J came back to London to vote - and every vote counted in our redrawn borough: we'd been removed from Hammersmith and Fulham, where the excellent Andy Slaughter has held a big majority, to Chelsea and Fulham. The Tories had always held sway in Chelsea, and it was only because I saw Labour folk out at the tube stations every day, including our new MP Ben Coleman, that 'we' won by a very slim majority of 132. We stayed up until about 5.30am watching the results with our very politically savvy near neighbour Peter Rose, catching Rees-Mogg's defeat - managed with dignity - but missing the demise of Liz Truss - mismanaged with the opposite.
My mum's good friend Joy Teunion died recently after a fairly miserable last few years, and of course mum wanted to go to the funeral service in 'our' church, All Saints Banstead, the next day - her first outing from the brilliant Greenacres Care Home since pre-Christmas lunch; again, J wheeled her there. The service was a happy celebration of a quirky life, and refreshments were held afterwards in the Open Door, the cafe where until the middle of last year mum used to take her cakes. The jelly babies were a Joy favourite.
J had been due to return to Dublin on Monday evening, but we heard that Max's funeral - see here for a celebration of her wonderful but too brief existence - was to be held in Amsterdam on Tuesday. This meant some rapid rearrangements - I was due to leave for the Pärnu Music Festival on Wednesday - but I'm so glad we did it.
I finished my Zoom class and we got an evening flight to Schiphol, staying there very comfortably in the Marriott with a view of sunset beyond the airport. Then after a hefty breakfast we made our way into town, walking across many of the canals to the Begijnhof, where the service took place in the English Reformed Church within the lovely grounds. Shrieking flocks of swifts marked part of the way (click to see them properly below).
It was a relief to see so many familiar faces and old friends afterwards, but by 3.30 we were off to get the bus back to the airport. A storm broke while we were both sitting in our respective planes - mine to Gatwick, J's to Dublin - and Schiphol was closed for an hour. But it didn't matter being later back because I'd been booked into another airport hotel - same price, but a mere pod - so that I wouldn't have to go home and back out again for the flight to Riga the next morning. A contrasting view at 7am.
Pärnu this year was a very different experience from 2023. Then I was feeling great, cycling, walking and swimming on the eve of the big operation, so supported by everyone in the meetings at the Passion Cafe. This year I was less mobile, and still mourning, so didn't do many of the big socials but was still glad to see familiar faces in ones, twos or threes. Best news of all was when married violinists Ben Baker and Marike Kruup met me for tea at my favourite cafe, Supelsaksad, with Lucy Maxwell-Stewart, the great organiser, and told me Maarike was expecting. It caught me emotionally by surprise - one life untimely gone, another coming into the world with the best parents imaginable.
Otherwise, the musical experiences were unforgettable as usual - I duly chronicled them for The Arts Desk - but somehow solitary walks in nature accorded more deeply with my mood. There was the nature reserve toward the southern end of the beach
where my Merlin app picked up golden oriole (saw a flash), dunlin, green sandpiper, reed and snow bunting and redshank, inter alia, and there was no end of pleasure to be got from terns soaring and plunging. One can just be seen at the top of this beach shot.
One evening I walked back from the concert hall with good friend and master photographic artist Kaupo Kikkas, left him to return to his hotel and continued to the stone jetty at the mouth of the Pärnu River. There were still some Baltic orchids in the sea meadows
huge flocks of starlings (you can just about make them out here)
and among the other birds a solitary Brent goose - last seen in big flocks in Dublin before they headed north for the summer.
The sunset that evening, in four days of variable but always warm weather, was the best.
The best was yet to come, a fortnight later, when I discovered an Estonian coastal resort further north, Haapsalu, and a very different music festival. More on the wonders of that place anon; here's the Arts Desk report in the meantime.
