely focused. We were all asked to help lift my friend onto the stretcher; he immediately passed out. For reasons I still don't remember (maybe we were asked to go down by the police?) we left the winchman, my friend, his girlfriend and the male police officer at this stage, and descended towards the lochan. The helicopter came in again. From this angle, looking back up at the cliffs, it seemed even more impossibly close the the wall. I remember thinking that it was an extraordinary piece of flying. I think it was the only time I cried. The sheer selflessness of putting oneself, one's crew and the emergency services in danger in order to help an injured stranger still astonishes me today.
I wasn't party to the conversation of the winchman at that point clearly, but I was told he said, " We're losing him. Ninewells, not Perth," and he advised my friend's girlfriend that there wasn't time to take her with them in the chopper.
Up went the stretcher; I remember the winchman using his feet to push against some of the smaller outcrops. And then, it all went silent as the Sea King wheeled off eastwards. I seem to remember it was 17 minutes to Ninewells, but that might be wrong.
We walked down the hill, dazed and exhausted by the whole experience. The RAF Mountain Recue were waiting, on standby in case the helicopter had failed to gather its quarry. The ambulance was a bit lower, and had got stuck in the mud. The winch on the Rescue Truck was used to shift it, but not after quite a struggle and a distinct burning smell. The cable may even have snapped.
They didn't lose him; neither did we. But it was all thanks to the extraordinary flying of the pilots, the professionalism and bravery of the winchman, the co-ordination of Taypol, the determination of the paramedic and the fly-ability and reliability of the Sea King that resulted in us not losing him. For the emergency services, and particularly MRT and S and R, this is their everyday reality. But for my friend, it is a lifetime.
We thank them from the bottom of our hearts, and salute their bravery, brilliance and skill.
So, as the Sea Kings are retired, I raise a glass, quite literally, to them and all who flew in them.
Berlin
I've just had a wonderful week in Berlin doing concerts as part of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochscülen Wettbewerb. What an incredible standard of musicianship from all involved. A real joy to be part of. The NRW ORCHESTER ZENTRUM were absolutely fantastic, and delivered 2 amazing, spirited concerts which were very well received. Berlin, as ever, was an inspiring city. One really feels the history there.
Just updated Biography
Just updated my biography on my website. I remain the same person.
Why the Scottish Government shouldn't give £1m to golf
I write this from the perspective of someone who loves Golf. I respect its history, am delighted its origins are Scottish, love that it is a game largely free from cheating and drug problems, and where the rules, and sportsmanship, are held so highly. You'll never see a golfer diving in the box.
I am also not anti-wealth. People with outstanding skills, at the top of their game, should be rewarded according to the market. The problem is when the market stops functioning, or has no relationship to the reality of the world around it.
Have you ever heard of Morten Madsen? Probably not. Well, he won 63 000 euros at the Portugal Open for coming joint 4th. He's earned over half a million euros in the last year, and he's currently 191st in the World Golf Rankings.
Not bad for a golfer you're unlikely to have heard of.
Like many golfers, he's probably sponsored. He'll wear branded clothing advertising golfing manufacturers, sun glasses, banks, finance companies, cars or holiday destinations, often simultaneosly. If he's good enough, he'll be paid just to turn up at an event with "appearance money."
Yesterday, I read that the Scottish Government has helped secure the future of the Scottish Open by giving it £1 million pounds of taxpayers money each year until 2020. Prize money for 2015 is £3 million, then it'll rise to £4 million by 2018.
Many will say that that this million pound investment is a good investment. The Scottish Open is a big event, people travel to it, they stay in hotels, they drink beer and then (presumably under the influence of the beer) buy bad jumpers and even more ridiculous trousers.The Scottish Open gives people an outlet to spend their money, which is good for the (service) economy.
I say that Golf can look after itself. There have been a lot of column inches about how the golf world has struggled since the Credit Crunch. As long as there is prize money of £3 million for a single (relatively small) event, there isn't a problem as far as I'm concerned. Something like The Open will have prize money in the region of £5.4 million. There are 51 events advertised on the European Tour website in 2014. The Sponsors include BMW, HSBC, Rolex, Aberdeen Asset Management. Strikes me that Golf might be struggling to increase the prize money at an above inflation rate, but if prize-money was cut by 10%, presumable poor old Morten would only have received 450 000 euros.It doesn't seem to me that professional golf is struggling. It seems to me that it can look after itself.
