Elsie's Column
June 2005 - Nigel on my Mind........Nostalgia, anyone ? I've been listening to the original 'Four Seasons' CD that was made in 1989. If you haven't done that recently, I recommend that you do so...........it will take years off you and make you feel young again ! Of course, if you really ARE young, you can still listen to it. Go ahead. One thing it's done for me is to make me realize that I've been in love with Nigel for sixteen years ! I've loved other people for much longer than that, but to be IN LOVE all that time !........That could be looked on as saddo...........it certainly is scary ! Maybe you'd better go and listen to 'Spring' or whichever season pushes your buttons right now. I'll take a few minutes to calm down and move on to some other topic, shall I ? I know that none of you actually commit these columns of mine to memory……….or, at least, I hope you don’t !! That really would be saddo !!...........but maybe some of you remember my telling you about the ballet that Christopher Bruce was choreographing from Nigel’s reworkings of Jimi Hendrix………. ‘Little Wing’ and all that. Well, this ballet has now been performed under the title ‘Three Songs-Two Voices’ by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London. The three songs are ‘Third Stone from the Sun,’ ‘Little Wing,’ and ‘Fire’ and the two voices are, of course, those of Hendrix and Nigel. Judith Mackrell, from ‘The Guardian,’ was there on opening night. She was impressed by the dancing of the three principal ballerinas……….Zenaida Yanowsky, Tamara Rojo, and Deirdre Chapman………..she says she’s never seen them look more glamorous, mysterious or wild. Yes, well, Nigel does tend to have that effect on people, doesn’t he ? Especially the third one………wild !!! (Hey, maybe that’s why I’m in love with him ! He makes me feel glamorous, mysterious, and wild !..........well, I ask you, who could resist that ? Oooohhh !) But when it comes to the music, Ms. Mackrell is less than ecstatic about it. She says that ‘ there is absolutely nothing that Bruce can do to turn this music into a dance score.’ What Nigel has done with is ‘just too maverick, too personal for a choreographer to handle.’ Moreover, ‘emotionally it’s too full of conflicting clamorous voices to power a clear theatrical dynamic.’ This is pretty well what most critics said about it, with varying degrees of politeness. Ms. Mackrell suggests that ‘Nigel……..was clearly aiming to free his inner wild child when he recorded his own arrangement of Jimi Hendrix in 1998.’ Alas, Louise Levene, writing in ‘The Sunday Telegraph,’ says that her ‘inner wild child took the view that Kennedy’s experiment had drained all the energy and virtuosity of the Hendrix originals.’ You can’t win them all, Nigel ! ………But then nobody can. Not even you ! And here it is…….the kicker (you knew there was one, didn’t you ?)………..back to Ms. Mackrell: ‘The first night audience loved it !’ Obviously, their inner wild children just took right over and told them to hang loose and let it all come naturally………….result: they loved it ! My inner wild child thinks that makes perfect sense…………how about yours ? Now that the German tour is over, all those who went to the concerts have forgotten all about how much they had to pay for their tickets and they’re now basking in the after glow of the music which Nigel and the Polish Chamber orchestra provided. Here’s Mary, writing in to Nigel’s German website : ‘Thank you for the fascinating, impressive, amazing, wonderful, I-don’t-know-enough-words-for-it concert !’ I think we all know where she’s coming from, don’t we ? Not necessarily so are those unfortunate souls who have to write reviews for the newspapers. I get the distinct impression that it’s part of the job description for a music critic that he or she should NOT enjoy the concert which he or she has been sent to review ! That being said, it’s a real pleasure to introduce you to Uwe Henkhaus who writes as follows: ‘The concert [in Marburg] was triumphantly good and the audience was wildly enthusiastic.’ Here I must to confess to a certain embarrassment……..I don’t know whether ‘Uwe’ is a man’s name or a woman’s…………..judging by the clear thinking and unprejudiced outlook and unusual sensitivity which Henkhaus displays I’m tempted to conclude that she must be a woman ! But I have a sneaking sense that Uwe is a man, so I’ll just have to settle for ‘Uwe’ for the next paragraph ! To begin with, Uwe enjoyed the concert………….first goal to Uwe ! Nigel, he says, ‘proved himself to be a musician of the first order, with phenomenal technique which at all times completely controlled the musical experience.’ He goes on to note that Nigel is the soloist, the director, and musical partner all at the same time. ‘Every touch of flamboyance, every affectation is subordinated to the music - they don’t master the music, they serve it.’ Nigel’s playing is full of vitality and in the slow sections full of eloquence and deep sensitivity………. ‘with the ritardandi, [Nigel] gives himself plenty of time and makes the most of them. His violin tone blooms in the most tender pianissimos, shines in the treble, and takes on a darker colour for his unsentimental vibratos.’ He concludes, ‘What a wonderful concert experience !’ Little wonder, then, that nobody in the audience was sitting there fretting about how much they paid to take part in it ! One thing I need to be informed about springs from the various references I keep finding in concert reviews to a composition by Nigel himself, which he has been playing at different concerts. It’s a setting of a poem by an Iranian poet, or an elegiac fantasy for violin and oboe with accompanying strings…………..take your pick !...........and according to Friedhelm Eschenhauer, it demonstrates to perfection Nigel’s compositional skill. If anybody knows what it’s called or anything else about it, I am here waiting to be enlightened. I guess we are all waiting with our tongues hanging out for a new CD from Nigel. For some inscrutable reason, what and when he will be recording next seems to be a deep dark secret known only to the people who’ve been at EMI so long that they’ve forgotten why they’re there at all !!! Meanwhile, we have to rely on obscure references half-hidden in reviews and interviews with Nigel. According to Tony Collins, writing for the Birmingham Evening Mail, Nigel is not just playing Mlynarski’s romantic Concerto No. 2 in D major for violin and orchestra for the hell of it………..he plans to record it, along with other concerti by Mlynarski from what is called ‘a brief and magical period in Polish history.’ Then in the Liverpool Daily Post, we read that there are plans for Nigel and the Jarek Smietana Jazz Group to record together ………. ‘next year,’ apparently. Finally, Nigel told one interviewer that he’s ‘got a new album out soon, called “Inner Thoughts.”’…….and no, I have no idea what that is all about !!!!!!!! Wait and see………there’s nothing else we can do, is there ? I’m off to the Netherlands on the 10th of June for ten glorious days of Nigel and the Polish Chamber Orchestra………….yes, I know Olaf Maninger won’t be there, but I’m sure I’ll find someone to fancy in the Polish Chamber Orchestra, won’t I ? I really do think I’ve got plane tickets, concert tickets, hotels all sorted, but you wouldn’t believe the hassle I’m being given over travel insurance ! They want to know every time I’ve coughed or sneezed over the past five years, every aspirin I’ve swallowed, every time I even THOUGHT about seeing a doctor . It seems that the only way they’re prepared to sell me insurance is if I prove to them that I don’t need it ! What’s more, they tell me categorically that if I let myself get kidnapped, I’m on my own ! Don’t bother sending in claims to them………they won’t pay them . (No, I’m not making this up !) This totally derails the plot Nigel and Caleb and I were planning…………..Nigel was going to pretend to kidnap me and then Caleb was going to pretend to rescue me and I was going to file a claim for mental and physical suffering and we were all going to share the money amongst the three of us and……………..yes, well, I AM making this up, am I not ? I think I’d better stop before someone official reads it and takes out a restraining order to prevent me from writing any more of these columns !!!!!!!! Someone like Nigel’s lawyer, for example ? To say nothing of Caleb’s lawyer ? I wish I had the nerve to travel without insurance, but ……………no, I’m not quite up to that. Oh, well. I’ll give your collective love to Nigel, shall I ?
Till July. |
 
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