Back at the court

Last week, as briefly noticed at reference 1, back to Milton Court, this time in proper seats, unlike the occasion noticed at reference 2, another outing, as it happens, for the No.4 bus.

But this time we thought we would try the Elephant & Castle option suggested by the Network Rail Journey Planner. An option which turned out to involve picking up rather tired rolling stock at Sutton and a long change, involving getting lost in the street market and a lift at Elephant & Castle. I had forgotten that such things still existed on the tube. Unsure of our directions outside Moorgate, but, as luck would have it, we spotted the distinctive mid-rise blocks of flats on the Barbican estate and could head for that.

Picnic'd in the Barbican Centre where we were rather irritated by the noise coming from some bar above us.

Row F left in the more or less full Milton Court turned out to be spot on on this occasion. Schubert D.959 sonata excellent, played without score. I thought he might have made four mistakes, nothing serious, Schubert D.957 Schwanengesang also excellent, Padmore having a tremendous voice and with Biss helped along with a foot operated ipad. I wondered what happened if he forgot to turn the page, there being passages where he did not seem to be using it much. Perhaps just tap the foot twice. He also seemed to be very hunched over his piano, which we thought likely to cause him back problems in due course.

Padmore made the claim that Schwanengesang was a deliberate, closing compendium of what he could do from Schubert, not something thrown together post-mortem by his publisher at all. A claim which seemed reasonable enough, particularly the bit about the importance of the ultimate Taubenpost in breaking the despair and tension of the penultimate Doppelgänger. That said, the Taubenpost had lost some of the tremendous impact of its first outing, noticed at reference 3, despite Padmore's best efforts. I am reminded, once again, of the novelist who wrote about the never-to-be-recovered impact of hearing something great for the first time, something which has perhaps happened on this occasion. It doesn't always. On the other hand, I still get the not very nice sense of the singer using the pigeon to spy on his beloved, not quite the same as keeping in touch. Fortunately, a sense which only surfaces when I look at the words.

And having done my revision the night before, I did not use the words at all during the performance. BH was using the programme, so, with hindsight, perhaps I should have bought two. Cheap enough at £2. A quick glance at the words from time to time might have made things even better, spying notwithstanding and even though I had found the evening before that following the words was often confused by repeats. In any event, this programme will be retained for the next hearing of the Schwanengesang, from Bostridge, in a few days time. In the meantime, I note that there was another Wuja Yang picture on the back, it being clear this time that she is representing Steinway.

As it happened, Mitsuko Uchida was sitting a few seats away. She is due to do the Winterreise with Padmore at the Wigmore in December, so perhaps she was taking his measure in performance. She was also very quick to notice the arrival of the ipad and it will be interesting to see if she uses such a thing herself. Tickets just arrived. In the interval I will try to find out whether my brother ever met Padmore, their both having been in the same part of Cambridge at roughly the same time.

We passed on the conversation with the artists, offered after the concert. But it did occur to me that the tiresome format, conversation of celebrity A with presenter B, does mean that celebrity A does not have to do much homework, with the framework and prompting being provided by B. Perhaps A would not do it otherwise. Contrariwise, I remember that a chap I once worked for, Mr Ramprakash, did a very good job at improvising a talk on top of a few more or less banal questions from his audience, in this particular case, his own clerks.

Decided to avoid the bandit country of South London and got home via Stockwell.

PS: at Sutton we were interested to come across an advertisement for some houses on a development grandly titled 'Priest Hill Heights', being on some land at the back of Nescot, perhaps sold off to pay the inflated salary of the boss there. 'Heights' seems to be the latest estate agent word to make you think of posh. See references 4 and 5.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/a-thought-experiment-about-adaptation.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brahms.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/last-stand-at-wiggers.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/chief-executive-greed.html. I see that I have moved on more than 30 trolleys since this post of just about a year ago.

Reference 5: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/trust-again.html. The agent here has worked another good word into this mix: 'gated'.

