I have a great backlog of recent/current events to write about. I’ll continue with a further writeup of the 2008 Bath Festival.
We had a ticket for Alfredo Perl, but sadly he was nursing an injury and pulled out, taking the Schoenberg and Diabelli Variations on his programme with him. His replacement was Jean-Efflam Bavouzet playing an early Beethoven sonata, Ravel and Debussy. My husband went and enjoyed the performances but wondered whether the pianist was playing the programme he’d have chosen if he’d been given an absolutely free hand. In particular, was he really wanting to play Gaspard de la Nuit?
The reason he couldn’t was that this piece ended Yevgeny Sudbin’s recital a few days later. I went to this and had no complaints about the technical standard, though what I missed was a sense of the artist’s personality coming through. I wish he’d played more Chopin (we had two mazurkas) as for me that came off best. We also heard two Haydn sonatas and a selection of early Scriabin mazurkas which didn’t convert me to that composer. The encores were generous in length.
We appreciated the ice-cream which is now on sale, along with coffee and muffins, in the interval of concerts at the Assembly Rooms. (But you need be quick to join the queue to have time to eat it!)
May I ask: was Mr. Perl’s injury related to playing, please?
The letter we received (and the Bath Festival website) say that he has a damaged hand ligament. So ‘related to playing’ in that it affects the muscles he uses to play, but we weren’t told how he got the injury.