Mike Vickers' Blog

On Friday we went to see  the RSNO under Stephane Deneve.  The first two pieces were not outstanding but after the interval it was The Emperor with Paul  Lewis as pianist.  He blew the audience away and the RSNO was quite up to it – I am listening to Charles Munch with Claudio Arrau and this sounds no better – but it is from a collection of Munch unissued recordings.

My father never listened much to music but I can distinctly remembering him commenting on the Emperor that Beethoven was cocking a snoop at Napoleon; and watching Lewis play, this remark came back loud and clear – we were in cheap stall seats but we had a full view of him playing and his hands flashed from one end of the key board to the other and back.

I tend to forget that Beethoven wrote very great music.  He appears to have been overtaken as the World’s greatest in the late twentieth century by Mozart and that is probably that the late twentieth audience and mankind as a whole is far less romantic than the nineteenth but his turn is sure to return.

A great concert.