I second your comment about Jonathan Powell's sonata; I have not heard any of the others yet but look forward to doing so soon. It is the most recent of them, having been completed (so I understand) less than a week ago(!)...

Best,

Alistair

Yes, he's been playing that on several occsions lately and has another performance or two of it shceduled. It's not played very often. He played it in his St. John's Smith Square recital last June in another marathon programme that included, amon other things, the WP of a Richard Strauss transcription by Sorabji, two sonatas of mine and the Alkan Symphonie (AND he still managed to give us an encore!)...

Best,

Alistair

OH Ok.  Sorry!  Hopefully will get a chance at a more decent chat with you next time we meet.

(Pity about that postponement, also).

The big piece of the night for me was "Out Jumps Jack Death" I think.  I found my hands rather yearning to stretch themselves out in sympathy with the pianist at the start, and I also recall in particular one climactic section not unlike the opening of Rzewski's de Profundis out of which some trills emerged.  I seem to only have an episodic memory of the evening.  I certainly enjoyed segments of Powell's sonata (particularly the opening), but it seems the first Toovey masked my memories of it.

Oh! there was a charming episode before the second concert (Apologies in advance if it involves a fellow member of this board).  I went back to my seat, and there was a new fellow, wearing a blue shirt with a goatee, approaching middle-age, sitting to my right.  I sneezed.  I then thought 'Oh, I think I'll give in to another sneeze, that should clear things up I think', and so I sneezed again, whereupon this fellow turned around to me and said something along the lines of "Excuse me, if you plan to keep that up for the whole concert would you mind moving one seat to the left; I'm going on holidays tomorrow and don't want to catch a cold".  I thought it was a cordial joke of sorts, and replied by saying that I was also on holidays, to which he replied "No, that's not the point; I'm going on holidays tomorrow and don't want to catch a cold". (I did not move, needless to say).

I spent much of the first (that is to say, the fifth) concerto feeling slight resentment towards this fellow, which probably resulted in my missing the opening, which xyz afterwards expressed a great enjoyment of.  I found, in spite of the democratic aim of the piece, that my concentration was mostly fixed on the soprano, even in the last section where she was not singing.  There were some moments when the soprano part seemed to merge with those of the other instruments, but overall I found very little to hold on to in my memory; the piece definitely calls for an additional listening(at least to me).

Oh; the Grainger/Busoni/White at the end were potentially very entertaining (I prefered this second white to the first); everyone was snoozing off a bit though, in spite of the music, I think, however.

Erm, did he?!? I have no memory of that, and I was there (as you know, since we met for the first time after the concert).

It obviously made more of an impression this time. I do recall being very sleepy indeed in the first half of that SJSS recital, whereas this time I was having to concentrate quite hard, for obvious reasons.

I've now discovered that The Celestial Railroad is actually a sort of transcription and expansion of the scherzo (2nd mvt) from Ives' Fourth Symphony, which I didn't know well enough to have recognised. I'm now embarked on an exploration of Ives, one of those composers who for no doubt obstinate reasons of my own I've never quite managed to get a handle on before. It's already sinking in much better!