A quick Trip

Now how's this for a bit of spontaneity! Yesterday, Saturday,  I was coming downstairs to make a cup of tea at exactly 4:00 p.m. Barbara looked up from the "What's On" section of Hong Kong's version of Timeout and said "There's a concert I'd love to see tonight". My reply was "If you really want to see it, then, let's go. Who's playing and what?" It seemed an innocent enough reply. "Well, the concert is by Fou Ts'ong and it's in Macao at 8:00 p.m. - tonight" Now, Fou Ts'ong is a remarkable man who escaped China in 1960 to make his home in London. He just happens to be 75 years old and one of the most gifted pianists in the world. The chance to see this "giant" of classical piano playing was too much to miss. It was quickly back upstairs, quick wash, change and in 45 minutes we were walking the short distance to the ferry pier to Hong Kong Island. About 400 yards from our point of arrival in HK, the ferry departs to Macao, just across the Pearl River. We managed to get the 6:00 ferry to Macao - now this means actually going through immigration and customs as we were actually going to another country for the evening. Of course, we would do the same again in Macao. When we got to Macao we quickly hired a taxi tout who took us to the theatre - it was all a bit too rushed to get a normal taxi as we hadn't the faintest idea where the taxi rank was and didn't have the time to find out.

After we had settled in our last-minute seats overlooking the stage and the piano and the orchestra had finished their 15 minute tuning exercise (which seems to be a peculiarly Chinese thing - I can never recollect any western orchestra tuning for 15+ minutes on stage before a performance. They all seemed to walk on take their seats, hum a middle C and get on with the concert.) Anyway, the side door on the stage opened and on walked this "giant" of classical music, a very diminutive, frail-looking gentleman who was dressed in a traditional black Chinese jacket and who had what looked like fingerless mittens on his tiny hands. He has been described as "the poet of the piano" and he was accompanied by another great in classical music circles, Lu Jia, our conductor for the evening's two pieces, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 and Bruckner's symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, "Romantic".

This is the man.









What an evening!!!!!

Needless to say we got home at around 3:00 on Sunday morning after battling the ferries and two sets on immigration officers again.