Others will say that if the Scottish Government hadn't stepped in, the European Tour would have threatened to remove the Scottish Open from the calendar. Here is the real problem. Whether it's banks or Insurance Companies or Sport, governments are threatened, almost blackmailed, by business. How many times have we heard, "You can't increase tax on those who earn over £150 000, or all the talent will leave the country." "If you don't subsidise this event, it'll not happen."
I say, let the Scottish Open leave if it threatens to leave. I think the tour would be poorer off without the event. If golf is struggling, then it shouldn't have to threaten to withdraw events; it should be grateful that the event is happening at all.
I think that tax payers money should be used to the benefit of the tax payer. Schools, hospitals, public services (maybe even the Arts!!)....all the things that we're being told that there just isn't the money for.
But there's enough money to boost the prize money for a golf tournament from £3 million to £4 million, right?
Just had a great deal of fun. Was in a Starbucks in Germany, and, because Starbucks is a multinational, they insist on asking your name wherever you are on the Blue Planet, and then daub it on the side of the cup with a felt tip pen like a piece of urban art. I'm sick of them spelling Walker wrong...I've had Wokke in Portugal, Warcher in Germany and Wauka in Amsterdam. So, I thought, I'll call myself Manure. Then I sat back, and took an absolute age to claim my Venti Latte, and enjoyed enormously the increasingly shrill cries of, "Manure" "MANURE!" "VENTI LATTE fuer MANURE". It was pronounced almost right, if you squinted a bit with your ears.
I'd recommend it to you all.
That's Manure spelt with an M.
A Walking Holiday Part 2 (Revenge of the Sith)
I apologise for my last walking post, which finished mid-stream, was written in complete haste and had a rather obvious lack of spirituality contained within it. This one is no better, but I'll start off with some Goethe. When Faust asks what Nature does, she answers,
"So at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And weave for God the garment that you see Him by."
After Beinn a Bhuird (pedant) I met up with some teachers from Stewart's Melville. 2 of them, Iain Crosbie and Graham Wilson had taught during my time at the school, whilst Malcolm Garden is a fellow cellist who I knew through many Mahler symphonies, and he has subsequently joined the Classics department. We decided on Lochnagar, and the day started with rainbows and uncertain weather. We bumped into a family extraordinarily ill-clad for such a hill on such a day, and they seemed utterly clueless as to which way the hill was. At the parting of the paths before the slog up to the famous corrie, the father asked which way it was, despite the fact that the cliffs of Lochnagar were clearly keeking over the ridge. It was like standing in Paris close to Mr Eiffel's metal thing and asking, "Ou est le Tour Eiffel?" I felt such a killjoy when I asked, "Are you sure you've got enough clothes to be going up?" I really hate the over cautious killjoy know-it-alls you sometimes meet on the hill. 2 examples. My lovely lady and I did Schiehallion on a beautiful winter's day, and, as is my custom, I like to go up late to catch the setting sun and return by dark....you get the loveliest light, and you see the stars. Anyway, we were constantly hassled by walkers descending who admonished us about going up a hill so late." It'll be dark soon," etc etc yawn yawn bugger off. Example 2 was on the Lairig Ghru when I met a man with the heaviest and most lopsided rucksack I've ever seen. He was clearly struggling, but explained that he had a bivvy bag for possible benightment and a tent for indefinite benightment as well as every other piece of gear known to modern mountaineering. Not only was his day probably miserable and slow, but his risk of injury was probably twice that of someone going light.
It was a real joy to walk with Iain, Graham (both Munroists.....501 and 502 I think) and Malcolm. And, being good teachers, I still learnt some things from them. When I've seen other people's rubbish on the hill, I've had a tendency to tut tut, but perhaps, at best, try and bury or hide the offending item. Iain Crosbie takes a bag with him to carry off other people's detritus. I thought this was highly admirable and I'm going to do the same (carried 2 empty, rusting cans of condensed milk out from Altanour Lodge the next day). If Nature is going to weave the garment, it's up to us to patch up the occasional pulled threads.
