I have scanned my hand-written cards which contain the entirety of the eulogy, including the crossed out bits that were edited out in the interests of flow and sticking to time. I hope interested folk can read my writing. If not, any half-useful Large Language Model worth its salt should be able to take the images and turn them into clear font text for you to read…well, in any case, you can enlarge the images yourself to scrutinise any bits that look interesting yet hard to read.
Angela & John “a few” years ago – Michael & Pam would approve the photo choice
This concert was the evening before Uncle Michael’s funeral, for which I was scheduled to be the soloist – i.e. eulogist.
Angela and John are patrons of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). They suggested that I might join them for this concert. An element of bonding exercise and an element (I suspect) of last minute stage management. John had stuck his neck out a little with his Rabbi by suggesting that a member of the family undertake the eulogy and they didn’t want any mistakes.
We discussed matters over drinks and nibbles with the patrons and benefactors before the show.
“Rabbi Rosenfeld is absolutely clear that you should keep the eulogy brief”, said John – who is a graduate of the Arsène Wenger school of management.
“I got the message – I’ve timed the speech; eighty-nine minutes…”
“…EIGHT OR NINE MINUTES…if it goes past ten minutes I’ll shut you up myself…”
…I think John knew I was joking.
Meanwhile, unlike our family funeral, the concert was not going to proceed as planned. The Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin had gone down with “severe gastric flu” (as described in the apologetic programme note).
So we had a late substitute from one of the other dominions, Australia, in the form of Matthew Coorey.
The result was a game of two halves in some ways.
Supersub Coorey was spared the first half of of the concert, as Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, wisely, chose to lead the orchestra herself in the Mozart Violin Concerto No 3.
I say the first half…of course the Mozart is quite a short work whereas the second half, Mahler Symphony No 9, is a 90 minute marathon. So it was more like an 80:20 thing than a game of two halves…
…I’m digressing. Point is, the first piece I suspect included all the nuance and personality that had been planned for this concert. I have an affection for that simple but charming piece and it was delivered very well that night.
By contrast, the Mahler seemed, while very professionally performed, a somewhat retreated, standard performance of the great work. Hats off to Coorey for taking on such a monumental work at such short notice. But “letting the orchestra just do its thing” is probably as good as it gets in those circumstances.
Here is a short video of Lisa Batiashvili playing at home, Tbilisi. I couldn’t find a legitimate vid of her playing Mozart so I thought this gorgeous piece of Bach would do nicely.
While here is a short vid of Matthew Coorey conducting. It isn’t Mahler…instead it is Kodaly, so there is still rather a lot of early 20th century noise and some unusual percussion – it was the closest I could find:
Verbatim Theatre and Physical Theatre don’t seem, on the face of it, to be complementary genres.
But this piece, conceived by Lloyd Newson and performed by physical theatre company DV8, tries to combine the two, around the tricky subject of Islamic extremism, Islamophobia, multiculturalism, censorship, freedom of speech and hate crimes.
It sort-of worked, in that it got me and Janie talking about those subjects afterwards, but it didn’t really work for us, in itself, as a piece talking about those tricky subjects.
In truth, verbatim theatre about such tricky subjects would need more words and less dance.
I remember surprisingly little about this evening. I do remember it being short, physical and interesting, but nothing tangible about it really sticks. I’m not sure that the complex subject matter and verbatim style lends itself to this sort of physical theatre – the issues get buried or confused in the performance and visuals.
I might chat it through with Janie, see what she remembers and edit in some more thoughts. If you are reading this paragraph, then I haven’t yet done that or drew a blank from Janie too.
This was an opportunity to hear two genres of Indian music in one concert. I don’t think that we’d seen Amjad Ali Khan before this concert – although I had heard my father’s recordings of him playing with Ravi Shankar.
This concert was part of his residency at the Wigmore Hall, which I think was a new idea back then.
The first half of the concert was singing in the Carnatic (Southern Indian) tradition. This was interesting but not as relaxing and delightful to our ears as the sarod music performed by Amjad Ali Khan himself in the second half.
For some reason the Wigmore Hall on-line stub for this concert is incomplete and has errors in it (at the time of writing – February 20180 – here is the link anyway.
So I have uploaded the information sheet, which I am sure is accurate:
We took a wonderful trip back to Vietnam in early 2012. Our first visit in 1996 had been somewhat limited by time and some difficulty back then travelling comfortably off the beaten track. So we did “the Grand Tour” back then but had always wanted to go back and see some other places.
This 2012 trip took in Saigon, Can Tho, the Mekong Delta (including a home stay in Ut Trinh), Dalat and then rest and relaxation in Ninh Van Bay.