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8 comments:
My condolences to you all on your sad losses. How fortunate you are to travel to such wonderful places. The Estonian countryside looks magical. All good wishes Peter
Thank you, Peter. The death of someone in their nineties seems natural rather than sad, though I'm sure that when my 93 year old mum finally goes, it will still be very hard. Already prepared for it with her two near-death experiences this year. The loss of Max, though, is unbearably sad. Pärnu is a very magical and special place, and now I have Haapsalu to add to the list. Tallinn seemed as wondrous as ever on the way back.
Good to read your TAD reviews, including the Glyndebourne Prom of 'Carmen'. Speaking of which, BTW, wonder if you noticed the virtual glass ceiling fragments around which the singers and dancers did their thing that night :) .
On elections, glad that things went well there, even if turnout was apparently low-ish. Do wish us luck on this side of the pond for November. I don't trust enough of my fellow citizens to do the smart thing and vote for KH and TW, as well as appropriate D down-ballot candidates. I can only control my vote. So it goes.
Good to hear from you after so long, Geo. You'll have to explain about the 'virtual glass ceiling fragments'. I wish you all the luck in the world, and am doing what I can to reinforce all the good being done by KH and TW. There's a real feeling of energetic optimism, and Trump so far seems stymied. Yet American idiots think the multiple bankrupt and grifter would still do better on the economy. I still can't get my head around the mentality of those who still believe in an indicted criminal...
On the use of the glass ceiling metaphor: to my understanding, until last Thursday, the conductors of the Glyndebourne Prom have all been male. The metaphor seems fitting, given the other glass ceiling that we need to break on this side of the pond in a very different area.
About the twice-impeached and now 34-count convicted criminal ex-POTUS: unfortunately, the deep red fools (and I live in a bluish-purple part of a deep red state) will go with whoever will "own the libs", no matter how corrupt he is. There's also the long-standing prejudice that the Republicans are the party of business, even though on balance, the actual economic data show that the Democrats are better for the economy historically. People don't shed prejudices easily.
In some fairness, KH and TW have energized things in a way that I could never have foreseen. It was harsh how President Biden had to be convinced to stand aside as the candidate, but it was, in hindsight, necessary.
Ah, right - I hadn't thought about that. Robin Ticciati conducted the first run of Carmens, Anja Bihlmaier the second - the Proms may have asked for her to up its number of women conductors. And she really is among the best - first time I saw her was conducting Schumann's Second Symphony in Dublin, so detailed and alive. She hadn't much experence in opera up to this point, I don't think.
The timing of Biden's too-long-delayed stand-down was just right, at the end of the grisly Repugnifest.
From looking at Anja B.'s bio, she seems to have gone the Kirill Petrenko-ish career route, in that her bio shows a lot of work as an assistant conductor in regional German theatres (Hannover, Chemnitz, etc.). So she might have buffed up her opera experience early on outside of the two biggest German cities. Her UK street cred seems to have skyrocketed very quickly very recently, with her appointment to the BBC Philharmonic, along with the Glyndebourne gig. I take it that you might try to trek to Manchester and to Salford to check out more of her future work? Her calendar does also show one BBC SSO date next year in Glasgow. It also shows guest-conducting appearances with the Bergen Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony, the RTÉ NSO, and Sinfonia Lahti. All of them are looking now for chief conductors, as it turns out, but I gather that she's not in the running for Lahti, since Lahti has named Hannu Lintu as 'artistic partner', or some such titled post (sort of chief conductor lite, I guess). I find it a bit off that she's leaving the Residentie Orkest next summer after only 4 seasons. But I guess that she has her reasons.
On KH & TW: I admit that I didn't watch the debate this past Monday, since I was very irrationally afraid of jinxing things. Turns out that I didn't need to worry, and the tables got neatly turned from the first Presidential debate. Anything can still go wrong before November, though, so fingers crossed nonetheless.
Ireland's National Symphony Orchestra is giving her big Mahlers, and I think she'd be one of the few perfect successors to Jaime Martin. That was where I caught her first, and I'll be there very often, so I do hope so. Puzzled that this excellent orchestra has never been invited to the Proms.
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