Needless to say, the weather really improved, and the ill-equipped family, rather than being found under 6 feet of snow, quite happily made it to the summit (now clear) and presumably back......and they'll moan about being hassled by a holier-than-thou St Bernard.
The paths have been radically improved on Lochnagar, and the descent down the Glas Allt is now a very well drained path; don't remember it being quite as good last time.
The only picture taken all day of the cliffs!!
Teaching is such an important profession, and yet it seems it's not treated at times with the respect it deserves (unlike many other countries). You don't forget a good teacher. They can inspire you in a way which can change the direction of your life. I might not have had the love of the hills which I have, had I not had the chance to experience them through my school's very active outdoor education project.
A Walking Holiday Part 1 (A New Hope)
Last month, I was able to take a few days off and, for the first time in ages, have a proper period in the hills. I had a variety of companions, including no-one (I had the biggest argument with him) and some very good weather (providing I stayed East.....had hoped to get to Fort William, but the forecast was always grim west of the A9. Maybe after it's dualled, the weather will improve). Decided to use the bike wherever possible, and had some big days. Probably averaged 30km on 3 of them.
I wanted to start off in the Monahliath. Hadn't been there for years, and was concerned that I might not get back before the wind turbines march in.The light was mixed, but you still get that extraordinary sense of space. real MAMBA country, and a true centre of Scotland. You could see Glencoe down Loch Ericht and Loch Trieg, the Cairngorms, Ben Wyvis and a lot of the Western Highlands from Ben Nevis area all the way up through Shiel, Affric, Cannich, though I have to admit in that direction, it was a bit fuzzy both visually and geographically.
It must be a nightmare to navigate in a white out on this territory. Really featureless, but the fence posts help.
The next day was a cracker on Beinn Bhuird. The bike came into its own; absolutely eats up the miles up to the path at the top of Glen Quoich (and faster on the way back). The new path up Beinn Bhuird is an absolute joy; great angle, well drained, fairly direct and such an improvement on that horrendous bulldozed track which has almost disappeared. Well done NTS.
It's just such a vast area the summit of Beinn Bhuird, as is the neighbouring Ben Avon. The corries scalloped out of it are really beautiful, though I didn't have time to go over to the ones on the north side. The light had been a bit mixed up until the summit, and then it just became perfect, and you had that enormous and wonderful sense of space and big sky.
You really feel very small in this landscape. It's an absolute joy to walk in.
New Video
New Video talking about the closing concert of the Edinburgh International Festival. In interview with Kate Molleson. Find it on the video page or here: http://youtu.be/MKgslPPyDsY
Review of Naxos CD Walker/Harris/APO
Nice review
Every few years or so, with mind-numbing regularity, the argument is trotted out again, usually by politicians: school holidays are too long, particularly in summer. Today's teenagers are listless and stuck to computer screens, we're told. They're wasting July and August, and may as well be in the classroom, getting even better (allegedly) at sitting tests and doing examinations.
Really? Only recently I've seen three high quality events, all relying on groups of young people voluntarily working in teams from early morning to late evening, in an immersive residential setting lasting up to a fortnight. A fine, varied choral concert and a bristling, innovative production of Shakespeare's Macbeth were the result of the first two projects.
The third produces a concert marking 21 years of the Ulster Youth Orchestra, held on Saturday evening at an Ulster Hall packed with friends, family and supporters. The stage is packed too, with nearly 100 players from schools and colleges all over Northern Ireland, plus music stands and instruments. It's quite a spectacle.
The programme is ideally chosen to give young players a chance to really get their teeth into some proper classical music-making, not the quickfire soundbite selections favoured in 'pops' concerts, which can lose their tang as quickly as a tab of chewing-gum, and aren't much more nutritious.
It opens with an effervescent account of 'Dance of the Comedians' from Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride. It's a performance bubbling with confidence, especially in the scurrying violins of the introduction, the sharp dynamic attack, and tight ensemble playing.
Those impressively high levels of confidence bespeak hours of skilful preparation with sectional coaches. They're evident again in the violins' ripe romantic phrasing of the big tune opening Tchaikovsky's 'First Piano Concerto', the item following the Smetana.
