Valencia2023: Blazing violin

Friday, February 3, 2023 - Wednesday, the day before yesterday, was a very full day for your humble, aged correspondent.

I ran in the morning, then blogged. Karen said she wanted to bike down to the City of Arts and Sciences and walk back - just for something to do and some exercise - which of course I welcomed. So I prepped my dinner ahead and we set out at about 1:30. We rode down Peris y Valero Avenue, across the bridge and along the other side of the Turia to the City.

Nothing much has changed there since our last visit a few weeks ago. Still no sculpture displays. We did notice a fourth type of pleasure craft plying the pool in front of the Science Museum - an entirely new type of vessel as far as we know. It's like an over-size paddle board with pedals inset into the board and a post sticking up near the prow with handlebars. You stand on it and pedal as if walking on the spot. It looked exhausting. And pointless.

The shallow pool at the far end of the Science Museum had been drained for whatever reason. Without water in it, you could see how shallow it is - only a few inches at its deepest, I’d guess. The boogie-board daredevils I saw skimming along one of the shallow water courses at Central Park a few weeks ago would have a field day.

Visiting the City reminded us that we’d intended to visit the new-since-2020 CaixaForum to see an exhibit of Egyptian artefacts from the British Museum. That is now planned for today.

Of course, it's impossible for me not to take photographs at this place.

It's a parking lot air vent

Pretty apartment block on Gran Via de Marqués del Turia

By the time we got back, and I’d finished cooking, we’d eaten our meal and I’d showered, it was almost time for me to set out - solo - for my evening activity. The University of Valencia offers a series of free classical music recitals and concerts through the winter, usually at the La Nau Cultural Centre in the old city, occasionally at the Botanical Gardens. I discovered this the last time we were here in 2020 and always meant to go, but never did. This time, I applied online and got one of the free spots for Wednesday’s concert.

It was a recital by a very young violinist, David Ruiz del Canto, a child prodigy who started his professional training when he was only seven years old. He’s 19 now. If I understand the local dialect in the program notes, he’s now studying at the University of Valencia. The recital was held in the baroque Capella de la Sapiencia, a chapel first built in 1498, but completed in its present form in 1737. It’s gorgeous, of course, and was pretty nearly full for the concert.

Capella de la Sapiencia

Del Canto played a selection of mostly fairly familiar pieces - a movement from a Brahms sonata, “Apres un Reve” by Gabriel Fauré, a short piece by Camille Saint-Saens that I didn’t know, Tzigane by Maurice Ravel. I didn’t recognize the title of the third piece, or the name of its early-20th-century composer, Eugene Ysaye, but thought I recognized the music as soon as he started playing. Turns out, I didn’t.

A slight digression. Years ago, as part of research for some article I was writing, I made a silly little movie. I thought this Ysaye piece was the one I’d used as background music - only in a version played on cello. The weird thing is, when I went back and checked the credits in my movie, it wasn’t the Ysaye piece I’d used at all but Fauré’s “Apres un Reve.” Weird memory burp.

I wasn’t too impressed with the violinist at first. He seemed tentative and stiff. He’s nervous, I thought, too young. But slowly he got into it. After a nice reception from his audience to the first piece - they could tell that, if nothing else, he had phenomenal technique - he loosened up. By the end he was playing very expressively, almost flamboyantly, gesturing with his body, putting everything he had into it. He played two encores, virtuoso pieces both. After the first, as he and his accompanist were pretending to leave, he was laughing and encouraging the audience to clap and cheer. Cries of “Bravo” rang out, and sure enough, he came back and played another piece.

It was a good concert, a good experience. I hope to go back next week for a string quartet concert. I’ll maybe try and get there a little earlier next time. I had to sit right at the back. It would be nice to be a little closer to the performers. Karen won’t go because she says she just doesn’t enjoy the music. Too bad.

I grabbed a bike a couple of blocks from the university and was home in ten minutes - in time to watch a little TV with Karen.

We’ve started two new Netflix series. We like to have a few on the go so we’re not bingeing on the same stuff all the time. I’d recommend both, with a couple of reservations.

The Snow Girl (La Chica de Nieve) is in Spanish, although I believe you can watch it dubbed in English if you’re averse to reading subtitles. It’s a child kidnapping story set in Malaga, where Karen and I spent six weeks a few winters back. A little girl is grabbed when she wanders off in a crowd at a Christmas pageant in the city's main square. The first thing that occurred to me was, yeah, this is exactly the kind of crowd scene Spaniards seem to love so much - and here’s why they’re not a great idea.

The series follows the stories of a young woman journalist who becomes obsessed by the case, a female detective inspector and her colleagues and the mother and father. It jumps back and forth between 2010, when the girl is taken, and 2016 when the case is reopened after an anonymously sent video shows she’s still alive. We think it’s very well done: interesting characters, very nerve wracking, very intense. It’s also fun for us trying to spot parts of the city we recognize.

The other is probably a harder sell for adults. It’s called Wednesday, a reboot of the old Addams Family TV series from spook-meister Tim Burton. It follows the adventures of the troubled teenaged daughter of the original family, Wednesday - "Wednesday's child is full of woe" - transposed to modern times. She’s shipped off to a boarding school for ‘outcasts’ after attempting to murder her younger brother’s tormentors. She does this by dumping piranha fish in the pool where the mean kids are playing water polo - a novel idea.

It wouldn’t attract us normally - I never watched the 1960s series, thought it was lame - but it got some surprisingly good reviews. And the writing is first rate, at least for the acerbic lead character. The actor who plays her is great fun to watch too. We’ll see if it can hold us. It’s pretty silly, though.

Yesterday, Thursday, I did a fast-walk in the morning, the usual route, then worked on some multiple exposure images. Got a couple I don’t hate.

After our mid-afternoon meal, we biked down to the Turia and walked along the park as far as Exposition Bridge, and then hiked up Calle de Colon a ways before turning off to escape the crowds of late afternoon shoppers.