Various warnings about potential threats to service on the way to Waterloo, threats which were translated into our being a few minutes late. Talkative guards both in and out, so perhaps the new franchise holder is trying to drum up some enthusiasm among their working classes.
Got to the Festival Hall to find that they are at the same game as the Elizabeth Hall, with what was intended to be the ante-chamber for people going to the concert, having become a venue for a free concert. Which meant that there was nowhere near the bar for me to sit and I was reduced to carrying my drink upstairs, away from the noise and bustle downstairs. All very irritating.
Into the hall where I was in the fourth row, with my eyes about level with the keyboard, rather closer than I am used to - but in the event I rather liked the immediacy, despite my talk in the past of preferring a more blended sound. Oddly, the sound seemed to come from her hands and the very front of the instrument, an illusion which reminded me of the rubber hand trick. See reference 1.
The seat just my right in the second row had been dedicated by Salmon Rusdie. I forebore telling the occupant (who could not see the dedicatory ticket) about this.
The downstairs seemed pretty much full and there were plenty of people from the far east there, I dare say mostly from Japan. The platform was full of them, mostly quite young, possibly music students or wannabees.
On my left I had a smartly dressed Japanese lady, perhaps in her early 40's, not overly impressed with the way that Uchida had turned herself out. But she was impressed by her playing, which she may have known all about. As did the other chap sitting next to her, who, at the end, seemed to think it the right moment to go on about how it was about time that Uchida retired - and with her only a year older than myself. Something about how it is best to go out on a high, rather than from the bottom of the slope. Which is fair enough, but not so easy when it is oneself on the slope, rather than someone else. But I do remember that that my arty uncle did, on these grounds, hang up his engraving tools after a minor stroke, just allowing himself a few watercolours. In any event, I thought that Uchida was very good, whatever the learned gentleman might have thought.
Whereas my Japanese lady was rather taken about by my suggestion that it was just as bad for young footballers, having given their childhood to football, to find at twenty that they were not going to make the cut, as it was for young musicians. I don't think it had occurred to her before to put young footballers and young musicians in the same drawer - but, to be fair, while they do football in Japan, it is not yet their national sport, in the way that it is here.
I rather like Uchida's low key dressing. Comfortable and covering, without a hint of flashy - except about her shoes. A slight lady, with no obvious enlargement of shoulders, arms or hands, which I have noticed in the odd cello player. But I could not quite make out her spectacles, which seemed to come with white flaps at the side which put me in mind of the blinkers you used to put on cart horses. She had clearly worked on her bowing, with various grades of bow in evidence: so we got the occasional very deep bow, while most of the time the young people on the platform rated little more than a nod.
PS 1: once again, I wondered about her pre-concert rituals. I feel sure there are some. See reference 2 for similar thoughts on the last occasion.
PS 2: to round off a successful evening, all I need to do is keep the programme, which will serve again in February. And to remember about it in February, and to remember the special place that I have put it in for safe keeping.
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/uchida.html.
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