VIOLINISTS SCRAPE BOOK Vol 10 No 1
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Pages from A VIOLINISTS SCRAPE BOOK
When like me, you have spent a lifetime with one particular subject, you are not aware of the many things you have collected and just simply forgotten where they are stored. I am such a person.
Now as I am getting on in years I spend the best part of my day either writing reviews or articles and well spaced out lectures. Or, I am in my music room which is adjacent to my little office. While sitting reading listening or just thinking, every now and then I remember something that I have not thought of for years. Be it an article a book or even a recording that has been buried somewhere in the house.
What a joy it is to find something from the past. No only do I enjoy listening to the recording again after so long but even better are the memories it evokes. This happened quite recently when I found to commercial recordings of my professor. She had been a pupil of William Primrose. Her name was Helgar White and would teach between concert tours. For many years she toured Europe with her accompanist Cyril Scott. I had not thought about her for years.
Alas I have never been a regular concert goer, even in the days of the great International concerts series we had in Liverpool. I can not remember missing a world violinist even so. Regrettably Liverpool has run out of that sort of money , bearing in mind that top artists command extraordinary fees and it must be true to say that many concert halls have the same financial problems. I am ever intrigued by the fact that in the days of the Carl Flesch competition when the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra were the resident orchestra the winner would be given three engagements with the orchestra here in Liverpool. Some became international names while others were never heard of again a strange phenomenon I have never quite understood. Of the big names it was not too many years before we could not afford them.
While on the subject of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra we are to have yet another conductor. Let us hope that he, a film star like personality with an abundance of audience charisma will fulfil the management’s expectations, for a year or two at least.
Schwartz and I have only just got to know one another and were arranging to premier a violin concerto by my friend the Maltese composer Charles Camilleri - now Seattle is a long way to go for a concert..
This week I have listened to the new CD set of Scottish Fantasies recorded by Rachel Barton Pine. Her performance of the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch is the star item. Ms Pine has collaborated with a well known Scottish fiddler to achieve an exciting performance by using authentic Scottish Fiddling techniques and gives a performance hard to surpass. Another work and there are several, is her own composition “Melody of Scottish Tunes” with Alasdair Fraser. I am so glad she sent me these CDs to review. The review will appear in the German magazine “mouvement nouveau .“
Next week promises to be even better Ms Pine’s agent has arranged for me to interview Rachel on a Trans Atlantic link up.
I hope that you will be interested in pages from my Violinists Scrape Book if not please do not hesitate to say so
ref Cideller.
