Philip Glass Concert

Tonight I went to a concert at the Uppsala Koncert & Kongress, the cube-ish building on the east side of the river that I’ve pictured a couple times before.  The concert was headlined by Philip Glass, the well-known modern classical composer and pianist, and also featured Tim Fain, an American violinist.  I’d known about Glass’s music for some time, so back in February when I saw that he would be here , I jumped on the opportunity.

The concert started at 7:00 in the evening, slightly earlier than I’m used to, and was on the top floor of the building, from which you had an excellent view of the cathedral, especially at the end of the concert when the sun was setting.  There was a good crowd, but it was not sold out, and the average age was considerably younger, perhaps by 10-15 years, relative to what I’m used to in the States.  This is not to say that the crowd was particularly young, rather that in my experience classical concert crowds aren’t very young in the U.S.  I’d say the median age was probably somewhere in the 40’s.  The audience was dressed somewhat less formally than I’m accustomed to in the U.S., perhaps due to the start time being 7:00 and thus affording less time to get home and change before the concert.

The concert started slightly after 7:00, with Mr. Glass himself entering the stage.  Though 73 or 74 now, he looked quite good for his age, and clearly has maintained his skill both as a player and as a composer.  There were some slight changes in the performance from what was printed in the program (in Swedish), and as such he announced the pieces before they were performed, in English.

The concert began with two of Glass’s Metamorphoses, numbers 2 and 4.  These were pieces with which I was familiar, and it was the latter, already my preferred of the two, which really drew me in.  Number 4 especially was enchanting, and being able to watch Glass play them on the Steinway and Sons was fascinating.  His left hand hardly moved horizontally, forming the steady backbone of the piece, while his right hand moved dexterously (but rarely quickly) to play the highlighting notes that are essential for making the piece captivating and interesting.

Next, Fain came out to play Glass’s Partita for Solo Violin in Seven Movements.  This was a new piece, composed just a few months ago, and this was the first time it was performed in Europe.  From the first movement, Opening, you could tell that it was a Glass work, though this movement also had a hint of more traditional classical fare.  The second movement, Dance #1, was less traditional, and although an very good piece, I couldn’t figure out how you would dance to it.  Chaconne #1 followed.  By this time it was quite clear that when Glass had said the Partita was an extended violin solo, he was not kidding.  In whole it must have been at least 25 minutes, and Fain even slightly re-tuned his violin after the third movement, not that I could tell it was even the tiniest bit off.  I missed the name of the fourth movement, but the fifth was Chaconne #2, followed by Dance #2 and Evening Song to complete the piece.  I must say, it was clear why Glass chose Fain to play it, as he was impressive.  At several points he was making music with the movement of the bow alone, even if his violin had been silent, and at other points his bow was moving faster than the eye could witness it.  During one section lasting a minute and a half to two minutes, his bow probably never moved more than an inch from left to right, yet moved an incredible distance in that time.  It was a virtuoso performance, and after the fifth movement, the crowd burst into applause, before allowing him to finish the Partita.  Not only the finesse but the stamina as well was impressive.  I also realized partway through that he had entirely memorized the piece, and indeed throughout the whole concert he used no sheet music.  I wouldn’t be surprised to hear more about him in the future, and if this is any indication, at some point he will probably be a headline performer.

At this point Glass returned, and played three of his études for piano, numbers 1, 2, and 6.  The second one I was already familiar with, and is available for free from the Amazon MP3 store if you’d like to listen to it.  Once again the performance was very good, and I found I liked the sixth étude as much as the second with which I’m more familiar.  Part of what I like about Glass’s pieces is they seem to have a very human element, something that usually seems less present in grand orchestral pieces with many different instruments.  As the French might say, “ça me dit”, or “it speaks to me”.  These études, especially #2 and #6, are good examples of this.

Thereafter, both Glass and Fain played duets of some of Glass’s film music.  The first piece they played was France.  This was probably the most traditional classical piece of the night.  Following was The Orchard.  This was a haunting piece, with both the piano and violin complementing each other well.  Third, and last of the film pieces, as The French Lieutenant.  This was my favorite of these pieces.  Glass’s piano provided a sombre base to the piece, while Fain’s violin told a sad tale of the lieutenant, or in my imagination, likely a battle endured by the lieutenant’s troops the day before.  I could picture the lieutenant looking out over the previous day’s battlefield from the top of a hill, mourning the loss of many of his men in a devastating defeat.  In my imagination, the setting was likely in the 1700s, pre-Revolution, though I could see it being in the colonies after the First Empire as well.  I have no idea if the film it was in was at all like this, but the piece certainly conveyed the human element, perhaps more precisely than usual in part due to its title.