Repeats

Just about over a week ago we went to Milton Court to hear Biss & Padmore do, inter alia, Schubert's Schwanengesang. See reference 3. While earlier this week, we went to the Wigmore Hall to hear Vogt & Bostridge do the Schwanengesang again. Furthermore, in a programme, almost identical to that noticed near thirty moons ago at reference 1.

Tried the wine of the month in the basement bar, an Italian white. Rather good.

New style of flowers, more green and white than usual, but which looked well enough when the lights went down.

Moving onto to the/this recital, it seemed to us that Bostridge's voice, while perhaps not as strong as Padmore's, had a greater range of expression and was deployed with a much greater range of volume, with more very quiet bits. He was also much more mobile, both as regards face and body. He seemed to have a much more intimate relationship with both the piano and the pianist, inter alia, better capturing the original, almost domestic, setting for this kind of singing. One can see why he might have thought the staged, Zender version noticed at reference 2 was a good idea.

We rather liked Vogt's rather loud and brash style. It seemed to balance the tenor line well. Also, another Ipad user - something which seems to be getting more common. Confidence in the things is building up.

Being slightly further back at row J, rather than the row F at the Court, was not a problem. And we sat next to a lady from Amsterdam who told us that she knew a lady who knew Haitink. Put him up, rather than danced with him.

Yuja Wang, dressed in a short red dress and draped over a piano had finally vanished from the programme, her job taken by gentleman pianist, also from China. Another child prodigy.

We were not altogether sure about the wisdom of the repeat beforehand, but in the event it worked very well indeed. The Schwanengesang had improved with age, as it were. Moved to the point of getting out the Bostridge book about 'Die Winterreise'.

Our first quibble was the tacking of 'Die Taubenpost' onto the programme at the last minute, a song which on the first occasion had been tacked on as an encore. To our mind, you need this song at the end for the cycle as a whole to end in the right way, for the despair and the tension to be broken. But either put it into the programme proper or do it as an encore - not as something in between with a loose sheet popped into the programme. And certainly without a Brahms encore - no doubt a good song in its way, but out of place here.

Our second, was the batting order. Breaking the Schwanengesang into two halves by poet with Beethoven in the middle worked well enough - but I think we prefer our Schwanengesang done in one take.

PS: I had forgotten that Beethoven was the inventor of the classical song cycle, with this Op.98. 'An die ferne Geliebte'.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/last-stand-at-wiggers.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/winterreises-old-and-new.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/back-at-court.html.

Winterreise

Last week to the Wigmore Hall to hear Roderick Williams, a baritone, and Iain Burnside, piano, do the Winterreise. Seemingly the first time we had heard Williams although I had heard Burnside before, noticed at reference 1.

Started with a handsome black lady in a handsome deep red coat on the platform at Epsom, a lady who responded rather shyly to my congratulations. Husband slightly more fulsome. Continued with deep red flowers at the Wigmore Hall, including freesias, carnations, anthuriums and geberas, these last being flowers which I took an instant dislike to when they first arrived, but now rather like them.

I liked the unstated platform style of the two musicians. Which included a little speech from Williams, a speech which included a show of hands of those for whom it was a first Winterreise - which turned out to be very few of us. His point being that it was intimidating to be in the Wigmore Hall, even more so with an audience who knew the work you were going to perform. He pointed us to the anecdote starting at page 154 about musicians in the audience in the Bostridge book, reference 3, mentioned at reference 2. It seems that if one musician attends a performance by another, it is the custom either to go back stage afterwards, or to send in a little note of appreciation. Doing neither would leave the performer wondering what he had done wrong. And performers do scan the audience to see if there is anyone there they know; they do know that they are there.

He also told us of being with Padmore in a pub in Cornwall, in the margins of some festival or other, to be told by Padmore that you really start to get the hang of the Winterreise when you have done it fifty or sixty times.

