I told Nicky I would start this Topic when I had listened to the new album and had time to think sensibly about it, but I have started it off today just as a beginning...

     First, I hope everyone will join me in enormous relief that Nicky has adopted the path of putting art and artist before career and that it has begun to pay off at every level including her leaps forward as a violinist.  At the personal level I have always been enormously conscious of the frightening strain under which she was being hurled along in her life and which manifested itself at the physical level with her back problems and cancelled concerts of a couple of years ago.

     Then there were mumbles about communicating with the Media.  Well, as we can all see, that is now changing  in a positive and balanced way, with Fantasie as an example:  the brilliant "gypsy music" which shows us one side of Nicola and her art together with the quieter, contemplative and beautiful which manifest the other side.  One review reproduced in the Media Section of this Site mentions her increased "union without confusion" with the music together with the increasingly spontaneous manifestation of herself in the playing.  As another brilliant young musician has recently stated there is no music without us and the only authentic interpretation is "interpretation without interpretation", though these expressions word for word are mine, based on an oriental principle.

     Do put your words of appreciation about Fantasie here, but please only words of positive appreciation:  there may be more critical opinions floating around the "all-knowing" Media.  Please let them stay there..............

     In a few days I hope to add a few words of appreciation to this Topic.

                   BUT REMEMBER IT IS HERE FOR YOU TO WRITE ON TOO!!

This Forum is a marvellous opportunity for all of us.  Nicola reads it and it is a chance to express appreciation at a level which is a little deeper than "internet chat" but not so intellectually demanding as, for example, Tokafi or Sound Exchange----good as they are.

     So do pluck up courage and express your appreciation of Fantasie here and join in the other Topics too.

Lots of people read this Forum but we need YOU to write on it as well.

     It doesn't matter if your spelling is a bit 'off', it doesn't matter  if your first language is not English.  It doesn't matter if you are "only fourteen" or feel you are "too old".                                                                                                    

This Moderator doesn't bite....nor does Nicky!!

     Fantasie has been out for about ten days now, I have listened to it more than once and hope I can now make some sensible comments.

I began with the first track, Zigeunerweisen (Sarasate).  I was just a little way into it when I felt I was hearing the playing of Yehudi Menuhin.  This had a profoundly moving effect on me.  It was just at the beginning and did not continue, but I am wondering if that resemblance has been noticed by anyone else, or whether it was just me being silly.  Did you notice it too?  Have you read any professional reviews which have said the same?  Are you a professional who can contribute to this comment?  Do write in and tell us...

My general impression of the new tracks was one of "space"  and I heard a professional say the same in a broadcast, so that isn't just me...

The whole concept of "space" in music is a very interesting one which I hope to develop a little more at a later date, either here or in the "That you call music?" Topic.  Just for now I think it may reflect the space Nicola has created for herself and insisted upon in her own life as a musician.

Regular readers will already know of her quest for authenticity in music, her desire to strip away all the over-intellectual and customary attitudes which diguise the "real nature" of what she plays. (Yes, I have used a Zen/Taoist expression...Please refer to the Evergreen in the Sunrise topic). In the notes which accompany the CD  she tells us that this time she has tried to do this by listening to recordings of playing by the composers themselves.  "There is no music without us", so this insight then combines with the individual personality and skill of the player in a truly authentic, spontaneous "interpretation without interpretation".

More specifically, Nicky tells us that by following this way (Tao) a musician would not play Zigeunerweisen in a voluptuous style or Vocalise in an over-sentimental manner.

There is something different about the new tracks and speaking personally I think we are all grateful and relieved that Nicola has allowed herself to develop in such a wonderful way!

One final point.  In the programme notes, Rachmaninov's Vocalise is described as "beguiling".  But I heard one professional describe it as "raunchy" .  I'm afraid I can't see that (I hope he hasn't been singing rude words to it!).

 Chaimy says: "Some people would think a toothpaste tube squashed in the middle was raunchy!"

Sammy says  "Shh! They might read this.  Don't make trouble."    

Chaimy's wife scowls and says  "'Raunchy'? 'Raunchy '? Vot means dis vord 'raunchy' already?!"                                                                

     This is a very brief addendum.

I said that this Forum is a wonderful place for you to express appreciation of Nicky without needing very demanding academic knowledge and yet with a little more depth than internet "chat".

Well, if you are a Professor or Doctor of music, please do feel that this is for you too.  It is for everyone and it would be wonderful if you could share your knowledge with us...

Inrternet chat style brief comment is of course also welcome here...anything so long as it is supportive!

This is to keep the topic near the top.  But YOUR words of appreciation also matter.  Don't leave it all to the professionals....they can be quite boring but your personal reactions will be different!

     In a professional review generally much appreciated and to be found elsewhere on this Site, the writer states that Spiegel im Spiegel overstays its welcome in Fantasie.

     May I just make a comment about this.  One of the purposes of Fantasie was to build bridges, to communicate, but it is not the purpose of it or of any of its items to make life easy for musical journalists in a hurry.

     If you hold a mirror up opposite another mirror (Spiegel im Spiegel) you get a mathematical infinity (Try it and see what I mean!).  So if Spiegel im Spiegel lasts for just under ten minutes, that seems to me quite appropriate.

     This piece has great value as an aid to meditation, or to accompany T'ai Ch'i or Chee Gung.  Purist Masters of these Arts may disagree and say that it would take concentration away, but for beginners at least it might actually aid concentration.  It could be helpful as a background to therapeutic massage or acupuncture. Just listening to it might be of great emotional and psychological value to many people. So to say that it overstays its welcome is to look at things from a very blinkered point of view.

     By the way, if you are qualified in music therapy, would you like to start a Topic about it on this Forum?  I have thought about it as something for the future, because I should need to learn more about it first.  But if you are an expert.......

     I started by saying that the purpose of Fantasie or its individual items is not to make life easier for busy journalists.....but perhaps in a deeper, subtler way it is................

(My friend Chaimy Lipovich once held up two mirrors, one either side of his face, to see mathematical infinity.  The mirrors are not in a very good state, but he claims they were "cracked already"...)

Another observation about Fantasie which could be taken as something of a criticism at first, and has already appeared elsewhere on this Site, is that the Album can seem to be rather “bitty”, with older tracks having a different sound quality from the newer ones.

            Now I do not have the expertise, either musical or technical, to comment in detail on this point.  I cannot say whether any appreciable differences in tone are due to the player or the circumstances of the recordings.

            All I can say is that such an observation would be less likely to occur if the player were a famous name from the past, like Menuhin, Stern, Heifetz etc.  I have already commented in this Topic that Fantasie is a reflection of Nicola with her brilliant, virtuoso side and her more serious and reflective side.  But there is a third dimension to all of this:  Nicky is completely aware that her life as a musician is very much an “unfinished journey” (the title of Yehudi Menuhin’s autobiography), a journey she wishes to share, and what better place to share it than in a miscellany like Fantasie?

            In my parents’ time, an Italian pianist/composer named Alberto Semprini used to have a regular programme on BBC Radio.  He always introduced his programme with the words “Old Ones, New Ones, Loved Ones, Neglected Ones…..”

            What’s so wrong about that?.....

k