The next duet was another newly-composed piece, Pendulum, which was also making its European premiere.  The violin seemed to take the crucial role of showing the pendulum swinging back and forth and various sides trying to alter its course, with occasional tranquil periods and more periods of fervent struggle, with just as many times of, perhaps, balance, with a considerable amount of double stops.  Again both performers did quite well, and the enthusiastic audience applauded loudly afterwards.  Not to be disappointed, Glass and Fain did a double encore, with each performing a solo piece.  I was unable to catch the names of them, but they were excellent selections.  Fain’s piece, the first, once again demonstrated outstanding skill on both his and Glass’s part, and teased the audience with the ending of the piece twice before Fain actually played the finale, with great flourish and to the audience’s entertainment.  Glass’s piece, the second, seemed the perfect piece on which to end a concert, but the audience was still quite enthusiastic.  So, they decided to do a second encore, this time with Fain playing a short violin piece, which was also quite good.  With the audience now content to let the performers rest for the night, the concert ended, everyone seeming to be quite satisfied.

In summary, if you like modern classical music, I’d highly recommend seeing either Glass or Fain in concert, and if they’re both playing at the same event, all the better.  The concert was a great success with the audience, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be elsewhere.  It was a pleasure to not only hear music I was already enjoyed but had never heard in person, but also to discover new music, a good part of which I liked as much or better than what I already was familiar with.

Easter Trip Photos

Over Easter I took a trip to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.  I still intend to write more detailed descriptions of this trip, but for now, I've finished commenting and uploading my photos.  There's 550 of them uploaded, so I've broken them down into sections corresponding to the days of my trip:

If you view the pictures in Firefox or Internet Explorer they'll be in slideshow format, and you can make them full-screen.  Otherwise you can page through them in a more standard browser window.

The first day, Wednesday, consisting of the train ride from Stockholm to Amsterdam: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1263.jpg?ref=2
 
The second day, Thursday, during which we explored Amsterdam: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France 2011/DSCF1333.jpg?ref=2


Friday, in Ghent and Bruges: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1357.jpg?ref=2
 
Saturday, in Ieper (Ypres) and the Trappist monastery in Westvleteren, Belgium: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1444.jpg?ref=2
 
Sunday, at Versailles: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSC00110.jpg?ref=2
 
Monday, in Paris, at Sacre Couer, Notre Dame, Saint-Chapelle, Les Invalides, La Tour Eiffel, and elsewhere: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1549.jpg?ref=2
 
Tuesday, in Paris, at Les Catacombes and the Musée Rodin, plus the first part of the voyage back: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1694.jpg?ref=2
 
And Wednesday, on the voyage back from Germany to Stockholm: http://cid-79412ff903e4128e.photos.live.com/play.aspx/Netherlands-Belgium-France%202011/DSCF1848.jpg?ref=2

More Wildlife in Sweden

It’s spring in Sweden, and part of what that means in more wildlife!  Not only flies and gnats and generally annoying creatures such as that, but also larger wildlife.  I’d only seen two frogs as of Monday, however, so I decided to go back to the road with the “grodor på väg” (frogs on the road) sign, and look for more.  Alas, I found no more frogs, so I’m still left with only two frog sightings, both of which were photographed, but both of which had atrocious lighting conditions and no flash.  There’s still time for additional frog sightings, though.
Instead, I found deer!  I went back to where I’d taken a night photograph with a lake and the moon the last time, and explored around there.  There was no longer a lake there, but the ‘hay bales’ that I’d seen earlier were still there.  The lake probably is a seasonal phenomenon, and now that it’s been a long time since snow melt, no longer existed.

The ‘hay bales’ were actually a sort of plant.  Intrigued, I went down into one of the lake beds and investigated more closely.

I’m not really sure what they are.  I’d be curious to know more about them; perhaps they’re a part of Swedish flora that doesn’t have an equivalent in the U.S.?  Or perhaps I just haven’t been in the right part of the U.S. to find them.
There was an actual lake across the road from where I’d taken the photograph last month, as well as some very tall grasses.  A large area of the ground was covered with several inches of these grasses, apparently from years past, as well as with our ‘hay bales’.