Started off with what sounded like a wrong note to me, in the first bar or so. Furthermore it all sounded a bit different, so I wondered whether this was the effect of the transposition to baritone from tenor, with Bostridge claiming that this can do odd things to the music. My own score is described at 'Hohe Stimme/High Voice', presumably tenor, which I had assumed was the original, but there is nothing in the accompanying notes about the matter. Furthermore, the key signature in my score is not the same as that illustrated. Sadly, my lack of musicology means I have to stop there.

I had thought to try following the words for once, but found that I could not do this unless I held the programme to my nose, which would irritate those around me, and so I desisted. BH followed them instead, our usual practise. But I still worry about how much I am missing. Maybe I will get around to memorising the names and subject matter of each of the 24 songs in the cycle; a good solution if I can get around to it.

Following the counting noticed at reference 4, I tried counting the songs, using the sun burst in the mural over the stage as a prop, and ended up one out, having got lost in the low twenties. Once again I found that the counting helped rather than hindered, despite getting it wrong. Odd.

All this notwithstanding, a fine performance from Williams and Burnside.

Very enthusiastic audience, but the two middle aged ladies to our right, were both serious fidgets, albeit in different ways, with the one nearest us finding a hundred and one different ways to play with her programme. I think that if I had been sat next to her I might have poked her or confiscated her programme. Easy to be bold about these things in theory!

Back down the hole at Oxford Circus to come across two cheerful ladies with the most elaborate looking selfie machine I have ever seen, more like a bit of optical equipment than a selfie stick.

A shiny new Siemens train to Raynes Park, a walk through train like those which have been running on the Wimbledon part of the District Line for some time now. Plus a seating plan intended for a lot of standing during the rush hours. So excited by the new train that we forget that we had intended to pay a visit to the Half Way House at Earlsfield, settling for a spot of DIY refreshment at home instead.

Where we also turned up the Bostridge reference, which turned to be an essay on something called triplet assimilation in the sixth song of the cycle, 'Wasserflut'. Something which is just about visible in the snap above if you know what to look for, but which is much more visible in a printed score. Something which can lead into all  kinds of musicological arcana and disputes, but a matter which Bostridge also holds to be important: it does make a difference whether or how you do it - although I am not sure if my ear is up to it. It all goes to show how much is going on under the hood which the average member of the audience - by which I mean myself - knows nothing about. While both my parents would have argued that the experience is enriched by knowing something about, both spending a lot of energy in their sometimes successful attempts to share this sort of knowledge.

As it happens, Bostridge uses a snap from the same manuscript as I have used (reference 6), to illustrate his essay.

Next stop July, when we now plan to hear the Angelika Kirchschlager (of reference 7) do it, our first winter lady, at the lawyers' Temple Church, first noticed at reference 5 and subsequently visited by me. This with thanks to the people at Bachtrack.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/cheese.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/winter-journey.html.

Reference 3: Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession - Ian Bostridge - 2015.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/on-counting-variations.html.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/festive-fayre.html.

Reference 6: http://www.themorgan.org/music/manuscript/115668/22.

Reference 7: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/last-songs.html.

Winter journey

Following the rehearsal (as it were) noticed at reference 1, last week to the Wigmore Hall to hear Mark Padmore and Mitsuko Uchida do Schubert's Winterreise.

Started out on Epsom platform by the sight of an advertising hoarding showing off bad behaviour by a male model, that is to say standing outside, grinning at us with a large and expensive radio sitting on his shoulder. Just the sort of thing that FIL tried to bear down on beaches in the west country - with rather mixed success. No idea what the hoarding was supposed to be advertising, apart from bad behaviour.

We then find that the trains are in disarray for a variety of reasons and elect to take a Southern train to Victoria, which involved standing until Sutton, but it did get us there, taking only a few more minutes that the proper train would have done.

