Elsie's Column

  December 2005 - Nigel on my Mind........

I’ve taken another look at the picture of Nigel at the Klassik Amadeus Awards that I published in last month’s column…………….and I notice that he is wearing matching socks ! Is this a good omen or a bad omen ???? It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it ?

Back home from Paris, I’ve been sorting through the different things I brought back with me, one of which is a present for my doctor. Yes, well, I have to keep on his good side because I need his blessing on whatever long trip I want to take and I’m getting tired of trying to seduce him (it never works !) and I’ve settled instead on bringing back a small gift………just enough to keep him intrigued concerning what I’ll come up with next time ! I should perhaps mention that he is originally from Ireland, which helps to explain what I brought back this time. I put it in a plastic shopping bag when I went to see him…….I didn’t want everyone to know the shameless way I try to bribe him !..........and when I entered the office, I put this bag on the floor by my chair, while we concerned ourselves with medical matters. Quite out of the blue, he asked me if I was experiencing bladder problems………..huh ???? Well, no………..should I be ? I must have shown my bewilderment at this question, since he added, for my enlightenment, that I had brought him a urine sample, hadn’t I ? ( Look, I don’t make this stuff up……honestly ! ) He must have heard a faint slosh when I put my plastic bag on the floor ! “ I certainly hope not !” I told him. “I paid good money for this !” and I brought out four cans of draught Guinness, brewed in Dublin, which I had carefully shepherded through security checks (the security guy at St. John’s told me that it was good stuff……. ‘better than an iron tonic !’) and Customs and Immigration. Just imagine if…………..well, no, don’t imagine that……..I think he’s drunk it by now ! You can all, of course, see what this has to do with Nigel……….think about it…..if it were not for Nigel I would never have gone to Paris in the first place, so none of this would have arisen, would it ?

My Canadian CD store and Canada Post have finally justified their existence………no mean achievement ! The store has stopped cancelling my orders…………yes, that’s what it was doing ! Every time I placed an order I would see it listed in my account on their website and then the next time I looked, it would show as having been cancelled ! I sent e-mails and got replies from young men with names like Kerry and Nic and Damon , all promising to put things right and requesting me to re-order, which I did, only to have my order cancelled again..........Aargh !! I finally got a young woman ( I admit she was called Erin !) who said that the problem was that the product bar code hadn't been entered in their computer yet.......she would enter it and place my order again. It worked. Finally !! (What I go through for you, Nigel........!!!) Now Canada Post has roused itself to unprecedented exertions and actually gone so far as to deliver something that has been sent to me ! I expect the world to end tomorrow ! Meanwhile, I can enjoy the DVD Nigel Kennedy Plays Bach and the CD Inner Thoughts …………..yes, you heard right…….I’ve got them both ! John Stanley has written a short piece for each of the booklets that come with them, both of which repay the time spent reading them. The only problem with the DVD booklet is that one needs the Hubble telescope to read it, since it’s printed in tiny white letters on a pale brown background. (Who makes these decisions ? Is it beyond the realms of their conjecture to imagine that somebody might actually want to READ the thing ??!) ) However, it does provide interesting food for thought on the subject of Nigel and Johann Sebastian. Here’s part of it :

‘I have travelled ( writes Mr. Stanley ) over many years with Nigel on tour , and his three hours of solitude every morning of his life is always dedicated to practice. From his suites you will regularly hear Bach drifting through the elegant corridors of the world’s great hotels.’

This is interesting to me because I get so much mail from fifteen-year-olds who are learning the violin and who all want to know whether Nigel still plays scales when he practices. On their behalf, I took the chance to ask Nigel that question. (Now, pay attention, kids !) His reply ? Yes and no ! ………..he went on to explain that he plays Bach when he practices because Bach’s music is so structured as to involve the performer in playing scales whenever he/she plays the music. Nigel readily understood that it can get a tad tedious just playing scales…….. ‘You miss the spiritual side of playing music,’ he said and told me to tell aspiring violinists to play Bach. I heard the collective cheer that went up when I said that !!!............but hold it just a second, guys………..if you’re under eighteen years of age and you want to play the violin, you’ve still got to play scales…………..Nigel says so ! But when you get to the point when you’re ready to scream, you can start playing Bach instead………..you’re still playing scales but you’re playing music at the same time, and you can’t ask for anything more satisfying than that, can you ?