The soloist here is Michael McHale, fresh from his American concerto debut playing Mozart in Minneapolis, with the storied Minnesota Orchestra. McHale is an alumnus of the UYO, and just a decade ago played cello in the desks opposite, where he now commands a concert Steinway.
McHale is one of those musicians who seems incapable of making an unmusical gesture: every phrase has been carefully weighed and considered, and slots naturally into the overall architecture of the piece that he is playing.
That’s not to imply that his approach is somehow calculated or lacking in spontaneity. The animated middle section of the Tchaikovsky concerto’s ‘Andantino semplice’ movement is marvellously puckish in his hands, and the finale goes at a tremendous clip (‘with fire’, as the composer directs), building to an adrenaline-pumped explosion of octaves at its conclusion.
The orchestra matches McHale’s beguiling mix of tenderness and intensity at every turn, with lovely solos taken by flute, cello and oboe in particular.
Part two of the concert is devoted to a selection of numbers from Prokofiev’s great ballet Romeo & Juliet. Already in ‘Montagues and Capulets’ there’s much evidence of the telling preparatory work done by the players in workshops and rehearsals.
The searing dissonances of the opening statement have an appropriately emblazoned quality, while the extreme dynamic contrast with the muted strings that answer is precisely registered. When the main ‘knights’ music kicks in, the violins dig trenchantly into their signature melody, articulating with real bite and character.
That sets the tone for a vividly colourful traversal of the nine movements selected. There are many highlights along the way – the punchy unanimity of the slashing chords launching ‘Folk Dance’; the pliantly executed string tenuti in ‘Madrigal’; the perky swagger the players find in the ‘Masks’ episode.
There is more excellent solo playing too, from first violinist Katherine Sung in particular, who leads the orchestra with decisiveness and clarity throughout the evening.
A sustained crescendo of applause deservedly greets the musicians at the Prokofiev’s conclusion. Scottish conductor Garry Walker seems disarmed, almost embarrassed by it, but he shouldn’t be – his own part in the achievement of this year’s Ulster Youth Orchestra cohort has clearly been massive.
In fact, he is my favourite sort of conductor: unassuming, invariably precise and helpful in his directions, and totally focused on the music and its message. His unstinting commitment, and that of his young players, produces a wonderfully heartening evening of classical music-making.
Land of the Mountain and the Blood
I have a great deal of time and respect for those Scots (and other property owners in Scotland) who wish for the country to become independent. I think, with some notable exceptions, the quality of the debate has been friendly, informed and serious. The abuse that some have received on both sides of the debate from trolls and unpleasant people has been condemned by those with more than two neurons to rub together. There is no place for abuse in this debate.
I have, however, felt the increasing need to state my position, and argue politely for what I think is right for Scotland.
As anyone who knows me will be aware, I feel intensely Scottish. Scotland has given me a strong sense of place and identity, and I place my love of the Highlands higher than anything else in life other than that I feel for my family, and that includes music. Music, family and Scotland's mountains combined make for a fairly heady experience.
If asked on a document as to what nationality I am, I frequently state, "Scottish." I see this not to be in any way at odds with being "British."
I've long puzzled over why nationalism and politics go together. I can understand it when people think they can run their country better because of a linguistic problem. The Hapsburg Empire would seem to have been doomed to failure because it ruled over so many languages, and sought to rule in German. I understand, having a German wife, that language is more than just a way of being understood. It's also a framework for thought, and therefore one thinks differently in different languages. Misunderstandings can occur not just because people don't understand each other, but also because the think differently when they speak in translation or in speaking each other's language. Germans sometimes have a reputation for brusqueness when the speak English, but this is only because they don't use conditionals so much in German, so when they speak English, those of limited experience appear a bit direct, and by our standards rude.
So a linguistic political Nationalism I understand.
I might even understand a "race" or religious Nationalism, as I suppose is exemplified by some States in the Midle East. I'm going to avoid the minefield that this subject is by saying that once again, it clearly doesn't apply to Scotland.
Is Scottish Nationalism not just an emotional state? It's not an intellectual position, is it? Or scientific? If it were scientific, would we not be giving a vote in the referendum to Scots who don't live in Scotland? And here is the central point of my argument against Independence....when politics and emotion go together, it can be a dangerous cocktail, as we've seen across Europe. I'm not suggesting that the SNP are in any way comparable to some of the Nationalistic excesses in Europe of the last 150 years. But surely a decision on the future of Scotland as important as this must be made on economic, intellectual and objective grounds, not because we feel that as being Scots we have a better chance of running our country well.
