I was back in the
Hall Saturday evening to serve as intermission escort for Nic McGegan. My
colleague Adam Crane and I employ a system of transporting musician(s), after their final first-half bows, from backstage to the makeshift KFUO studio on the
seventh floor for the interview
segment of the live Saturday-night broadcasts.
I arrived early Saturday to find Nic backstage prior to his
PreConcert Perspectives discussion with Hugh Macdonald. I'm often struck by the calm of musicians before performance. I've been
backstage with performers of all kinds before showtime, and performers of the orchestral stripe are by far the most at ease--at least seemingly so.
I chatted with Nic about his stay in St. Louis, which for him, with his frequent
guest visits, is like a second home, he told me. He has lots of friends here,
knows the Central
West End well, and travels with a wide assortment of DVDs to
watch. Most recent viewing: "A French film, Moliere.
It's like Shakespeare in Love," he
said. "All the characters are extraordinarily
beautiful and speak the most
beautiful French."
With that, Nic and Hugh went out to talk with the PreConcert Perspectives faithful. Then time
passed swiftly to the playing of
Handel, and then Stephen Hough's
dazzling performance of Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1. I again was backstage
when Hough had reached the brilliant
ending to a knuckle-buster of a piece. Hough appears to play the piece with such confidence that you don't think
of the degree of difficulty--kind of
like watching Brooks Robinson play third base back in the
day. Yet he came off the stage
looking as though he had been through an intense physical workout, which,
indeed he had.
Even Nic remarked on the
grace with which Hough played the
Mendelssohn. "I could never play that piece," he told KFUO's Ron Klemm at
intermission.
Hough is not only a magnificent pianist, he is a fine writer
and thinker. He has received a MacArthur grant. Intelligent Life and The
Economist magazines named him one of the
few remaining polymaths in an age of specialization, which placed him in
company with Noam Chomsky, Brian Eno, Umberto Eco, Oliver Sacks and Alexander
McCall Smith, among others (read the full list here).
He also writes an excellent culture blog for the
Telegraph in the
UK.
He made two postings from his visit to St.
Louis. Always nice when well-traveled folks remind us
of the pleasures to be found in the River
City. Read "Bigger Crowds
for Concerts than Movies?" in which Hough refers to Powell Hall's movie palace
origins and "A Grand, Grand
City," in which he
discovers the Richters at SLAM.
Click.
