Tag: Zubin Mehta

Kissin, Cousins, Zubin Mehta…A Big Night At The Proms, 9 September 1999

A memorable evening at the Proms, just a few days after our previous memorable visit. A rare midweek booking for us, but the promise of Evgeny Kissin, Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra was too tempting to miss.

Again we had The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us.

The programme was two big pieces:

  • Frédéric Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
  • Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)

I hadn’t seen Evgeny Kissin before but had heard about him. Janie thought he was excessively flamboyant – a complaint she has about many star pianists.

Anyway, here is a video of Mehta conducting Kissin performing an extract from this piece some years later – this time with the Israel Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra:

The Duchess thought Kissin’s cadenzas were absolutely wonderful but she thought him “rude” or “self-centred” doing encores ahead of the interval on a night with such a long programme. Takes one to know one.

The encores were Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major and Scherzo in B flat minor, seeing as you asked…

…OK, you didn’t ask. But my mum loved that Polonaise and she would have got all excited about the young Evgeny Kissin had she been there and heard him play it a bit like this:

In truth, we did hear some people saying that they would have to leave before the second half, because they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get home, which was a real shame for those people.

While stretching our legs during the interval, we ran into my cousins, Angela and John Kessler, who were very keen on Kissin and also eagerly looking forward to seeing Zubin Mehta and the Bavarians wrestle with Anton Bruckner for 80 minutes or so after the interval.

The Duchess seemed most displeased that we had run into some people that we knew, preventing her from being the centre of attention for five minutes or so.

The Bruckner was certainly worth the wait. I had seen this symphony performed several times before but sense that this evening was the best performance I have seen.

Here is an extract of Mehta conducting the Bruckner Symphony, but on this occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra.

Returning to our memorable evening, here is Erica Jeal’s review of that evening from The Guardian. Good to see Kissin and Mehta getting three stars while Whitney Houston only got two.

Kissin Jeal GuardianKissin Jeal Guardian 11 Sep 1999, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Geoffrey Norris in The Telegraph was not so sure about Kissin:

Kissin Telegraph NorrisKissin Telegraph Norris 10 Sep 1999, Fri The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

While Michael Kennedy in the Sunday Telegraph seemed less sure about Zubin Mehta than we were, comparing him, perhaps unfavourably, with Bernard Haitink and Günter Wand. I’m a lucky fellow, as I have seen all three of them conduct Bruckner 8.

Mehta Telegraph KennedyMehta Telegraph Kennedy 12 Sep 1999, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Knowing that the concert would finish late and that we both had an early start the next day, I sense that we did not go out to dinner after this one. Janie had probably prepared some cold compilations for us to munch, with a glass of wine, when we got home.

Janie also very sensibly had arranged for Jill Wooton to come and give us both a massage at home on the Friday evening. Two nights out with The Duchess in five days, with plenty of work in between, we sure both would have needed the massages and sure both had earned them.

Diary says that we went to Andrea’s BBQ party on the Saturday evening (a rather good one at her house in Shepherd’s Bush, if I remember correctly) and then to Mum & Dad’s for tea on the Sunday. We didn’t hang about back then.

Zubin Mehta & The New York Philharmonic Orchestra & Moose, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, 24 November 1989

The background to my 1989 sojourn to the USA is provided in an earlier piece – click here or below:

My First Visit To The USA Part One: New York, c19 to 22 November 1989

But while I lack a travel log for this holiday, I can fall back on my theatres and concerts log for the centrepiece of this day, the day after Thanksgiving – now known as Black Friday -was that “a thing” back then – I don’t recall hearing the term. Anyway, my log says:

Great gig on a Friday afternoon. Only 12 days after I met Rita. Moose had spent a couple of days schlepping around New York with me, so I treated her to this concert by way of a thank you.

I have described the evening I met Rita Frank in this piece – click here or below:

An Unexpected Evening At The Barbican During Which I Heard Sibelius, Met Rita Frank & Experienced Driving In Dense London Fog, 12 November 1989

I have also described Rita’s daughter, Mara Frank’s, informal New York tour guide role in the “Part One” piece linked above. All that remains to explain is that Mara was known as Moose back then. Possibly still is. I’ll try and find out, as I have managed to track her down and we are communicating over these pieces.

Anyway, point is…well, exactly the point I made on the log. I wanted to see stuff at the Lincoln Centre before I left New York and spotted that there was good availability of tickets over that holiday weekend.

The chance to see Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in New York seemed too good to miss. I thought Mara (Moose) might enjoy seeing them too.

Here is a recording of Zubin Mehta & The New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing the very Vivaldi piece we heard in the very Lincoln Centre in which we heard it – albeit the recording has sightly more high falutin’ soloisti:

It was a super concert that afternoon and I think Moose enjoyed it. But possibly she didn’t – she’d have been far too polite to say if she hadn’t liked it. Mara, if by any chance you remember, you can tell me truthfully now.

Subsequently, when she came to live in London, I discovered that Mara was a keen fan of Dr Demento. Moose and I spent many happy, silly hours listening to her Dr Demento tapes. But Moose is probably blissfully unaware of my own massive novelty song canon, as I think she had returned to the USA before my NewsRevue writing career started, in 1992. NewsRevue is explained in the anniversary piece – click here or below:

NewsRevue 40th Anniversary Party, Show & Smoker, Canal Cafe Theatre, 18 August 2019

Moose might like the following one of mine, for example, just one of several hundred such ditties:

White House, NewsRevue Lyric, 8 November 1992

But Dr Demento (and Newsrevue) stuff is a far cry from Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil…but then, I like all sorts of music – Moose might also like both. In fact, now I come to think of it, John Random is a doyen of NewsRevue writers/lyricists and he is an avid fan of Zubin Mehta.

But back to Black Friday 1989: that was an afternoon concert and I’m pretty sure Mara and I spent at least the early part of the evening together too. This might have been the occasion when she insisted on buying me Godiva chocolates (mentioned in the Part One piece).

I also recall being scammed by a fast-talking sob-story merchant. It’s hard to imagine falling for one of those, but we didn’t have them in London back then (or at least young folk like me didn’t encounter them) so I fell for the “just need my train fare” story and gave him a couple of bucks.

He’ll be a junky and the bucks will be spent on drugs, not transport…

…said Mara.

I don’t fall for those any more.

I think Mara and I had a bite to eat together and I think this was the last I saw of her until she came to London for her placement the following year. But I’m happy to stand corrected if my memory has missed or confused these details.

As a musical aside, I remember thinking the concert an ideal choice for Moose, as it had some Sibelius in it and Sibelius had been the centre-piece of the concert at which I had met Rita.

I cannot find Zubin Mehta conducting Sibelius, but I have found one of the first ever filmed concerts at the Lincoln Centre, from the early 1960’s, with Leonard Bernstein conducting Finlandia, the very piece of Sibelius we heard. It is actually a very fine performance and also a rather splendid piece of historic concert filming: