“Arts and Minds – Journals of an Arts Addict 2007-13”
John Tusa
Substack Episode 6 April/June 2008
https://johntusa.substack.com/p/arts-and-music
Ivan Klima and how Czech Communists spoke ”Jerkish”,a language fit only for chimpanzees. The genius of Pierre Boulez. The most hated pieces of public sculpture in London. Why Middle America is known as ”DumbFuckistan”. What would you call an exhibition about masturbation? How Bryn Terfel raised £100k for the Wigmore Hall. Why a publisher friend said I was “JGE” – “just gay enough”. When Harry Birtwistle lost patience with Gyorgy Kurtag.
Friday, April 25. To Covent Garden for Harrison Birtwistle’s opera, “The Minotaur”. The music drives with intensity and a huge purpose and direction. It is never still, it moves with the drama, the agonising intensity of the man/beast, whose humanity can only emerge when the beast in him is killed. Ariadne, a hugely compromised figure, only wants to get out from the maze, but morally she is null.
So it is a tragedy, a human tragedy, and when Theseus stabs him, John Tomlinson's Minotaur stands aghast, with the knife in his back, and utters a deep, low sound that is part song, part animal moan, part the sound of a departing soul – utterly memorable, soul searching. Alfred Brendel says Birtwistle describes his music as having its own sense of purpose, driven by its own needs not by its place in music history
As a person born in pre war Czechoslovakia, its tragic and painful political fortunes have always played a large part in my political awareness. I had interviewed the novelist Ivan Klima in Prague some years ago for BBC Radio Three.
Monday, April 28. I interview Ivan Klima for the British Library in Euston. Klima is sweet mild, unbitter, philosophical, as you’d expect from someone who survived Nazism, the internment camp of Theresienstadt, the first Communist era, the dashed hopes of the “Prague Spring” in 1968 and then another 20 years of communist stagnation. The first Communist period from 1948-68 was cruel, violent and bloody. The second one was just null. The dissidents met, wrote, talked, published in “samizdat” (secret self publishing); 10 carbon copies at a time, with say 10 typings, equalled 100 texts. These would circulate widely in Czecho; then they would be sent abroad, courtesy helpful diplomats. Earnings from abroad were smuggled in too. They despised the Communists – intellectually, morally, personally. Czech communists were said to speak in “Jerkish”, a language of 225 words suitable for communication between humans and chimpanzees. The degradation of language was one of the worst aspects of the time.
Klima and his entire family were abroad in 1970. Why did they return? “Apart from Conrad and Nabokov, exiles can’t write about societies of which they know nothing”. He had to stick with the language, the society, the atmosphere which he knew. When “Love and Garbage” was published after 1989, it ran to 100,000 copies. Best of all, Klima discovered after 1989 that NONE of his close friends had been informers.
One of the great musical figures of the time was the composer, teacher, conductor, Pierre Boulez. His manner could be severe. His reputation was daunting.
Wednesday, April 30. Evening to the Barbican for Boulez and the LSO in a really tough programme. Bartok Double Piano Concerto, Schoenberg “Five Pieces”, Stravinsky “Le Chant du Rossignol”, Boulez “Cinq Notations”. The Hall is full, the reception for Boulez really warm, and things must be looking up for such a concert to sell, tho’ only PB would sell it! Truth to tell, only PB could conduct it. A huge orchestra, gathered – on a flat platform, no risers – for his “Cinq Notations”, brilliant, dazzling, huge but never clotted and driven by him with a huge pulse and energy. To be at a concert where Pierre Boulez’s Fifth Notation is encored is quite a moment.
The Rootstein Hopkins Foundation, a private charity led by a former design academic, Deirdre Hopkins, sponsored a series of debates for the University of the Arts London on issues of art and design.