Onto Wigmore Hall to find that we were at a gala occasion, probably the reason why we had been consigned to row M. The artists had donated their fees to the Wigmore Hall, there were various posh looking people in the bar and we were to be addressed by the director. An address which mainly consisted of telling us that he had just got back from Vienna where it was rather cold. Perhaps he had been to some concert hall directors' conference there, where, in between their wienerschnitzels, they told each other what they were doing about the loss of government grants and exchanged views about the best people to get to refurbish one's seats.

The hall was full, but luckily for us the two seats in front of us were empty, perhaps caught up in the trains, which meant we both had excellent, full body views.

Uchida marked the occasion by being rather more smartly turned out than she had been for the RFH the week before (see reference 2), to the extent of wearing a white sash. I had worried that as a premier league piano player, she would attempt to steal the occasion, but in the event she did not. In fact, she did very well indeed, bringing out a lot of bits of the piano parts that I had not really heard before. Only occasionally did I feel she was a little too loud.

Padmore also excellent, with great power and range, neatly but not flashily turned out and with stage manners to match. Contrary to the paternal line that one should end loud, he ended rather quiet - but managed to pack a lot of punch into his quiet.

Regarding the words, the same form as last time. I watched the stage while BH watched the words. I am clearly losing out, but on this occasion I wondered how many of the words a German speaker would actually catch, assuming that he (or she) did not know them by heart - with my finding quite a lot of singing in English quite difficult from that point of view.

Back at Vauxhall the trains were still in disarray with a rather disconsolate small crowd by the gates listening to the words of wisdom of a station attendant. Some talk, inter alia, of a track side fire at Waterloo. Pushed through them and onto an empty platform. We had just started to think that maybe we should have gone to Victoria after all, when a near empty train pulled in. We had waited less than five minutes as it turned out.

Disarray continued in that the usually well filled taxi rank outside Epsom station was empty, a consequence we learned of trains beyond Epsom being out of action and all the Epsom taxis having been taken by all the people who lived beyond Epsom, out in the country. Another wait of less than five minutes.

Home to turn out Bostridge again. Where, I had read beforehand, that the key transitions between the songs of the cycle were sometimes important, key transitions which could be disturbed by transposition, perhaps for a bass singer rather than a tenor - which might explain why Coote was not as good at 'Auf dem Wasser zu singen' as I had expected (see reference 4). Unfortunately, as I had thought that changing key just meant multiplying everything by 1.234 or whatever, leaving the relationships between the transposed notes unchanged, my music theory is clearly not good enough to understand how this could be so. Maybe one day I will come across someone who can put me right.

PS: we could not manage snow for the illustration but we could manage a segment of the John Lewis Christmas monster display in Oxford Street. Said to be tied in with a whole raft of expensive advertising on television and elsewhere. Very expensive looking it was too.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/back-at-court.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/sonatas.html.

Reference 3: Schubert's Winter Journey - Ian Bostridge - 2015.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/trouser-roles.html.

Antony and Cleopatra (take one)

Last week to see Josette Simon do Cleopatra at the Barbican, an actress best known to us for her striking role in a tight red dress in 'The Mystery of the Blue Train', an Agatha yarn which we have watched several times now. Plus she is an ITV3 regular. But we now know that she had her beginnings in sci-fi drama, with Bing turning up the elderly snap left. Also that she is a resident of Crouch End and was once married to the tenor Mark Padmore, noticed, for example, at reference 2.

Old enough now to sport an OBE and perhaps about the same age as Helen Mirren was when she got her kit off in the very same play. But still very fit, with a natural, physical grace which us whites find hard to match.

Frosty enough to worry about slipping when we left home, although I passed on the stick as I thought it likely that it would get left somewhere. Found our way, without slipping anywhere, to the No.4 bus which carried us off to the Barbican, passing on the way two Chinese wedding parties being photographed in the little garden behind St. Paul's. Curious, this custom of theirs to have photographs taken in all kinds of odd places, other than where they actually got married.

