The Malta Independent on Sunday
Close encounters with Simon Schembri at San Anton Palace
What is there left to write about ‘our’ Simon Schembri which has not been written before already? We are immensely proud of him and with reason. He is not a showman but such a refined artist. He sits there with his guitar and this beautiful music oozes out of it and touches your heart and soul.
The programme, that evening at San Anton Palace, two weeks ago, largely consisted of Isaac Albéniz and Astor Piazzolla, two composers with whom we are familiar. Albéniz is Spanish – and let’s face it – there aren’t all that many great Spanish composers. The ones that come to mind however, have composed beautiful music: De Sarasate, Granados, Manuel de Falla and Villa-Lobos, although the latter is really Brazilian. Albéniz was truly gifted, a child prodigy who made several attempts to escape from home and already playing the piano at just one year old. It is said that three years later he was playing in public and was brilliant at improvising and could make up tunes on the piano without a moment’s thought. He could stand with the keyboard behind him, and would play tunes with the backs of his hands. Try doing that! I like him. You couldn’t possibly fit him into a pigeon hole. He must have been quite a character. Just for good measure he used to perform his party pieces dressed up as a musketter. Independent minded by the time he was 15 he had already performed in countries as far afield as Argentina, Cuba, the USA and England. He travelled with his father whose job entailed travelling far and wide. *** Simon is in full control and each Albeniz piece from Leyenda to Granada, Mallorca, Cadiz, Sevilla and Tango was exquisite. Albeniz composed for the piano but it is said that he always had the guitar in mind. He said of his own music: “The music is a bit infantile, plain, spirited; but in the end, the people, our Spanish people, are something of all that. I believe that the people are right when they continue to be moved by Córdoba, Mallorca…Granada. In all of them I now note that there is less musical science, less of the grand idea, but more colour, sunlight, flavour of olives…music of youth.”
Yes, music of the Mediterranean which we understand. Each of these pieces was a pearl and so exquisitely played by ‘our Simon’.
There were also four compositions by Astor Piazzolla and no, the guitarist did not play Libertango but Verano Porteno – also a tango – and I wanted to get up and dance, if only I could tango. I liked this piece best of all. The others were Romantico, Verano Porteno and La Muerta del Angel. Pizzolla was the child of Italian immigrant parents who went all the way to Argentina for a better life. He has been described as the world’s foremost composer of tango music and was born with that special gift. I could listen to his music all day and there is nothing like a Piazzolla tango to lift your mood. I had not heard these four pieces before so I have Simon to thank for introducing me to them. One always tends to listen to the familiar.
Another discovery for me that evening was Shaun Rigney’s Homage to Albeniz, a gentle piece and a great tribute to this Spanish composer, so delicately performed by Simon.
It was a great evening. His parents were there, too. They must be very proud to have such a successful son who is respected particularly in France where he has chosen to make his home.
Let me just draw your attention to this museum in London which was also the home of the great artist, Lord Leighton. If you get the chance to visit it seize it or simply make sure to fit it into your schedule when you next travel to London. It is in Holland Park.
No ancient pillars, or statues with an arm off on display. As I am falling to pieces myself I am not too keen on seeing old monuments. That is for the young with a life ahead of them.
This was a home built by an artist and turned into a museum. I particularly loved the Arab Hall with its magnificent tiles and exotic ambience. Lord Leighton had travelled to Turkey in 1867, to Egypt in the following year and to Syria in 1873. On each of these trips he collected textiles, pottery and other objects that were later to be displayed in his house. However, the trip to Damascus in 1873 laid the foundations for the wonderful collection of tiles that line the walls of the Arab Hall extension. Further examples were collected for Leighton by others, including the explorer and diplomat, Sir Richard Burton.
In 1877, Leighton began the construction of the Arab Hall. This was an ambitious and costly undertaking. The model was an interior contained in a 12th-century Sicilio-Norman palace called La Zisa at Palermo in Sicily. Aitchison, the architect, and Leighton brought together a group of their contemporaries to contribute to the project; the potter William De Morgan, the artist Walter Crane, the sculptor Edgar Boehm and the artist and illustrator Randolph Caldecott were all involved. The mosaics and marbles and skilled craftsmen were all sourced in London, although Crane’s design for the gold mosaic frieze was made up in Venice and shipped to the site in sections.
The other striking element of the interior of the Arab Hall is the wonderful tiles made by William De Morgan (1839-1917). After training as a painter at the Royal Academy Schools and then, with the encouragement of his friend William Morris, designing and producing stained glass, William De Morgan became the foremost potter associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement. Fascinated by the technical and scientific aspects of his craft, by the mid1870s he became increasingly expert in the colours and glazes of Ottoman pottery, often referred to as ‘Persian’ style. Leighton invited De Morgan to a breakfast meeting where the Arab Hall project was discussed.
De Morgan was paid a total of £227 for his work between July 1880 and January 1882, although such was his perfectionism that it was apparently completed at a personal loss of £500 – a fact that he felt he could not reveal to Leighton.
In the Silk Room there are some of my favourite painters: Albert Moore, John Everett Millais, George Frederic Watts, John Singer Sargent and Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
This is not another museum. It is an experience. I hope to go again before I am dead and buried and both my feet in the grave.