The Nationalists used to point to Iceland, Ireland and Norway as models for Scotland's independent future. For obvious reasons, they now just point to Norway. Norway is radically different from us economically, and maybe is how Scotland should have been run in the past, but we are where we are today. It's like the Irish politician lost in rural Eire who asks for the way to Dublin, to be told ,"Well, I wouldn't start from here." We have a massive national debt, which we must take our share of and take a share of the blame for. It's not just those south of the border who have been living outwith their means. Remember that the worst casualties of the Financial Meltdown were RBS and Bank of Scotland. Norway has little debt and large financial reserves, has never pretended to posture on the world stage as a leader, and has avoided spending billions on armed forces and expensive, protracted foreign wars. These are all things to admire, about Norwày,and perhaps reason to want an Independent Scotland 150 years ago. And I can see why Nationalists say that that could be our better future (I'd believe it more if they didn't want to remain in Nato). Scotland and Norway's economic positions are radically different, and our situation is much more precarious. You might as well compare ourselves to America as Norway.
Another thing which convinced me to vote No are the, what I consider, unrealistic promises beings made by the Yes campaign, and the certainty they have that they will be able to negotiate everything to their desire., seemingly without compromise.
Take currency union for example, a relatively new venture for the Nationalists...they used to have their eye on the euro. They say we'd have it, the Chancellor (Tory), Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Liberal), Civil Service (Independent) and Governor of the Bank of England have all either said no or expressed doubts about it. London scaremongering claim the SNP. Maybe. But the First Minister of Wales and The First Minister of Northern Ireland also say they wouldn't accept it. And would you want your interest rates, VAT etc set in London if your economy diverges from that of England (which is probably what in an Elysian future the Nationalists would envisage)? In the euro zone at the moment, interest rates are going down. In the UK,they're threatening to go up. Different countries need different economic packages at different times. I would respect the Nationalist position far more if they wished to be truly economically independent from London. This half way house is an emergency position because the euro is seen as being a vote looser.
Then there's the issue of membership of the EU, another thing far from certain. All the Eurocrats say we'll have to reapply, and if we reapply according to the Shengin agreement, we'll have to take on the euro; any new state must.
It is not in David Cameron's interest to fight for the Union. By letting Scotland go, the Conservatives would be the natural party of government south of the border. I'm not willing to declare my political allegiances here, but I've never voted Conservative, and can't see myself doing so. But I admire Cameron for fighting for a principle he believes in. Historically, Scotland has received more from the exchequer than it put in, and when the oil runs out, which it will, this is likely to remain the case. Never was there such a good time for the English to disengage amicably from their northern cousins. But to the eternal credit of the English, and despite considerable provocation, they have a strong admiration and fondness for us Scots which is frequently unreciprocated. We cheer for Uraguay and their rabid forwards. Could you ever imagine English supporters in the Uraguay end cheering against Scotland ?
Final point. The greatest flowering in Scotland's history was The Enlightenment. This came about because we had the most educated, literate populace in Europe. It didn't start to register until after 1707, when wealth and opportunity was created by the exposure to the markets, both home and abroad, of the English Empire. Without this, Watt, Adam, Smith, Hume et al would have remained unsung and isolated figures on the periphery of Europe. Best not to forget that we will always remain geographically on the fringes of Europe....one thing which no one other than tectonics can change.
We are better off together.
Arts Desk Crit of Vixen
Arts Desk 23 June 2014
The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington Opera
Human yearning trumps animal cutesiness in Daniel Slater's thoughtful Janáček
by David NiceMonday, 23 June 2014
Vulpine romance: Victoria Simmonds's Fox courts Claire Booth's VixenAll images by Clive Barda for Garsington Opera
Rolling hills with beech-rich woods sloping upwards from a wide valley: the Wormsley Estate has more than a little in common with glorious Hukvaldy in Moravia, where Janáček was born and ended his life, and where in old age he once again saw "his" vixen. With an admirable independence of mind that seriously underrated director Daniel Slater has gone against the grain inside the fabulous pavilion where Garsington’soperas now resound. Instead of extending the natural scene, Robert Innes Hopkin’s simple but original designs paper the walls of the inn where most of the action takes place with leaf patterns, opening out to laddered, stylised forest, and Slater sheds animal cutesiness in favour of the human predicament.