I made my way along the right side of the lake, with some help from the plants to avoid slipping into the lake.  I then went up the embankment, and found myself on a dirt path alongside a field.  I didn’t go much further, when I looked to myself and found that I was being watched.  As the deer was looking straight at my, at first I couldn’t tell if it was a deer.  But I soon realized it was, and took several photographs to document its presence.  As I hadn’t brought a proper camera, I lacked zoom abilities, and thus the deer is rather small in the photos.  But you can tell its a deer.

Right near the center of the photo!  There were actually two deer; the other is just to the right of the trunk of the tree, and facing away.  I didn’t realize the second one was there until a couple minutes after I realized the first one was a deer, thanks to it being camouflaged by the trees.  The deer, once they determined I was merely an observer, didn’t seem to mind me too much, and continued about their routine, as seen above.
And all this way within sight of Flogsta!

On my way back, I saw a sign that said that the area where I had seen the deer was part of a nature reserve.  Appropriate.
More exotic than the deer, however, was what I had seen the week before on my way back from Swedish class – on Wednesday the 4th.  On that day I was taking my standard suburban route back, which I’ve traversed dozens of times.  It was about the same time of evening – roundabouts 8:00.  And, as I’m approaching the apartments prior to Flogsta, what runs across the path a few hundred feet in front of me but a wild boar!  At first I couldn’t believe it actually was one, and was thinking, “Is this actually a wild boar or is my mind playing tricks on me?”  Then I started wondering what wild boars acted like around humans when not provoked, as I knew that they did have tusks that could be damaging if they weren’t happy.  But, though it paused long enough for me to get a good look at it, it continued on its way to wherever it was going, and ignored the pedestrians, who also seemed to ignore it.
Well, except one man’s dog.  The dog thought it a good idea to bark at the boar, and the dog’s owner, perhaps not realizing that his dog was barking at a boar, let the dog lead him off the path a bit in the direction the boar had gone.  By this time I was watching from across the street from where the boar had crossed the path, by the apartments.  Fortunately, the boar seems to have kept going past where it disappeared from sight, and either didn’t hear the dog or ignored it.  The dog seemed content that the boar wasn’t in the area, too, so no conflagration occurred.
In my surprise that it actually was a boar, I did not react quickly enough to photograph it, but after double-checking with some pictures of documented boars I’ve concluded that it was indeed a boar and not a very shaggy dog or a rather small yak.  And Swedish Wikipedia indicates that wild boar may indeed live this far north in Sweden.
What other potentially dangerous animals live in Sweden?  Well, there’s bears, but they aren’t supposed to be in this area.  And there may be wolves in parts of Sweden here, but again probably not in Uppsala.  Foxes are also a possibility.  But, despite the presence of wild boar, I’m still probably pretty safe in Uppsala.

Gamla Uppsala

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Gamla Uppsala, or ‘Old Uppsala’, is Uppsala from the Viking times.  Actually, it’s not quite that simple.  You see, way back when, Uppsala was founded, a few miles north of its current location.  With changing river patterns and so forth, eventually it made more sense to have a city in the current location of Uppsala, so the city more or less moved to its present location.  The original location, however, still does have the remains of the original settlement.  Interestingly, it’s not quite like your average Roman remains, which often are ruins, or at least abandoned for centuries.  Some of the buildings, such as the parish church, are still in use, and thus in quite good condition.

I decided to head out to Gamla Uppsala on a whim on Sunday.  More precisely, I decided to take a walk with a vague notion that I might end up at Gamla Uppsala, and what do you know, I did.

When I left, the evening was still young.  They’re doing some road work on one of the major roads, as seen in the picture below.

However, it took quite awhile to get there, about two hours, five miles, or eight kilometers.  My plan had been to go to the police station and then go north, but when I encountered a nice riverside path shortly before the police station, I took that instead.  Slightly longer in all likelihood, but it was nice to walk along the river.  I didn’t run into anyone I knew before reaching that path, so I didn’t have to explain why I was going to the police station.

There were houses, apartments, and occasionally businesses along the river, but it was also nicely wooded.  Fairly often I would see fishing docks or canoes along the edge of the river, occasionally with people on the docks.  The below photo illustrates this nicely:

 

It is an unfortunate consequence of the angle of the sun that my pictures along this stretch all came out with things appearing darker than they actually are.  I continued along the river for twenty to thirty minutes, before heading east, and by the end the sun was nearing the horizon in the west.

