On a train, on my way from France, via Germany, home to Copenhagen.
Or, was on a train, until a moment ago. Now am on the Princesses Benedikte to make the ferry crossing. Last time I made this trip it was February, and already dark by the time I left Hamburg, a poorly designed and generally aggravating train station, so I didn't get to see the isthmus hamlets and fishing villages on the way to this point. There were fawns in the hedges today, and rabbits in the fields, and seagulls flying with their chests to the wind. And a truly responsible amount of energy being generated by the giant white wind turbines, not to mention solar panels on barn roofs.
I think everyone else from the orchestra has already arrived home. It would be nice to find a solution for future work 'on the Continent' that doesn't include a day's worth of train travel, nice as it can be.
It's funny, train travel is pleasant, good, relaxing through Switzerland and most of Germany, but Hamburg marks the beginning of the stressful, loud, annoying, and pushy part of the trip. This portion accounts for nearly 6 hours of travel. A second instrument might solve the problem, I could leave it somewhere in middle Europe and fly to pick it up as needed. We'll see how often the need arises. Already I know I'll be doing this again in three weeks and the thought doesn't excite me especially.
There are a lot of people milling around on the deck. An old man has a video camera, old-fashioned style, to film (?) the blue gray water going by. It looks bright and windy out there. The girl sitting next to me has some pretty incredible paisley-printed jersey pants on. Lots of people wear Converse shoes. Dudes have plaid shorts and tight t-shirts. Small blond children wear hand-knitted sweaters and chew on dried sausages. I wish the iPad had a hyphen on the main typing screen.
Tour was nice. Schubert and Schumann with La Chambre Philharmonique. We only played two concerts, the second was last night, in a spa town in Germany called Wiesbaden. It's upstream from Basel by about two hours, and still has 14 active hot springs. I went to two of them, one of which was in the hotel, and the other just up the street in a completely restored Art Nouveau-era building. That one is 'Textil frei' but don't let that stop you, you can just scurry from sauna to cool tub to hot tub to Roman sauna in your towel and disrobe at the last minute. The steam room has this incredible old-fashioned mechanism for creating steam involving a bucket of rocks, a bucket of water, and a counterweight. I spent a lot of time in the Roman/Irish sauna, it's not as hot as the Finnish version and was empty except for me. There were well proportioned and sturdy wooden chairs around the tile room, and a translucent skylight. It was the temperature I like to be. I'm considering talking to Andrew about converting one of the rooms in our (small) apartment into a room like that, with those plant lights that give off vitamin D. We'll need a lot of tiles and will have to commit to rather high heating bills. I think it will be worth it.
Wiesbaden has been a wealthy town for a long time. The concert hall, located in a casino (and a very short walk from both the hotel and the spa), is an extravagant example of a high budget. There is gold everywhere, the ceiling is adorned with a frieze of Apollo and his golden chariot,
and surprisingly unfussy chandeliers. In the back hall, where we connected to our dressing rooms, there are more Jugendstil friezes and structural pillars decorated with mosaicked stones and sea shells.
I think one could unironically call this hall spectacular. Not so great to play in, though; I found it hard to hear people playing even halfway across the stage from me. It was better with a full audience.
 |
| decoration idea for our new place?? |
Back on dry land, two aptly named wagtails move around on the platform faster than my eyes can track. Behind them is a wind turbine orchard. I eat the entire big ass Snickers bar provided to me free for traveling first class and regret it.
The soloist was Renaud Capuçon, a youngish Frenchman who looks like he came to the hall directly from his yacht. He played our entire rehearsal with his collar popped. This morning, waiting for the train north, one of my German colleagues asked if I'd listened to the girl who spoke to the audience before our concert; I hadn't, so he filled me in. First she called him by the wrong name, announcing that he was his brother (he's a concert pianist). Then she said the audience was lucky that he had come from his holidays to play just this one concert. What an odd thing to say. Was she making an apology for his playing? The audience was unamused by her speech, and clearly appreciated his concerto in spite of her introduction.
Before Wiesbaden, two days in Grenoble to record Schumann Symphony 4. It's a beautiful town. Completely flat, surrounded by abruptly rising mountains all around. The beginning of the Alps, I think. The fast train from Paris takes 3.5 hours. I'm told driving takes 7. Spent my birthday there. The train ride back was delayed by an hour and a half; everyone was happy to travel on the clean, on-time German train the next day.
Before that, a concert in Saint-Riquier, a town in the Somme region of France, where we played in an Abbey formed in the seventh century. I just wrote it out so you didn't think I meant 17th. The skull of the dude, Saint Riquier, was in the church. I didn't take a picture of him because I bet he gets that a lot and I didn't want to be just another mortal with a camera.
We were participating in an annual music festival, and they had set up cameras and video screens all over the place, including two screens ON STAGE. As if it wasn't already confusing enough, the video image had a small delay, so when the conductor was on screen, I had to try very hard to focus on the man, and not the man behind the man. Not ideal.
 |
| no pressure. |
And before that, four days of double rehearsals in Paris. Ate some incredible Indian food, plus the normal bread and cheese that is the staple diet of A Vegetarian in France. Bought some little shoes in the big sales that happen every July. Also visited an English book store that was two weeks away from closing its doors, and so selling its entire inventory for 50% off. Was recommended this book, Forests: The Shadow of Civilization by Robert Pogue Harrison, a professor in Italian literature at Stanford and an impressive historian and thinker. The first section presents a sort of creation myth of civilization as having emerged from the forests; explores attitudes towards forests in antiquity through mythology and tragic plays; and finishes with an explanation of the fall of Rome as being directly related to the systematic deforestation of what was formerly the most fertile area of the world, transformed by over-farming, ship building, and a lack of interest in conservation into a sun parched desert that could no longer support a great civilization. He includes extended quotes from Homer, Gilgamesh, Euripides, and David Attenborough, among others. And I'm leaving out a lot. The book requires some work to read, intellectually, but offers some payoffs.
I just saw the bridge that connects Copenhagen to Malmö, we look so close, but still have an hour to go. Alas.
More photos up on the flickr page, as usual.