Our vixen is a foxy and enigmatic young woman who comes and sits at one of the bar-room tables. Is the protagonist Forester whose dream ends the opera attracted to her animal nature? Is there love at stake? It’s kept vague, but the bigger picture is a fine clarification of an issue Janáček, with typical whimsicality, introduces at rather a late stage in the drama – Vixen Sharpears’ identification, in the minds of three disillusioned older men, with the adored Terynka who ends up getting a fox muff from the poacher Harašta. The scene where Priest, Schoolmaster and Forester slide around a winter landscape in hapless pursuit of the ideal usually comes across as an incoherent mess but thanks to the way it's played, with the vixen coolly amused by the follies of the opposite sex, it works impressively. It also makes a convincing end for a first half which, for once, comes to a halt at the right place (rather than the vixen’s wedding, which leaves less than half an hour of drama after supper, as at Glyndebourne).
All focus, then, is on the vixen and her one-time captor. Gone are the dragonfly ballets and the visual equivalents of the music’s forest murmurs, which leaves the stage a bit empty at the beginning and end, depending very much on whether the two leads and their dance doubles can carry it. Claire Booth is a riveting revelation in the title role, her spirited Czech inflections ringing out at every turn. We can’t take our eyes off her captivating personage from the minute she sits down wistfully in the first scene. As she explodes into life, her tongue-in-cheek feminism goes vivaciously hand in glove with killer instincts.
The victory over rampant rooster and his knitting harem of hens (pictured above) has all the comedy it needs, but rightly nature raw in tooth and claw turns nasty when Sharpears sets about Harašta before he shoots her(Booth with Joshua Bloom's Harašta pictured below), a bloodying well in tune with the sexual ferment of Slater’s male-female confrontations. That only underlines the tenderness of the big love scene with Fox Golden Mane (Victoria Simmonds, as compellingly man-like as the other cross-dressing animal roles in Hopkins’s superlative costume designs), the vulnerability of Booth’s vixen in love as touching as it should be. The offspring in woolly hats, barkers’ dozen perhaps, are enchanting, but it’s only in the forest nuptials that Slater allows the stage to be anything like as busy as Melly Still’s rather cluttered Glyndebourne vision.
Parallel to the happy natural love story are the dream pas de deux of a superb dance duo, Chiara Vinci and Jamie Higgins (pictured below), fluent and sensuous in Maxine Braham’s spare but lovely choreography. A handful of the interludes are slightly mistimed, like the climax of the vixen’s turning into a young woman, and the final scene doesn’t quite come off, though again the restraint is admirable.
The problem here is that the stalwart Grant Doyle is perhaps too young and not charismatic enough to convince us of the wisdom of older age which we need to see in the Forester’s enlightenment, his understanding of the natural order of things. The Forester’s cronies, HenryWaddington’s Priest and Timothy Robinson’s Schoolmaster, are too much between two ages to suggest the disillusioned sense of having missed any chance at happiness. And this, after all, was old man Janáček’s most important thrust.
All three sing well, but need to realize that you don’t have to force your projection in this admirable acoustic, where the voices can always be heard over the largest orchestra yet engaged at Garsington. Draw them in rather than push out could be the lesson here. The playing under Garry Walker’s expert thrust is mostly first-rate, and I don’t suppose the premature horn entry or later the vanishing trumpet which nearly sabotaged the endgame will happen in future performances. That penetrating oboe sound rising from the shallow pit turned out to be none other than the superb Melinda Maxwell’s, and the limited number of strings makes for mostly pellucid textures with woodwind nature-noises clearer than I’ve ever heard them.
Admirable, too, is Walker’s drive with the short-lived human ecstasy burst of the second-act scene change between inn and forest landscape, one of the great melodies Janáček presents and then discards. Funny people, those Garsington punters: I could end with a catalogue of weird remarks about lack of tunes, incomprehensibility and so on as we exited. But since I was treading air through the beautiful, lantern-lit sweep of landscape, I’ll leave you with my own thoughts of country-house opera done at a very high level indeed.