I managed not to get lost despite not having a map (thanks road signs!) and half an hour later passed a sign announcing that I was in Gamla Uppsala.  But it didn’t look like what I expected for a Viking settlement.  Rather, it looked quite…

… ordinary.  It was at this point that I realized that Gamla Uppsala not only refers to the Viking settlement and the historic area there, but it also refers to the suburb of Uppsala that’s located at and just south of where Uppsala originally was.  Kind of like how there’s Williamsburg and Colonial Williamsburg, only in this case with the same name, I think (I should know this better having gone to college in Virginia…).  But not a big problem, there were signs directing me to the Gamla Uppsala.

Once in Gamla Uppsala, one of the first things I saw was the parish church.

Originally, this was a cathedral, and much larger.  It also housed the remains of St. Erik, who technically never became a saint in the Catholic Church but is considered one in Sweden anyway, and is the patron saint of Stockholm.  In the 13th century, there was a fire, the remains of St. Erik were moved to the current Uppsala cathedral (also technically a church), where I saw his relicary in January (see Visiting the Cathedral, although I don’t have a picture), and the cathedral seen above became its present parish church.

Another significant sight were the burial mounds.  They are older than the church, and pagan.  No one knows for sure who is buried in them, but they are almost certainly of royal blood.  An excavation was done in the 1800s after someone suggested that the mounds might have been natural formations rather than burial mounds.  Not willing to let this affront to Swedish tradition stand, the King ordered an excavation on one of the mounds, and sure enough, they were actual burial mounds.

Although it may look like your ordinary grassy knoll in this photo, they are quite sizeable in real life.  There are three primary burial mounds at the site, today known as the East, Center, and West mounds.  Earlier they were named after early Swedish kings who it was thought might have been buried there, but today, with uncertainty over who is buried, the directional names are used.  It’s quite possible we’ll never know who is buried there, as the remains were cremated before being buried, a necessary condition for reaching Valhalla in Viking tradition.  However, as at least the Center mound has never been excavated, it’s not impossible that this could change.

To the west of the central settlement, a couple millennia ago, lie the Baltic Sea.  The high grounds today, including where Gamla Uppsala is, were islands in the sea.  Gradually the waters receded, until the water was a lake, not part of the sea, and then until the lands were a marsh, rather than a lake.  This is what it was like in the 500-1000 AD period when Uppsala was a Viking settlement.  As an interesting linguistic tidbit, this change also resulted in the Swedish word träsk changing in meaning from lake to marsh, its current meaning.  Gradually the marsh dried out, making farming in the area possible.

The farmland is seen between the hill and the horizon in the above picture, taken from the hill.  Apparently if you come during the snowmelt season (it’s almost long enough to be its own season in Uppsala), the farmlands resemble marshes even today.

Even though I was several miles north of town, that didn’t mean I couldn’t find my way back to town if need be.  For the cathedral and castle, the two largest landmarks in the city, were visible even from this far out.

 

That’s the cathedral with the spires, and the castle in pink on its left.  Slightly less blurry in real life!  But that I could get this good of a picture, looking away from the sun at 9:48 PM, attests to how much longer the days are now.  That’s at least six hours later sunset than it was when I got here, and a much earlier sunrise as well.  Even as I write this now, shortly before 11 PM, you can tell which way is west because the sky isn’t as dark in that direction.  There is still a night, but it’s becoming rather short.

After seeing the burial mounds, I found the outdoor museum, which doesn’t open until June 1.  I then tried to find the Viking settlement, but I must have been slightly off in setting the map to real places, as I could find neither that nor the wall remains (unless they were the walls near the church, which certainly didn’t look that old).  There’s also an indoor museum, which wasn’t open at 10 PM, of course, and a few other places south of where I explored in Gamla Uppsala.  A daytime visit is necessary to complete the tour.  But it was certainly nice to get a start on exploring the old city, as well as to see the river north of town.

If you prefer a slightly shorter, less intensive way to get to Gamla Uppsala, there are a number of busses that go there, and you can catch one back as late as midnight.  I took the #2 back, which conveniently goes all the way back to Flogsta without any connections, and even more conveniently, was waiting outside the entrance for its scheduled departure time when I left.  The bus trip took about 30 minutes, which I may have been able to make slightly shorter by taking two busses with a connection in between.

Taking a Walk on the Boardwalk

... and not paying $50 rent to do so!