Wednesday, May 7. The last in the series on “Is Public Art a Waste of Space”. Given that we were at the National Gallery, within a stone’s throw of the Fourth Plinth, we were hardly likely to say “yes”. But we vented our prejudices and hates of the worst bits of public art – Sandy Nairne, from the National Portrait Gallery, hates David Wynne’s “Boy with a Dolphin” on Chelsea Embankment; Joan Bakewell chimed in with the famously decapitated statue of Mrs Thatcher; Giles Waterfield, from Dulwich Art Gallery, bagged “Boy Meets Girl” at St Pancras, which everyone hates; Mark Titchner, the artist, hated ”Industry and Genius” in Birmingham’s City Square. I snitched two monster intrusions: The “Diana Fountain” and the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Gates, both in Hyde Park. We were worried by oppressive memorialisation, either because it is “bien-pensant” – cf the War Memorial to Animals! - or because it is politically correct, a truly awful Mandela. I suggested removing – but not destroying – historical statues when none remembers them or what they stood for.
Sunday, May 11. A certain reluctance to go to the Barbican in the evening for Boulez’s second concert with the LSO. It has been a lovely day, Bartok’s “Blue Beard’s Castle” is not our favourite work. But Boulez and the LSO painted the picture so that you saw every door in the Castle opening on its ghastly scenes in a way that we often don’t get in an actual staging. Annie says, “It was a revelation!”
At the interval at the Barbican, the music critic Stephen Walsh tells me a story. I forget what sparked it off. Man gets into taxi. “Take me to the Wigmore Hall, please”. Cabbie: “What are you going to hear then?” Man: “Well, actually I’m playing there”. Cabbie: “Oh really, what do you play?” Man: “The piano”. Cabbie: “What are you playing, then?” Man, slightly apologetically: “Scriabin!” Cabbie, after a reflective pause: “ Personally, I’ve always thought of Scriabin as the Picasso of the keyboard!” Stephen swears it’s true.
I first saw Mozart’s opera ”Idomeneo” at the opera house in Essen in the German Ruhr. It was 1955 and I was doing my national service in Germany. I have had a special soft spot for it ever since.
Wednesday May 14. A star cast for the Barbican ‘s “Idomeneo” – Ian Bostridge, Kate Royal, Emma Bell, a very promising Ben Hulett (tenor) and the dynamic Italian conductor, Fabio Biondi, prancing around before his band, “Europa Galante.
In the interval, Graham Sheffield is there with Marina Wallace, co-curator of the Barbican’s spectacular ”Seduced” show, currently in our gallery. She is very serious as you would hope from the academic curator of a show about, principally, fucking. She says, equally seriously, “Perhaps there wasn’t enough about masturbation but I didn’t have time to find out if the material exists!” Well, there’s another six years’ research! I say to Graham: “Here’s the next exhibition for you – you can call it ‘One on One ‘!”
One of the highlights of a university year is the occasion when it confers honorary degrees on people of achievement. This year’s University of the Arts London’s “Conferments Ceremony” took place in the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall.
Thursday, May 15. Lively dinner upstairs after with the painter Maggi Hambling. She says that after the public uproar over her Benjamin Britten Memorial on the beach at Aldeburgh, she got no work for three years; people didn’t touch her. Now it’s starting to come back. Two Hambling-isms. Can one ever ask a parent if they had an affair? A friend of hers once broached the subject with her own mother. Quick as a flash, mother responded, “ I’ve totally forgotten!” Surely the perfect answer. Maggi and I freely agree that the National Portrait Gallery has too many photographic shows, too few painting shows, and we indulge our hearty contempt for what we call “celebrity-fucker” photographers like Annie Leibowitz and Mario Testino.
Public lecture at the British Museum by Tom Freedman, the New York Times heavyweight public affairs columnist. He and his likes are the “high priests” of American comment.
Thursday, June 5. Freedman is a turn, a real barnstorming New York intellectual turn. Yes, the globe is in a mess, an environmental mess and it could get really nasty. His weakness is that he thinks the US is the country to save the world and it will do so through the still better workings of the market. What, too, if the Europeans discover there is money in getting rid of pollution, if the Europeans take a lead, would he mind? The American-centric nature of the argument is shocking. “Partnership?” We don’t need those “cheese-eating, surrender monkeys”, fill in dismissive abuse ad lib. But a good BM evening. (I didn’t know that Middle America is known by its critics as “DumbFuckistan!”)
