Hello,

I've just placed a comment on CISD about the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. This was never a favourite of mine, until I heard Barry-clari playing the second movement at Stalybridge.

Since then, I have listened to it a number of times and have to agree that it is a beautiful piece.

I just wondered how others have had their opinions changed after hearing a piece "live" as opposed to CD/radio etc.

**Sorry if this has been asked before!**

**Sorry for making you go pink Barry! xx**

Yes - Mozart! I posted about it a few weeks ago - I'll try and find it!


Here's the quote:


This was quite a few years ago and long before I took up the clarinet. I remember they played the clarinet concerto and - with apologies to the non-memorisers (of which I am one, I hasten to add) - I also remember being blown away that the clarinettist could play the whole thing without any music

I havn't heard a lot of live music, but I did change my opinion (slightly!) on guitar music after hearing a 6th former play amazingly! Until then I had never heard any guitar music (non classical) apart from thwacking out chords as loud as possible...

Glad you like the Mozart!!

Not so much an individual piece as an instrument - I'd never really taken much notice of flute music until the Leicester forum concert, but the flautists at that concert were wonderful and I've viewed the flute in a different way since then Don't mean to embarrass anybody!

Again, not a particular piece of music - this time a musician, Jamie Cullum. I had mentally put him in the "calls himself a jazz musician, but really just an overrated pop singer" category. A couple of years ago, just before his last album was released, I was lucky enough to catch a warm up gig he did before a week long stint at Ronnie Scotts. The venue was one I frequent quite regularly - the basement bar in a pub in Soho, maximum capacity about 100. He played a great gig, as an accomplished pianist as well as a singer, and most definitely a performer. The thing that really made me warm to him though, was that this was a Wednesday night, and on Wednesdays this pub traditionally has an open mike slot for singers with the house band. They kept to the same format with Jamie filling the pianists chair, accompanying the singers. He dealt with all kinds of scrappily written charts - verbal instructions as to the key and form, and definitely accompanied as opposed to overwhelming the singers. I remember one in particular - the singer did a great job, far better than I could have done on sax, but she was definitely an amateur rather than professional singer. After the piano solo and before continuing to the last chorus she announced "and on piano, ladies and gentleman, Jamie Cullum". I remember thinking how good she must have felt, and what a real star Jamie was for not only being a great musician, but also a really nice guy.

Having just had a wonderful three weeks at Edinburgh International Festival and 20 live concerts, most of them early choral music, I have been in absolute heaven. Nothing but nothing beats live music - much as I love listening to radio, CDs, iPod etc - the live experience is just totally different. Of course, some may disappoint, some are better than others, but I'd rather spend my money on live music than on recorded music. (NB had to get a second mortgage for the Festival but it was worth it.)

Anyway - that is why all of you are learning/teaching music - it is to unique experience - NEVER forget that.


You are really important - imagine the world without music.

Completely agree with that - I love live music. Living in London there are endless possibilities. My ideal is to see a live gig at least once a week, and even though it's London that doesn't mean it has to be expensive. Life has a habit of getting in the way though, and it's a couple of weeks now. I'm going to see Prince next week! Very different to most of the stuff I go to see, but if the reviews are to be believed should be fantastic.

I've already seen one of Prince's recent gigs, and I'm sure you'll have a fab time TSax. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and Prince is an amazing live performer.

I've heard quite a bit about the gigs already - remind me to fill you in on some of it at Woodford!

He does a different set of songs at each one. Mine started with '1999', chances are, yours will start with a different song.

How lovely

I do agree that live performance is just something else. I rarely get to see live music at the moment so when I do I am often overwhelmed.

At the "Play It Again" event when the orchestra played at the beginning of the event I was almost in tears. I love live music... it is amazing!

Apart from the Mozart mentioned above, it seems to be more my attitude towards instruments that changes with a live performance. Flute as also mentioned above, and watching the Proms tonight also reminded me about percussion.

You don't really get the full benefit of percussion on radio or CD. But watching percussionists in a live orchestra can be thrilling! I remember one particular drummer in the orchestra from Sofia, Bulgaria. Instead of keeping her elbows close in and being quite "dignified", as seems to be the norm, she was really giving it seven bells, both arms stretched wide out and bashing away as if her life depended on it. There was an electric atmosphere that night, full of exuberance, and I remember thinking, "wow, I want to play the drums, it looks so exciting"!

