An intriguing article in the Guardian this week about The Chemical Brothers. They’re  thoughtful and interesting, but some of their comments about music and audiences were startling for me, because they showed such a different facet of the music world.

“I don’t really think people get that absorbed in music at the moment,” says Simons. “They’re streaming it, they’re watching YouTube clips. People say ‘I listened to this’ and you think ‘Yeah, did you listen to it on computer speakers?’

This surprised me for several reasons: first, to hear that people ‘don’t get that absorbed in music at the moment’ (not my impression at all, I must say, but I’m in a different field of music). Second, to hear Ed Simons putting forward computer speakers as the better way to listen to music.

If it had been my interview, I would have answered differently – ‘People are listening to music on computer speakers. People say ‘I listened to this’ and you think, ‘Yes, but have you heard us play live? Recordings are nothing in comparison.’

Went to a lovely concert given by a group of distinguished European string players in memory of the Hungarian violinist Sandor Vegh, whose centenary falls this year. Sandor Vegh founded the International Musicians’ Seminars in Prussia Cove, an inspiration to many of today’s leading players.

At the concert there were two different string quartet groups, giving me the chance to listen to two of my favourite violinists as quartet leaders. Readers of this blog already know how much I admire Viennese violinist Erich Höbarth, with whom I’m halfway through a Mozart Series in Perth Concert Hall. The other quartet was led by American violinist Daniel Phillips of the New-York-based Orion Quartet.

Both these players are to my way of thinking ideal examples of how to approach chamber music. Their performances are totally focused, without ever showing off or deliberately drawing attention to themselves for effect. Many musicians add a layer of ‘mime’ to signal their feelings and point out certain musical twists and turns to the audience. I can’t dismiss this kind of approach, as I know from experience that many audience members like it, even rely on it. However, speaking for myself, I’m more fascinated by musicians whose gestures are economical and whose concentration draws the audience in. Any dramatic visual effects arise from their efforts to express the music, but otherwise their understanding is transmitted entirely in sound. It feels as if the music is too important for mere display. This is not to say, of course, that they are not interesting to watch – on the contrary. They are interesting precisely because they are not trying to manipulate what I see.

As an antidote to all the stress of last week, we went to see The Artist, the French film which is now starting to win all kinds of awards. I had read of its producer’s difficulties in persuading people to back his eccentric idea of making a silent, black-and-white movie. Thank goodness he persisted and was successful, because this is a delightful film – understated, delicate, sweet, clever and funny. The recreation of the era of silent movies has been done with wonderful skill, updating some of its conventions just enough so that they seem natural and don’t jar today’s audiences with outdated stiffness of manner. Its stars, Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo, have two of the nicest smiles I’ve seen. We cried at the ending of the story.

I felt some kind of vicarious pleasure in the success of the film precisely because it is such an unlikely one to do well in today’s climate of in-your-face, crank-up-the-volume movies. It left me with the happy feeling that if you follow your instinct and insist on doing what you believe in, you’ll be sure eventually to find people who appreciate your work – lots of them, in the case of The Artist.

Here are a couple of reviews of  the Florestan Trio’s Beethoven trio concerts in the Wigmore Hall this week. The series came to a memorable close on 13 January with a standing ovation from the Wigmore audience.

The Independent five-star review of the first concert

The Guardian review of the first concert

The Guardian five-star review of the second concert

I was hoping to post reviews of the third and final concert on 13 January, but to my surprise there don’t seem to have been any. If you know of any reviews, please drop me a line to susan@susantomes.com

On the day after the first of the Florestan Trio’s Beethoven Cycle concerts in the Wigmore Hall on Friday, a kind member of the audience invited me to lunch in Le Caprice, a lovely restaurant to which I had never been before. The bread basket on our table contained a a very superior freshly-baked carrot muffin which, however, nobody could face eating at the start of a meal. It was still sitting plumply in the bread basket at the end of the meal when we were too full to eat another thing, but I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it there, so I asked I could take it away with me.

Our waiter glided away and came back with two more carrot muffins which he said would ‘make up a nice number for the family’. He took the three muffins away to pack them up. When it was time to leave, however, I had forgotten all about them. We left the restaurant and had walked a block away when we heard running footsteps behind us, and there was our beaming waiter in his stripey apron, pursuing us with a beautifully-packed blue bag of muffins. Talk about looking after your customers!