Noticeable number of very fat people in the audience. Quite a lot of people of working age, despite it being the afternoon of a working day. Quite a few children.

The stage was rather clever, dominated by a rather gaunt temple like structure. A structure which revolved and which could be adapted to the shifting needs of the play. But leaving plenty of space out front. Costumes vaguely Roman which was good - our having declined Corialanus and Titus Andronicus from the same series on the grounds that they were being done in modern dress, which we often find tiresome. Not least in fight scenes which are supposed to involve daggers and swords. A small orchestra spread across a couple of balconies supplemented the taped music and we got a couple of song & dance interludes. Rather loud and rather too much of a good thing.

As we have come to expect, some inappropriate tittering from the audience, some finding it hard to react in a more adult way to the idea that some people might believe in honour, or gods or whatever.

Cleopatra was also a bit too much into titters for my liking, but generally good. I wondered afterwards about Shakespeare writing the part of a 40 year old woman to be played by a boy and about it being played here by someone more than fifty (wikipedia being unusually coy on this point). We had a reprise of the Mirren stripping off in order to put on her regalia for her death scene. Her two maids seemed rather short and dumpy by comparison.

Antony unimpressive. He suffered from the Globe disease of being rather middle aged and overweight and quite unconvincing as an inspirational if erratic general. Octavian unimpressive. I much prefer the short haired approach to the long haired approach offered here. The television series called 'Rome' managed this casting rather better.

Enobarbus rather good. With a rather different but also rather good rendition of the barge speech.

I didn't like the clumsy and messy handling of the body of the dying Antony. The occasion for more tittering. Perhaps the director thought that such clumsiness was a likely ingredient of such a scene in real life, which it may well be. But I felt that in the play, a bit more respect would have been better.

Not bad, but too long at around three hours. Probably despite heavy cutting. As is often the case with me, better in the second half than the first.

Thought about eating on the way home, but failed, despite being strongly tempted by the Edward Rayne at Raynes Park. Decided that something more decorous at home would suit better.

Back home, I turned up the Mark Antony chapter in Baring-Gould, who advances the theory that after an unfortunate upbringing, Antony did best when working to a strong and able leader. In the first instance, Julius Caesar and in the second Cleopatra. A lady better known for her intelligence and force of personality than for her beauty.

But I shall go back for more in a couple of weeks time. We shall see what I have to say then. But the show can't be doing that well as the almost identical seat is now £20 cheaper than it was first time around.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=mirren+dream. The Mirren version must have been quite a while ago now, with this reference from 2009 merely referring back, rather than noticing the performance itself.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/winter-journey.html.

Reference 3: The Tragedy of the Caesars - S. Baring Gould - 1892.

Cello

Following the report of a rash of cellos at reference 1 and the last visit to St. Luke's noticed at reference 2, back to St. Luke's last week to hear cello sonatas: Beethoven Op.102 No.2 and Shostakovich Op.40.

As advertised at reference 3, started the day by trying to keep the red flag flying, but with Labour kept down in our Epsom Ward by the Conservative (first) and Liberal Democrats (second). But a respectable performance by the Labour candidate, despite the intemperate remarks in her promotional leaflet about the performance of Southwest Trains, which I think is fine.

Pulled a Bullingdon at Waterloo and off to Silk Street, to find that Chimes could not sell me the score of Schubert's Schwanengesang. Perhaps the Germans who do the scores don't count it as a real work, despite Padmore's remarks on the subject. See reference 4.

From there to the Market Café, being entertained on the way by a lady walking up Whitecross Street who was so fat that she had dewlaps hanging around her knees - not to mention a skirt short enough for them to be seen. No waitresses, but the proprietor of the café recognised me, despite my two months absence, and nearly got my order right, with my getting a bacon and egg sandwich on thick white bread, rather than a bacon sandwich. But the egg had been lightly cooked on both sides and it was really very good. Perhaps I shall have another one next time.