And piano - I can't say I'd ever been a particular fan of the piano until one night when I saw Anna Markland, past Young Musician of the Year, perform Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. It was spellbinding. Her hands were moving so fast that you couldn't see them, and I remember "welling up" several times, not because the music has any association for me but because it was simply a magical performance. I've seen Rhapsody performed many times since, but Anna Markland's performance has never been bettered. That performance opened my eyes to the piano, and I've enjoyed listening to it every since.

You are absolutely right. There is something magical about the direct sound of traditional instruments (and voice) that is lacking in even the finest Hi-Fi reproduction.

And then you have the special excitement of an expectant audience, the uniqueness of the occasion, and the risks for the performers.

Just today I heard new beauties I had never suspected to be there in a live performance of 3 of Chopin's Mazurkas and 3 of his Nocturnes.

And you can get that special magic in the most amateur settings too! I've sometimes had wonderful experiences in school concerts; I especially remember husband and wife colleagues singing the Beatles' I Wanna Hold your Hand as a gentle ballad, a slender 18 year old girl reducing a sophisticated audience to tears with Time to say Goodbye, a ten year old playing one of the "easy" Beethoven sonatinas with simple mastery. Something to do with commitment and emotional honesty shines through, it's not just a switched on performance; I'll never hear those pieces with quite the same ears again.

I was tired of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik until I attended one of those Mozart by Candlelights evenings (and that was only to please a friend). I don't know if it was the dim lights or the fact that I was sitting right next to ohe orchstra, but I was mesmerised.

Barry plays so beautifully, daisy. I think he'd make twinkle twinkle sound lovely.

This has actually happened to me twice this year. Firstly back in February, I heard a truly magical performance of Chopin's 2nd piano concerto, performed by American pianist William Wolfram and the CBSO conducted by Andrew Litton in Birmingham's Symphony Hall. Most things I've heard here sound great, but Chopin's 2nd had never made me sit up and take notice in the same way as his 1st, until I heard this performance.

Then just last week I heard Paul Lewis and the CBSO under Andris Nelsons performing Beethoven's 2nd piano concerto live at Symphony Hall, on the night before they performed the same programme in their Prom's concert. This really did open my eyes, not just to Paul Lewis's dazzling technique and faultless musicianship, but to what I'd always thought was Beethoven's least interesting concerto. Both soloist and orchestra were totally inside the music which certainly helped. I'll never consider it beneath Beethoven's later piano concertos again.

That's interesting as my piano teacher was talking about trying to get to hear Paul Lewis this week. He was in the year above her at school.

Ah, well I know he studied at Chetham's, but it also came as no surprise to discover he studied with Alfred Brendel, whom I've always admired in his own performances of the Viennese Classicists (and also for being a bit of an eccentric with a mischievous sense of humour). Sadly I never got to hear Brendel perform in concert.

Paul Lewis's performance of Beethoven's 2nd at the Proms is still available on BBC i-player I think, and he'll be performing the 3rd and 5th later in the season, so I'm really looking forwards to those.

Last year I heard Andris Nelson with his orchestra live, playing Beethoven Violinconcerto and Bizet Symphonie Phantastic. It was so phantastic. I never saw a conductor communicating so much with the orchestra and living this much in the music before.

In February I heard Martin Stadtfeld playing "Wohltemperiertes Klavier" Book I and it completely changed my opion about this piece of music.

I really wanted to enjoy this Prom concert, but I just couldn't. Paul Lewis is obviously a very fine pianist ... almost certainly far more accomplished than I shall ever be. But I found his touch heavy and overall there was something lacking. It seemed a bit pedestrian ... I did not feel that any secrets were being revealed.

I know that I have been spoiled by hearing some completely wonderful interpretations of the Beethoven concertos (by, amongst others: Claudiio Arrau, Emil Gilels, Sviatoslav Richter and ... greatest of all ... Annie Fischer) that are in an entirely different class, but that is not the whole of it, because I also heard a performance of Beethoven No. 1 by a 13 year old girl in a competition in Hungary last year, and it was terrific, and completely engaging.

I suspect if I had actually been at the Proms, rather than watching and listening on TV (though with sound routed through the stereo) the experience would have been entirely different.

Sometimes, though, it IS possible to get blown away by a broadcast. I heard Anthony Pay playing the Mozart concerto at the Proms years ago - before I left home so early 80s - on a small mono radio and was nearly in tears at the absolute beauty of it. There was applause at the end of the slow movement. I don't think that a studio recording is so likely to have that impact...

Do you suppose it was No.23 in A major? That slow movement does it for me.

While I do agree and K488 is one of my very favourite pieces of music, far better than the concerto in question (fantastic bassoon writing for a start), Antony Pay is a clarinettist...

"I'll get my coat!"

Also gets coat