The London Proms

Late July brings memories of going to the Proms at the vast Albert Hall in London. If you can't visulize this domed hall that seats 9,000, just revisit "The Man Who Knew Too Much" that classic Hitchcock film where most of the action takes place in the hall. After all, the pistol shot timed exactly with cymbal crash is a great piece of cinematic art. Aside from this ( and Doris Day screaming "Que Sera, Sera..." at the top of her lungs) it is quite something to attend a performance here. I remember Stokowski conducting the Scriabin "Poeme of Ecstacy" in the summer of 1970, and standing at the stage door to watch him exit to an adoring crowd. He threw roses to the crowd from a huge bouquet he was carrying, and Perri Daraz, who was standing next to me, caught one.

Now one can listen via the computer to live concerts for a period of almost two months. Recently I heard the young Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin play the Rachmanioff First Piano Concerto. That's the one that Rachmaninoff suffered greatly over, and revised extensively over the years.This summer the Proms are presenting the complete concerti, including the "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini". Olga Kern, late of Columbia, South Carolina and the Southeastern Piano Festival, will play the latter. Sudbin is just 26...almost old by today's piano world...and very much in the Horowitz mold, to whom he is being compared. He played with fire and great precision, but also with alot of heart. He managed to make the thick writing sound out over the orchestra, but he never pounded to do so. I liked his natural sense of phrase, and the directness of it all. To his credit, he played, went to bed, got up and flew to Naples where he was married the same day.

This performance reminded me how kind London is to pianists from all over. It seems that London is really where the center of the piano world is today, and has been for decades. As a student there in 1959-61 I became aware of the international level of piano playing. Marta Argerich was just starting out, and I remember seeing her and her mother at all the piano recitals. Marta is very tall, and stands out in a crowd. She had roared in from the plains of Argentina, and in just a few years was a world figure. Elusive, distrustful of the press, and wayward in cancelling at the last minute, she nevertheless is one of the greatest pianist alive. She has lived in Lugano for years and now has a festival each June which features chamber music. The once gleaming black locks are now entirely gray, but her hair still hangs to her waist.

Strolling around London during Proms one can hear radios through open windows playing the most wonderful music. Its a way of life in the summer...almost like a world gone past.