The charity shop - the source in 2011 of the book about the water wars in the western parts of the US by Marc Reisner, as well as sundry DVDs since - appeared to have shut down.

St. Luke's pretty full for this last concert of the season. Eight microphones for the two instruments, four of them in the central cluster. A noisy special upstairs, but his handler got him calmed down for the second of the two pieces.

The two sonatas, both, I think, new to me, were both very good, with the Beethoven one very Beethoven and the Shostakovich one very Shostakovich. Two very moving slow movements, both of which might do well for the end of funerals at crematoriums. We got an encore, rather fun, but opinion was divided as to whether it was a good idea after the Shostakovich. It may have been one of the movements from Joaquin Nin's 'Spanish Serenade', but for once google failed on the clue that I offered about a compliment by a gentleman to a lady to the effect that if she cooked as well as she looked, he would eat the lot. Apparently the cellist learned about this after a performance of the same encore somewhere in Central America. He was also a good talker, doing much better than average - with Fiona T. perhaps not bringing out the best in people.

A feature of the concert for me was the amount of attention the two performers - Alban Gerhardt and Steven Osborne paid each other. Much more concerned with that than with reading the score. Gerhardt was a first, but I think we have heard Osborne several times, most recently towards the end of March this year, but search was confused by the blog having lots of references to either the politician (now translated to the Standard) or to the house (on the Isle of Wight).

Back to Trafalgar Square, down a very full Strand. I earned a bellow from a taxi driver when I clipped his wing mirror - barely enough to move it, never mind damage it. On to the last slot at Cockspur Street. Strolled back to a lunch at the new-to-me Viennese flavoured snack bar, 'The Delaunay'. Nice drop of Grüner Veltliner 2015, a chicken soup and a couple of fine apple & cinnamon strudels. Pouring cream rather than ice cream or froth exactly right. The restaurant is said to be good and the wine list looks good - so we shall be back to eat properly at some point. See reference 5.

For once in a while paid a visit to LSE, the scene of my undergraduate endeavours. Got through the electrical doors without problem. Old Theatre still present and correct, but it had been given a paint job and it was to hard to cast my mind back the 50 years to when I had seen 'Zulu' from the dress circle - trying very hard, as was the game of the day, not to pay. Most of the students around the place seemed to be foreign, either African or Oriental. The lady porter that I spoke to said that the smart purple uniform coats, rather like forces' great coats, were long gone and she was having to wear her own clothes until she had served out her probationary period. But at least she was an employee of the school rather than of some security or facilities management operation. Back outside, what used to be called the new building, or perhaps the St. Clement's Building, was a hole in the ground. A Chinese couple were having wedding photographs taken in front of the hoarding - and, given what she was wearing, the bride must have been rather cold. The good news is that the red and white LSE logo that I have been seeing all over the place, is this LSE, not London Southbank something, as I had thought. Presumably they have lots of  halls of residence dotted about the place.

Bus back to Waterloo and so to Epsom.

PS: this afternoon I find that I have a record of the Shostakovich, recorded in 1973 in Finland and complete with a reproduction of a congratulatory letter from the composer, presumably penned not long before he died in 1975, forty years after the sonata was written. Looks as if I bought it second hand from somewhere for £5.30 but I don't think I had played it. Disc mint condition, even if the sleeve was a bit tired, but didn't sound much like what I heard last week at all - perhaps I have been spoiled by the acoustics of places like St. Luke's.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/cellos.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/st-lukes.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/well-keep-red-flag-flying-here.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/back-at-court.html.

Reference 5: https://www.thedelaunay.com/.

Group search key: slc.

A thought experiment about adaptation

Let us suppose we are interested in making a judgement about whether a stimulus is X or not-X. For example, are we looking at something which is red or something which is green?

We have two population of neurons, population A and population B which have been wired up so that an X stimulus pokes population A neurons more than population B neurons, while a not-X stimulus pokes population B more than population A. But both stimuli poke both populations and there is plenty of noise in the system. Following our first example, the population A neurons might have been wired to the red cones on a retina and the population B neurons might have been wired to the green cones.

