Came home today with  the last movement of Prokofieff’s Piano Sonata No. 7 playing in my head, for some reason. Haven’t heard it in years. The first time I heard it was I think Martha Argerich playing it. I heard it once. I told my piano teacher “I want to play that!” She freaked out. I bought the music and practised on my own anyway. Of course, I couldn’t play it, but it is just such a cool piece, especially the final (3rd) movement, which only lasts a few minutes, a few muscle-exhausting, head-banging, emotionally-draining minutes.

It being several decades since I heard this piece (why the hell it should be in my head, then?), I couldn’t remember its name, only that it was by Prokofieff. After floundering around unsuccessfuly on the internets thingies, I finally remembered Argerich had played it. Cue Youtube. It’s a lousy recording, taken by someone in the audience, and the sound is less than ideal and there’s the back of people’s heads all over the place. But. There’s a backstory. In 1990, Argerich was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Treatment was successful and it went into remission. Only to flare up again in 1995. This time it had metastasized to her lungs and lymph nodes, usually a death sentence. But the John Wayne Cancer Institute did surgery on her lung and gave her an experimental vaccine. It worked! In gratitude, Argerich did this benefit concert at the Carnegie Hall.

Argerich is a badass. She doesn’t move around much in this performance, but her 3rd movement is fast (though no faster than her previous recordings of this piece), and when she’s finished, no messing around, she just stands straight up! “That’s it, folks! Time to go home!” (If you want to jump to the 3rd movement – my favourite part – it starts at 13:23). (One of her daughters – she has 3 by 3 different fathers – made a movie about her mother which sounds fascinating: read a review of it here.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSeriQx3RLM

YouTube kindly suggests similar videos you might be interested in, and high on the list was the same piece of music played by another dame, Russian (or to be precise Georgian; they might not like being lumped with the Russians, like the Scots hate being called English, quite understandable). Completely unpronounceable name, but great playing: much clearer than Argerich’s, imho, and perhaps the 3rd movement taken a little faster. I like the way she grabs the back of the seat after finishing the piece, as if the piano (or the piece) had thrown her off after a titanic struggle): here’s S. Prokofiev Piano Sonata no.7 Opus 83 (B) By Khatia Buniatishvili

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqgkmbRm1rY

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My wife and I are both fans of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett and many years ago went to see him play in Osaka. He was back in Osaka a few days ago, but cut his performance short because he was distracted by the poor manners of the audience who made so much noise coughing and whatnot that he just stopped playing and walked out. This is something of a trademark for Jarrett. Back in the days when he did long solo improvisations, he would suddenly stop and walk out when the inspiration left him, i.e. when he’d had enough, as he did in the Osaka concert I went to see.

A google search for this recent walkout got no results, but there are plenty of irate Japanese comments from locals. Apparently, he cut short not only his May 6 Osaka concert, but also his May 9 Tokyo concert. I hope Sir Paul McCartney doesn’t do the same at the Budokan!

My wife had some fantastic jazz piano playing while she was surfing  the internet. When I asked her who was playing, she told me Hiromi Uehara. If you were one of those who spent good money to see Keith Jarrett and were disappointed, or if you weren’t but just love jazz piano, or simply enjoy watching musicians having a blast, here’s Hiromi playing one of her own compositions, the fast and furious “The Tom and Jerry Show”.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HcKrd3K8_A&list=RD-HcKrd3K8_A

When I first came to Japan, I stayed in a small house belonging to a local worthy. His son was about my age, and we soon struck up a friendship, tho he didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak any Japanese. On the first or second meeting, he gave me a cassette tape of a compilation of Beatles songs that he’d put together himself. I took it home and played it, and got a blast from the past. There were a couple of songs on there in particular that I hadn’t heard since the first time I’d heard them back in the 60s. They came through with a gentle yet shattering force.

This was one of them, played here in a studio version.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Y3PlmwnRM’]

The YouTube comments tell me that Paul and John weren’t really speaking to each other by this time, which gives this song a particular poignancy: as you watch and listen and remember that they weren’t on speaking terms (I think none of them were, by this time), the words to the song “the two of us” and “going home” and the general “happy nostalgia” feeling of the song stands in marked contrast to the complex cooperation going on as they play this song, flawlessly.

However, comments on another performance of this song reveal that the song was never about John and Paul, but about Paul and Linda.

The comments are added to the video of a performance by Paul McCartney in Red Sqaure in Moscow  in 2003.  Having had several glasses of good wine by the time I watched this, I was struck again by some sentimental aspects: there are young people enjoying this song who are young enough to be Paul’s grandchildren, yet this song speaks to them, too (watch for the two dancers in yellow).

The song is performed by Paul playing the acoustic guitar, as he did in the first video. The bass is played by someone else, but in any event it IS a bass, whereas in the original performance, the “bass” was played by George on a regular, not a bass, guitar. I think George’s bass line was more musically interesting than the one in Red Square, but then I’m a sucker for complex melodic lines.

Here’s Paul in Red Square. Those opening sixths are unmistakable and instantly recognizable, even thousands of miles and over 40 years away:

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-x4yjb5Hsw&feature=related’]

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKnxmkOAj88′]

I like this song, but this is a remarkable performance by any standard.