Mozart and Mahler live tonight from the Barbican

[remdataram]

Mine arrived quite a while ago, remdataram - José Serebrier adorning the cover.

If you're a subscriber, give them a ring

Many thanks, I'll chase it on Monday!

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, the Mahler looked up distinctly in the third movement, where the clumsiness of the articulation (not the playing exactly) fitted well with a plain nightmare vision, hardly troubled by modernist visions but quite exhilarating all the same. The fourth movement was voiced with great care, and again the finale had an uncomplicated exuberance that remained untroubled by its symphonic credentials or lack thereof (shades of concerto grosso). It ended a far cry from the lumpy, bad-Brahms phrasing of the first movement, let alone that grotesque travesty of the Mozart in the first half. Wasn't that unexpected, and awful? I'd never heard of the pianist, and arrived with no expectations beyond a professional and intelligent standard of Mozart playing that wasn't really met. Never mind the memory lapse; even the gabbled tempi could have been integrated into a dramatic vision of the piece, but this was porcelain Mozart, banal and untroubled by any sense of its D minor character. I wonder what DG think they have signed?

I've now been able to listen to this concert on several occasions - thanks to a friend, I have a copy on my hard-drive and also on various other media inc the iPod.

I completely disagree with the above view of the Mozart. I'm quite picky about my Mozart piano concertos, and I was very pleasantly surprised and continue to find it a very musical, unfussy, deft performance which let the music speak for itself. I have now enjoyed the reading 4 or 5 times and look forward to hearing again.

As mercia pointed out, there was a memory lapse leading up to the cadenza - rather an extraordinary one, not a hiatus but rather a sort of convulsion of irrelevant notes played quite loudly - as if the soloist had sneezed or something. Anyway, that's live performance for you... it didn't spoil a fine performance.

As for the Mahler, paradoxically, I was rather disappointed - the first movement didn't take off for me, and was rather accident prone in the brass department. One slip is fine cf: the pianist... but it seemed more habitual... I agree with euthynicus that things looked up from the third movement on. A good performance, not a great one.

[Dave2002]

Sorry, I was and am using a tablet with some very strange touch screen keyboard quirks. It sometimes respoonds with a totally different character to thatt touched. JB, of course. Just to make thlngs even more diffiicult, I was and am trying to do it on a rather bouncy bus between Slough and Legoland.

You weren't driving it I hope, Bryn! At least you can use the tablet as an excuse for the typos, as I do with my iPad.
Bws.

[Bryn]

You weren't driving it I hope, Bryn! At least you can use the tablet as an excuse for the typos, as I do with my iPad.
Bws.

Oh no. I was hitching a ride home. Journeys home by Greenline bus are taking rather longer recently, due to a newly imposed weight restriction on the overhead section of the M4 leaving London. The buses I get tend to run between 10 and 30 minutes late as a result.

I am seriously considering looking for more local work, though it would not be as much fun as the current job itself. However, some 5 hours bus travel just to get to and from work each day is a bit much. I do sometimes take the car, but that still takes up to an hour each way, and costs getting on for 2 hours pay to cover just the petrol costs each day. Hence I resort to using my bus pass and listen to music, or browse these boards when the bus's Free WiFi is working (far less often than the First Group's advertisements would suggest).