The Utrecht Early Music Festival closed with delightful concerts, delicious workshops, lectures, as well as its traditional market. The market draws crowds interested in early music CDs, sheet music and replicas of musical instruments. I was on my way to admire harps and harpsichords, when I stopped in my tracks: what on earth was that?
Rest assured: the annual Early Music Festival in Utrecht will not start till the evening of Friday 24th of August 2018. You have not missed a thing – yet.
No need to start searching for this CD by the Clara Wieck Trio. It was produced in 1990, at Sandhausen; with Rudolf Bayer as producer. I bought it slightly later, at the annual Utrecht Early Music Festival.
Fanny Mendelssohn’s music was – dare one say ‘of course’ – not played during this literary evening. A few compositions by her brother were – dare one add ‘of course’. Regardless; this literary evening during which cellists and music took center-stage, was of course a huge success.
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Girl in the Spotlight? Other women continue to be overlooked. At The Hague’s recent ‘Februari Festival‘, two female musicians still had to share the spotlight with brother, husband. The festival’s theme: brother and sister Mendelssohn; husband and wife Schumann.
When news started to buzz, there would be a “Wiener Café” – or rather Wiener Kaffeehaus – evening at Branoul, free tickets for the pay-what-you-want performance sold out in no time. Friends, leaving it till too late, were disappointed. Their only option was, to try get tickets for the performance at an Amsterdam theater, a day later.
By now, they have been reported. But just a warning, if like me, you are a culture journalist. Some musicians can’t take criticism – even if it is not directed at them and journalists are merely citing other people.
It was nice to have as last concert of the day, a performance by Mr. Belogurov. He may nearly be dubbed “an old hand”. He regularly performs in the Netherlands and it was not the first time I had the good fortune, to hear him at the Utrecht Early Music Festival.
The volunteers had locked the door and were struggling with the Early Music Festival banner. It kept folding, rolling tight and likely with a sharp, nasty snap. The public waited patiently and looked on. We were locked out, but the glass wall gave us a view of the struggle. Members of Silva Norvegica and instruments turned up, each time having to knock on the door to be allowed in.
While queueing for Silva Norvegic’s fringe concert, I overheard the conversation mentioned in the previous post. Just one remark to the spammer: read articles, posts, remarks, before you decide who is on the receiving end of criticism and why.