There is something special when two “old masters” of music play together. Both in their late 70s, the pianist, Alfred Brendel, the conductor Bernard Haitink, the London Symphony Orchestra.
Sunday, June 8. The LSO/Brendel/Haitink concert in the evening. Alfred plays the Mozart C minor piano concerto, no 24, utterly beautifully, with perfect balance, wonderful tone, no exaggeration, immaculate runs, heart stopping lifts, the complete Mozart of a master musician. He looks very calm, contented, at ease. The audience call him back five times.
After the interval, Haitink gives Strauss’s “Alpine Symphony” the full works but also delivers a clear structure and massive architecture that reveal the best in the (uneven, straggly) work. But as I regard the “sunrise” moment as one of the great musical orgasms, and as I always found myself playing it before going on holiday from the Barbican, a promise of freedom, I remain stubbornly fond of it.
I wrestle with a piece of literary criticism which may throw an unflattering light on my sexual awareness and tolerance, possibly even my inclinations.
Monday, June 9. Very soignee lunch at the Royal Academy hosted by the President, Nick Grimshaw. Quite the best buffet – “Mustard’s” – in the season. Nick plays the part of the bumbling academic to perfection. Someone asks if it is an act? I say it may be 50% act but 50% absolutely natural which is the heart of the charm. I talk about Alan Hollingsworth’s ”The Line of Beauty” with the writer and critic, Lucasta Miller. I found it tedious, boring, not clever, slow, ploddy and not a stylistic masterpiece. And as for the gay sex! No hetero writer would write about a sexual stud in those terms. Annie, who likes it as a study in social comedy, thinks the sex is a bad case of retarded development. I decide I may be actually a homophobe, despite my protestations. James Mitchell, publisher of “The Joy of Gay Sex” always assured me that if I “came out,” he thought I would “do very well ” in the gay scene! Am I, in fact, “JGE”, “just gay enough”? Lucasta takes Annie’s view of the book, especially in literary terms. Are women more tolerant or more perspicacious? Or both?
Great musicians are colleagues, co-equals, collaborators, often partners on the musical scene. That didn’t mean that they were unfailingly uncritical of each other’s performances.
Monday, June 9. In the Wigmore foyer, we run into Alfred Brendel. I tease him for sneaking out of the Barbican concert before the Richard Strauss! Doesn’t he like Strauss? Brendel: “Oh yes, some – the ‘Four Last Songs’, ‘Metamorphosen’, ‘Salome’, a masterpiece, ‘Don Juan’ when played well. But not those big orchestral pieces”. But doesn’t Bernard Haitink play them as well as anyone? Brendel: “Well, you know, these old conductors,(sic) they like to stand in front of the orchestra, and look at the mountains, and the hills, the valleys, the cows, that is what they like!” But hadn’t the LSO played wonderfully in the Mozart, especially the woodwind? Brendel: “Of course, but the wind were too loud in the first movement but you see, with an old conductor,(sic) you don’t have enough rehearsal time, he doesn’t have the energy!” I murmur something about Brendel having the energy at 77? “Well, I am in good health, happily.”
Something stirred my own older memories of musicians with pleasure. I thought them worth keeping and recording.
Tuesday, June 10. I did a “Newsnight” film about the Amadeus Quartet in the early 1980s interviewing them in Golders Green, a normal small, semi detached house with a bay fronted front room. As they rehearsed, they were talking the whole time, about the music, their playing, their intonation, with Peter Schidlof, the viola, particularly sharp and critical. In the hubbub, Siggi Nissell, the second violin and conciliator, looks up to me and says “Is not always like this!” Norbert Brainin, the leader, glowering: “Yes, it is!” Is that their secret? They finish rehearsing, ready to perform, we are ready to roll. Siggi looks up; “Boys, play like you’ve never played before. Play WELL!”
Two Norbert Brainin stories, one told by Robert Cohen, the youthful cellist. They were in the middle of rehearsing the Schubert cello quintet, in the middle of the sublime slow movement. Norbert looks up: “Did you hear about the two fiddlers who met in Manhattan? One says, ‘how are you doing?’ Second fiddler: ‘Not bad, I’ve just got me a 1699 Stradivarius!” First fiddler; ‘Boy, that’s cheap’!”
