Thirty-third parkrun

Tired this morning after thrashing it at the climbing wall yesterday and a little worried about the windy conditions, I backed off from my recent pace and finished in a respectable 20:29. Stopped off for tea afterwards and discovered that D&P feature in a recent Visit Devon video:

Proms Catchup

Despite not writing much about this year's proms, I've been assiduously making keeping up with the concerts on R3. Highlights over the last few weeks have included Huw Watkins' Cello Concerto written for his brother Paul and Tai Murray's premier of Malcolm Hayes' Violin Concerto.

The Sixteen's late night concert, mixing Bach motets with Arvo Pärt's Nunc Dimittis and Triodium was particularly good. The audience had an amazing, focused silence during the Pärt pieces which the BBC's engineers did a superb job of capturing, really adding to the spiritual quality of the broadcast.

The East-West Divan orchestra's prom really stands out a particular highlight. Not only did it feature the legendary Marta Argerich in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 but the encore was a true delight: Argerich and Barenboim in Schubert's Rondo for two hands; two brilliant pianists for the price of one in a piece that almost outlasted the conerto that proceded it.

The second half was a series of orchestral interludes from Wagner starting with the overture to Tannhäuser, move through the Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey to the Funeral March from Götterdämmerung before ending with the astonishing counterpoint of the overture to Die Meistersinger. As an encore concert finished with the prelude to act III of Die Meistersinger and then, as a final surprise send off, a really constrast to the brooding Meistersinger prelude: a fast, exciting version of the prelude to the third act of Lohengrin.

I also very much enjoyed yesterday's concert performance of Janáček's The Makropulous Affair. Not a piece I know at all — despite one of my friends learning the part of Emilia Marty when we were at university — I though it was fascinating, especially the shift from the conversational form and constantly shifting music of the majority of the opera to its resolution in the last 10-15 minutes of the piece.