Thursday, April 07 -

Today I had another Graphics course at Pollacksbacken, and still not having bought a bike (oh yeah, that's what I was planning to do when I got back...) I walked down there as usual.  It's several kilometers, about 4.6 kilometers (2.9 miles) according to Google.  And, like all routes to school, it's uphill both ways and covered with snow, even in April.

  

 See?  Right there on the left side of the picture, the route's covered in snow.  As it would be unheard of me to walk off the path, I had no choice but to scale the mountains of snow.  Which was actually somewhat easier last week, as then the snow was solid enough that I could just walk on top of it.  Today my feet sunk into the more-melted snow.  But I trudged on, as generations of schoolchildren have on their way to and fro classes.

But, although it will have value if I ever have to prove to future generations just how difficult it used to be in the days before flying cars, the primary reason I took this picture was that awesome-looking tree.  I don't know what type of tree it is, if anyone knows I'm curious.  It reminds me somewhat of a baobab, but I don't think it actually is one.

I'd decided that it might not be a bad idea to get some money back on my bus card again, to cover running late, buying large amounts of items at IKEA, visiting Nyckelaxet again to order pizza in Swedish (Nyckelaxet being where I ended up when I got lost), or whatever other situation may come up where a bus would be handy.  So rather than heading directly home, I went into town.  And I cut towards the river as I hadn't been there for quite some time.  You may recognize this boat:

 The last time I photographed it, there was snow all around it.  Now, no snow on the river!

Shortly after encountering that boat again, I saw that there was a boardwalk along the river.  I'm sure it was there all winter, just buried under several feet of snow.  I'd seen a girl reading on another boardwalk in more towards the center of the city yesterday, so I figured it probably was open to anyone who wanted to traverse it, and decided to take a walk on the boardwalk.

 Here you see the view to the north (towards Uppsala) from near the start of the boardwalk.  There is some water on the boardwalk, as it's basically at river level, so any place in the boardwalk that is marginally lower than the rest gets covered in water.  But it was fairly level.  There were several places where I was walking through five or ten millmeters of water, but there was only one place where I had to move to higher ground due to excessive water.  The benefits of having good shoes that keep out water halfway decently.

 Here is the view from the same place looking south.

As you can see from the next photo, the boardwalk started a decent amount south of town.

Heading upriver, I eventually came to a bright red picnic table!  Not only could you walk the boardwalk, you could have a picnic on the boardwalk if you wanted to.

 As you can see the water was washing up over the boardwalk in places here.  The bridge just visible in this picture is the southernmost of the ones in the center of town.

I ended up walking the entire length of the boardwalk, but didn't encounter any people.  However, I was not the only one on the boardwalk today.

 Uppsala is the home to a great many ducks, many of them mallards.  The sight of these ducks prompted me to visit the pond which I knew to be the home to most of Uppsala's ducks during the winter.  And sure enough, most of them were still there today.

Yep, those are all ducks, except the one swan by the tree in the upper-left.  There were at least this many if not more in February.  They're quite tame ducks, too.  Sometimes they'll sit right on the path people walk along and won't even move as people walk past them.  Upon observing this for the first time I bent down to try to pet one, but they weren't quite shy enough to stay around then - although even in that situation they walked, not flew, away.  Still, Uppsala, and this part of the city in particular, should be a destination for any duck-lover who's heading to Sweden.

Heading back towards the Central Station, I crossed the bridge I'd been approaching from the south and took a photo to the south.

 Did I mention that it was very, very windy today?  The river may be moving faster than normal just do to snowmelt, but the wind was no doubt helping today.  The forecast called for gusts of up to 46 mph, and I'm pretty sure it reached that.  Although it wasn't actually much if any colder today than yesterday, it certainly felt that way after noon with the heavy winds.

On my way back to Flogsta, I encountered another new site - flowers!

 Although I think these were planted last fall, going by their mathematical layout, I did encounter a few later that were much more sporadic in their pattern - perhaps volunteers from the previous fall's planting.  I think they may be crocuses, although my botany skills are quite lacking, so I may well be mistaken.

As spring has sprung one of the interesting things in Uppsala has been seeing what existed the whole time, but I didn't know about because it was buried under the snow.  Boardwalks, statues, benches, the fact that some paths were actually not paved at all but it just looked plausible that they were because everyone walked over the same part of the snowbank.  There's not really enough snow left to hide anything anymore, but I may yet find a few more surprises as I return to areas I haven't been to since there was more significant snowfall.