•
The Cunning Little Vixen at Garsington until 12 July•
An early entry in David Nice's blog on a visit toHukvaldyCrit from the FT of Vixen.
The Cunning Little Vixen, Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, UK – review
By Richard Fairman
The rolling hills at Wormsley make an ideal backdrop for Janáček’s opera
©Clive Barda/ArenaPAL
Claire Booth in 'The Cunning Little Vixen'
The temporary, glass-walled theatre that Garsington Opera erects each year for its summer season affords long country vistas. The rolling hills of the Getty estate at Wormsley make an unusually evocative backdrop for an opera – ideal for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, the life-and-death tale of Vixen Sharp-Ears and the forest community around her.
This is the first of Janáček’s full-length operas to be put on by Garsington Opera. Although the rather prosaic sets indoors do not match the visual poetry outside, Daniel Slater’s production treads a fine line between comedy and touching drama, and there is a high-quality cast.
•
In Janáček’s hands, the animals in this opera seem almost more human than the humans themselves. Slater’s production handles this as delightfully as any, clothing the baby frog in wellington boots, the hens as washerwomen (producing outsized eggs down a chute) and Vixen Sharp-Ears and her mate, Fox Golden-Stripe, in jackets lined with fox fur. The human and animal worlds come even closer when the Forester starts to dream of the Vixen as his perfect, young, liberated woman. Slater has the ballet sequences showing dancers as their doubles in a tender relationship – not whatJanáček asks for, but an imaginative way of exploring a deeper emotional layer to the opera.
Claire Booth is a marvellously vital Vixen, singing and playing with an energy that makes her the life-force of the opera. As her shy beau, the Fox, Victoria Simmonds captures the burgeoning romance between them touchingly (there is no doubt who will wear the trousers in this family) and a whole menagerie of lively young performers plays the forest wildlife. The human characters are no less strongly cast with Lucy Schauferas the Forester’s Wife, Timothy Robinson as the Schoolmaster, Henry Waddington as the Priest and Joshua Bloom as the poacher.
In the close acoustic of Garsington’s opera house every detail of Janáček’s music, from strumming harp to crawling low bassoon, sounded in close-up and the conductor, Garry Walker, kept the performance on its toes. As Grant Doyle sang out sonorously in the Forester’s closing paean to nature, the sun was setting outside over the Wormsley estate, art and nature in sync. Janáček would have approved.
Garsington crit from "The Stage."
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The Cunning Little Vixen
Published Monday 23 June 2014 at 10:34 by George Hall
New to Garsington’s repertory is Janacek’s moving opera drawing parallels between the lives of humans and those of forest animals, as well as the interaction between them; it seems a natural choice for a venue set in the midst of a country estate and surrounded by beautiful woods.
Claire Booth, right, in The Cunning Little Vixen
Photo: Tristram Kenton
And so it proves in Daniel Slater’s thoughtful staging. Presenting animals on stage can be perilous, but with the help of Robert Innes Hopkins’ canny costuming there is a concentration here on what humans and animals have in common. The set manages to suggest both the village inn, where the menfolk relieve their boredom by drinking, and the forest itself.
The human story of the villagers - perfectly exemplified by Timothy Robinson’s touching Schoolmaster, Henry Waddington’s worldly Priest, Joshua Bloom’s bumptious poacher Harasta and, especially, Grant Doyle’s expertly sung and superbly acted Forester - comes into sharp focus in the foreground.
Yet the central animal performances - Claire Booth’s complete realisation of the Vixen, Victoria Simmonds’ knowing yet initially shy Fox, and Bragi Jonsson’s harrumphing Badger - are visualised with style and conviction.
Slater also binds the two worlds cleverly together, with the aid of entrancing work by two dancers in particular: doubling the main characters in Maxine Braham’s sensitive choreography, Chiara Vinci dances the Vixen, beautifully offset by Jamie Higgins, who dances the Forester.
As well as a plethora of smaller roles, there’s also excellent group work from the pupils of Old Palace School and Trinity Boys Choir as the minor denizens of the animal kingdom.
Presiding musically over the show is conductor Garry Walker, who shows a profound understanding of the colours and textures of Janacek’s idiosyncratic writing, and draws exceptional playing from the Garsington Opera Orchestra. It’s an undoubted success for the festival, and a production that will surely win many new admirers for this life-enhancing piece.