An active neuron will fire if it is poked. But if it is poked a lot it needs to take a rest and becomes inactive for a while.

Judgement is the observation of the ratio of A firing to B firing. If A/B is greater than H (H for high) then the subjective, conscious judgement is X. If A/B is less than L (L for low) then the judgement is not-X. Otherwise the judgement is don’t know, neutral.

If we have a lot of X stimulus in a short period of time, then a lot of the A neurons will become inactive for a while and will not fire in the meantime. This will tend to depress the ratio A/B, pushing the judgement in the not-X direction.

If there is no stimulus for a while, then all the neurons will become active again and judgement will return to normal.

Resulting in a system which is sometimes better at detecting a change in something rather than its level.

With a mechanism of this sort, according to reference 1, being the cause of various curious errors of perception.

Numbers

Let XS be an X stimulus. This pokes FA(XS) A neurons and FB(XS) B neurons. FA(XS) is significantly bigger than FB(XS). Say TR=FA(XS)/FB(XS)>H.

Let AC(A) and AC(B) be the proportions of active neurons at the time in question. Functions of firing activity in the recent past.

Then FA(XS)*AC(A) A neurons will fire and FB(XS)*AC(B) B neurons will fire.

Then the judgement ratio JR=FA(XS)*AC(A)/ FB(XS)*AC(B) = (FA(XS)/ FB(XS))*( AC(A)/AC(B)) will differ from the true ratio TR=FA(XS)/ FB(XS) to the extent that the activity ratio AC(A)/AC(B) differs from one. We might even have it that JR<L.

It would not be a big job to model all this in time, in Visual Basic, with the Visual Basic which comes with MS Excel being quite up to this sort of thing. With the snap above showing work in progress, having done enough to show the effect on the perception of the stimulus history. No need to crank up MATLAB again quite yet!

I associate to the lags and leads in models of economic and social systems and all the often untoward complications that result from them. For example, think of what happens if the public's perception of what ought to raised in tax and spent on the police is the aggregate of their experience of crime over the last twenty years. Assuming that spending on police is a reliable way to get crime down, I dare say this will give one some nice sine waves.

A rather different example from a concert hall

The concert hall being Milton Court at the Guildhall School of Music, next door to the Barbican Centre at Silk Street. A concert hall we visited yesterday for a Biss-Padmore Schubert concert.

We were sitting in seats F19 and 20, that is to say bottom left in the snap above and a few seat in from the left-hand aisle.

For a short while during the first half, during the D959 piano sonata, I became conscious of the vertical stripes of wood making up the background throbbing, pulsing a bit, perhaps best described as irregular waves travelling slowly up and down what were supposed to be the joins between successive planks.

Waves which I have tried to suggest in the sketch above, with the waves along successive joins being, in my recollection anyway, roughly 180° out of phase.

Is this a manifestation of the adaptation discussed above?

I remember something similar happening once, late at night, at a suburban railway station, where I was waiting for a train having taken drink. Not unlike that snapped above, with the difference that the planks were running the other way, along the platform rather than across it. Perhaps it was just a shelter, rather than an entire canopy.

Sitting back on a bench, something like the one middle left and looking up, idly, at the canopy above, I seemed to lose vertical hold, with the whole array of planks drifting smoothly backwards and forwards, up and down.

Presumably there is a degree of top-down perception here, with the brain knowing or believing that the stripes are stationary and pushing that knowledge or belief into the perception, but a pushing which can be weakened by tiredness or drink. Perhaps one can have such an illusion while drifting into or out of sleep, although I have never sought or noticed such a thing.

References

Reference 1: Color adaptation induced from linguistic description of color - Liling Zheng, Ping Huang, Xiao Zhong, Tianfeng Li, Lei Mo – 2017.