Bad place to drop something – a major junction in Saigon
Another glorious day. We skip tennis on grounds of Ged’s sore throat and full itinerary for the day.
Arrange to take Dinner On The Jetty.
At breakfast we chat to Daisy’s German friends from the earlier yoga class – they turn out to be medical academics from Heidelberg – still we get confused about whether or not they are joining our class later.
After breakfast we do a Vietnamese massage workshop – Ged acts as a model and Daisy learns the techniques. We meet some young sunburnt Hong Kongers there.
Then back to our villa for a last day of resting and reading by a private pool.
I have a dreadful feeling I didn’t quite get going with nor did I finish Goon Squad. I’ll need to dig that one out again.
Later we take our complimentary sunset cruise (gold star to Ân for remembering to switch wine for bubbly) and then get ready for dinner.
Dinner on the jetty (see menus) was excellent – Ged found opportunities to tip most of the people who been looking after us – chef Basha Ched Tuong, Leo (food and beverage), Ân… Gary the GM joins us for quite a while and helped us to get through our bottle of Alsatian Tokay/Pinot Gris. Excellent meal.
The last supper…on the jetty
26th of February 2012
Another glorious day, but sadly we are leaving. After some early morning R&R we pack.
…by Jeffrey Eugenides…I enjoyed this novel but not as much as I had enjoyed Middlesex on an earlier holiday.
We go to cocktail party at the gallery and then on to Dining On The Rocks. We wait nearly an hour for our first courses which turn out to be our second courses blah blah – all resolved in the end I suppose but £300 plus dinners shouldn’t be that way.
When we get home housekeeping has left us no water which irritates Ged further.
First world problems, I know, I know…
24 February 2012
Glorious weather again – we play tennis early on but Ged still wins 6-2 and it is still O-T-‘ot.
Staff queue up to apologise for yesterday’s misdemeanours and Ân brings a bottle of wine for our troubles, which will do nicely for dinner.
While Ân is with us, we spot and photograph an amazing blue headed tree agana [depicted above] which changes colour rapidly once it realises it’s on show.
We enjoy our sundeck and take a snack lunch of a club sandwich to share.
Stroll the beach & some R&R before dinner.
Then we try whole fish (grouper) cooked in banana leaf with all sorts of gooey goodies inside the leaf, served with rice paper and stuff. Preceded by beef in lalot leaf starter. Excellent meal.
After breakfast (Ged tried chicken with egg noodles today), Ged cracked on with Sense Of An Ending and even gets to start Exit Ghost today in the sun.
I am a great fan of the novels of both Julian Barnes and Philip Roth. I do recall very much enjoying the Barnes (Sense) whereas I found Exit Ghost a little below par for Roth.
Daisy does Tai Chi class and both [of us] enjoy some sun on our deck and some beer.
Play tennis just before dusk to avoid the heat – Daisy won 6-3 – pleasant at that hour.
Then back for a late siesta and then on to dinner where Basha [chef] has specially prepared the five spice duck for us very well it’s good isn’t it. We also enjoy a starter of dry spice beef salad and additional main teriyaki tuna – best meal at Six Senses so far for sure.
21 February 2012
Woke to a misty rainy morning – rain will not relent all day sadly.
Ged goes off to do some work on the photos before breakfast and then again after, while Daisy does Tai Chi.
Finish off the photos and chat briefly with German couple who wanted our villa and wanted to use the PC – they must hate us but they don’t show it!
Then decide to have a satay nibble & some wine in the room – very nice.
Then attempt to play tennis but the court is waterlogged so we switch to badminton, Ged pulling off a surprise two nil win 15-8, 15-11)! Good fun.
Went to a “cocktail Martini” event in the bar and chatted with a nice Israeli couple.
They were a very interesting couple. She was in publishing and seemed a lot older and more high falutin’ than her man. We felt a bit sorry for them as they were only at the Six Senses for two nights; that wet day was their only full day there.
Then went home for an hour and then went to dinner to try caramelised pork belly done properly – uber-fatty but good with morning glory and tasty brown rice – more like red rice. Starter of cabbage chicken salad.
22 February 2012
Rose to another wet morning. Rested in and took late breakfast.
But then someone turn the lights on and it brightened up in a jiffy.
Soon the resort dried out – we enjoyed our sundeck round our own pool and read (finished Exit Ghost in my case) and had tea in the library with sandwich nibbles.
Played tennis in the evening – I won 6-4 – and thus met Françoise who sorted us out.
After tennis we got ready for dinner and had enormous ribeye steaks after a duo of tuna starter.