Story told to me by Norbert himself. He was sitting next to the legendary conductor, Otto Klemperer, at a concert given by George Szell. After the performance of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Norbert asked the great man what he thought? Pause. Then:” Das war nicht ‘La Mer ’ von Debussy! Aber das war ‘Szell-am-See!’” Norbert loved it.
When two or three arts people gathered, the talk soon turned to government interference with the arts, rarely helpful, often simply unintelligent
Monday, June 16. “Arts disco” lunch at the headhunters Odgers hosted by Nicky Oppenheimer. Museum and opera leaders are there, Richard Mantle, Tim Joss, Alex Beard, Ian Blatchford. We agree that Arts Council England (ACE) is very weak, we recognise that “objectives” are still with us, we fear that local ACEs are dragged into “instrumentalism” – that is simple usefulness - by their links with local authorities, and that the better arts organisations are at demonstrating how effective instrumentally we are, the more our basic purpose and function – providing excellence - is distorted. We do need a “new language” for accountability. Another Margaret Hodge-ism: young graduate sees her to discuss the difficulties of getting a job in the arts. Hodge: “How dreadful, but what can you expect of the arts world? You’re a woman and Indian?” Student: “ No, that’s not the problem – I’ve got a crap degree!”
Almost every arts organisation decides at some stage that a grand, fully fledged gala will bring in the much needed thousands of pounds. On one occasion, the Great Wigmore Gala , not our first attempt, things turned out well.
Thursday, June 19. Thanks to generous quantities of Mary Weston’s champagne - ”It is Fortnum’s house wine, I do hope it is alright?” - you hardly need the music. But Bryn Terfel gives a tremendous turn, involving the audience, getting them to join in. They love it. When he encores the love song “La ci darem” from Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”, he seizes a flower, jumps off the platform and addresses the song with flower to, you guessed it, Mary Weston!! (A prime donor!) Thank you, God! And Bryn!! He is a generous, larger than life star. He did sell the gala and we cleared £!00k net for the lease appeal.
Musicians are colleagues, friends, collaborators, sometimes partners, musically and physically. They are of course also competitors, rivals for fame and reputation. This was demonstrated at the Aldeburgh festival.
Sunday, June 22. Afternoon at Blythburgh church, with its bleached out carved angel roof – would we want it repainted in all its garish colours! No, we love age and a patina of time. An odd concert. Star cast, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tabea Zimmerman, Martin Frost, the naughty boy of the clarinet. Three Schumann salon pieces for that combo, plus a Gyorgy Kurtag – ditto. The Kurtag was typical, witty, terse, super-economical, beautifully balanced. As for the Schumann, well salon music is just that. Annie observed that it was over played, over expressed, generally overdone so that the life was squeezed out of it.
Back at the Red House, Britten’s former home, the composer, Colin Matthews explodes: “I’ve had it up to here with Kurtag! That stuff about taking four months or years to write a single note! There’s nothing to get your teeth into, and he’s so rude.” As Colin was driving Harry Birtwistle back from the event, he too rumbled on: “All that interspersing Bach Preludes with Kurtag movements! Everyone said it was so great!” (They did). “ If they’d given me a piano to play, I could have done something more interesting in between the Bach!” The Red House has turned! Later, I ask Harry what he thought of Kurtag? “ I just wish he’d get on and write some real music!”
Over Red House supper and drinks, we talk to Tony Pappano about the recent Covent Garden “Don Carlo” and other triumphs. Why can’t all operas be as well produced as “Don Carlo” by Nick Hytner, or Jonathan Kent’s “Tosca”. Pappano: “The trouble is that these shows, and of course Birtwistle’s ‘Minotaur,’ were well rehearsed over time. With the mainstream Italian repertoire, you cannot get the singers for long enough and they come and give ‘their’ Violetta or whatever. A pity, but that’s the reality”.
2,929 words 23 June 2024