Before we leave the subject of Bach, here’s one more quotation from Mr. Stanley’s piece to ponder:

‘Such is the beauty of Bach’s music that Nigel claims he finds something new to explore, to understand every time he raises his violin and performs Bach’s work.’

You don’t need me to tell you that every time he does perform Bach, we find something new to explore and understand in what we are hearing…………..in Paris, the tumultuous applause that greeted Nigel’s Bach may have sprung from the fact that many in the audience were experiencing for the first time the passion and the power of Nigel playing live……….it’s not for the faint of heart !...........but I was on my feet and applauding because Nigel had made Bach new for me once again. Merci, mate !

The booklet for Inner Thoughts is a little easier to read, but only a little, with those distracting pale brown letters in the background ! John Stanley makes a very interesting point when he says that ‘the contemporary clamour to survive in business is increasingly driven by repetition.’ Nigel’s success with The Four Seasons, he says, is ‘a great testimony both to Antonio Vivaldi and to Kennedy’s global stature that so many nations respond to this work.’ But on the other hand, ‘the more iconic [this work] becomes, the greater the demand to keep him performing the piece.’ This demand ‘stretches deep into the decade’s calendar.’

Are we, then, in danger of forgetting all the other music which Nigel has played, with the great orchestras and conductors of our time ? Possibly……….but this new CD brings us the middle movements of the great concertos which Nigel has recorded and affords us the opportunity to wallow………yes, wallow……I use the word advisedly…….in listening to Nigel ‘pouring his soul into these sublime inner movements.’ We get Bach, we get Brahms and Mendelssohn and Bruch and Vivaldi. And we get Elgar. If there’s nothing in Heaven to surpass Nigel playing the second movement of the Elgar Violin Concerto, then I don’t want to go there ! Maybe I’ll find the cloud that the Rolling Stones all wanted us to get off of, back in the sixties…………I’ll claim it as mine and take up residence and listen to Nigel playing Elgar through all eternity ! Mmmm !

So now let’s hear from Nigel himself. In an interview in the Augsburger-Allgemeine he is asked if we still need to go to live concerts if we have the DVD of the performance……………well, yes, we do ! ‘A DVD is only a copy of a live concert experience,’ he says, but then he goes on to explain how to make a DVD that captures the spirit of the original performance. ‘You need first of all a really good producer and secondly the freedom of a live concert……………where you can choose the camera perspective and decide for yourself what interests you.’ I’m happy to report that Nigel Kennedy Plays Bach meets all those conditions and provides a totally life-enhancing experience for all concerned. But I’m still going to buy those live concert tickets !

On the subject of the CD Inner Thoughts Nigel tells us that he wanted to ‘put together an album that would go straight to the heart.’ The interviewer (not named in the article) seems to think that the CD shows Nigel from a different, emotional angle……..I don’t know where he/she has been all these years, but an emotional Nigel is no stranger to us, is he ? I suspect that the interviewer has been letting the outer movements of the concertos eclipse the ‘gentle beauty’ of the inner movements. John Stanley describes these outer movements as ‘high-octane,’ in which ‘composers themselves were trapped by the need to settle restless and talkative audiences, and then eventually throw every musical device at the wall to generate a grand finale which hopefully might amuse the potential benefactor.’

Both the DVD and the CD will be released over the coming months. Patience is a virtue. Check our Discography page from time to time for release dates.

Christmas greetings to all of you………whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you are. As Nigel always says at his concerts......... you know who you are !! Nigel, I love you !............but have a happy Christmas anyway ! See you in Germany in the spring.

Till January.

Elsie