Production information
Garsington at Wormsley, Buckinghamshire, June 22-July 12
Composer/librettist:
Leos Janacek
Director:
Daniel Slater
Design:
Robert Innes Hopkins (set, costume), Tim Mascall (lighting)
Technical:
Susan Hamilton (casting), Andrew Quick (production), Katherine Wilde (company manager), Paul Carr (stage manager), Estelle Butler (wardrobe), Sam Floyd (head of lighting), Richard Muller (wigs)
Conductor:
Garry Walker
Cast includes:
Grant Doyle, Lucy Schaufer, Timothy Robinson, Henry Waddington, Joshua Bloom, Alexandra Persinaru, Claire Booth, Victoria Simmonds
Producer:
Garsington Opera
Running time:
3hrs 15mins
Production information displayed was believed correct at time of review. Information may change over the run of the show.
Guardian crit of Cunning Little Vixen
Emotional charge … Anna Harvey as Lapák, Claire Booth as the Vixen and Katherine Crompton as Chocholka in The Cunning Little Vixen. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Monday 23 June 2014 15.07 BST
One of the crucial scenes in Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen takes place in a country inn, where the connection is drawn explicitly between the escaped Vixen, whom the Forester captured as a cub, and the village beauty Terynka, haplessly pursued by the Schoolmaster. Terynka is frequently discussed but never seen in the opera, yet inGarsington's ravishing new production, directed by Daniel Slater, we do meet her: in the opening scene she slinks through the inn, brandishing red shoes and fox-fur collar, pouting moodily at her old flame, the married Forester.
The hens - part of a fabulous ensemble cast. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian.
It's a wonderful opening, whose powerful emotional and sexual charge is fully borne out in the action that follows, and Slater's decision to blur the tragicomic lines between the animal and human characters is entirely to Janáček's point. Lines are also blurred in Robert Innes Hopkins's charming, economical set, whose ivy wallpaper dresses indoor and outdoor scenes (and is shown peeling and mouldy in the final autumn scene), and in the quirky, dressing-up-chest quality of the costumes: the mosquito's wings are torn umbrellas, its proboscis a petrol-can funnel; the chickens' combs are inflated red washing-up gloves.
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Claire Booth heads up a fabulous cast with a knockout performance in the title role. Her voice is well suited to choppy writing, but her command of the role's irrepressible passion exceeds even high expectations, and the scene in which she reflects on having found a true mate is almost unbearably moving.
She is well matched by Grant Doyle's powerfully sung and subtly acted Forester, and supported by excellent performances in the minor roles, especially Timothy Robinson's Schoolmaster and Lucy Shaufer as the Forester's Wife. Garry Walker's handling of the music is sharp-eared, to say the least, and he and his superb house orchestra remain totally alive to the score's nervous, tumbling surface throughout – as well as to the darker currents bubbling underneath.
• Until 12 July. Box office: 01865 361636. Venue: Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Stokenchurch.
Elitism in the Arts Part 2
Delighted to hear that Tony Hall is wanting to use the BBC Orchestras in an ambitious and broad ranging project in Primary Schools. An excellent idea, which I hope government might match in terms of commitment. My hope would be that all those kids undoubtedly inspired by access to an orchestra would be given genuine opportunities in the State System to further that motivation.
I may have misunderstood, but the BBC website says, " Classical Music should not be for an elite or a minority, Tony Hall will say." I agree, but this is already pandering to a misconception in the minds of the public(and the media).
Let me explain. There is nothing elitist about Classical Music. To go to a concert, sit in the best seats and have a drink at the interval almost certainly costs less than watching a Premiership football match. Nobody says football is elitist. Because fewer people go to Classical Concerts doesn't mean it's elitist either; it just means fewer people (and the media) are interested in Classical Music. You can access music now in a totally democratic and free way, whether with spotify or youtube. Access has never been easier. If you try and get access to highlights of a football match on youtube you'll either have to watch it in grainy confusion or with an commentary in Arabic ( often very good).
Please don't confuse minority interest with elitism. And the more we get out to state schools all over the UK, the quicker we can turn that minority into a majority.