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Tuesday, June 28, 2005
London [6]
I can now spell Fantasia Baetica, because the Chopin Society programme from Sunday is here in front of me.
Wimbledon occupies TV time from 12 to 8.30 every day, with a summary from 9.30 tp 10.30. I didnt stay around for all of that yesterday -- off to National Gallery to meet David Packwood. I didt know what he looked like. So when a large man appeared in the Poussin room with my Poussin book in his hand, I thought I'd found him.
I took him to the Pompidou in Irving Street which always has excellent cheesecake and good coffee. There we sat and talked about his Poussin project for two hours loud enough to be heard over the coffee machine by the manager and the waitresses -- or so I noticed turning round at one moment to see them making gestures to one another. They saw me looking and were a bit embarrassed, but the scene ended in general laughter.
Maybe the best part of the conversation and the cause of even greater laughter was his revelation to me that when he asked one of the Brit art historians [who deservedly should be forever nameless] why my book wasnt in their library, he got the reply: We've banished Tony Green to New Zealand.
Meanwhile, back at the books: I've just bought and have been reading the Memoirs of Ksschinska -- the powerful premier ballerina assoluta of the Maryinsky, who had been in love with Nicolas II when he was the Tsarevitch, subsequently protected by Grand Dukes and finally married to the Grand Duke André. Her glittering career of jewels villas parties triumphant personal successes was accomplished in the company of a seemingly endless array of Grand Dukes Duchesses and the crowned heads of Europe. Abruptly the Revolution of 1917 took everything, villas, money and jewels, and sent her into exile in what she repeatedly calls the Emigration -- among whatever remained of the Romanoffs and their associates of the old regime. It is a surprisingly chilly rarely intimate account, rather a list of people, possessions and favourable reviews. Prokofiev on Prokofiev, bought yesterday, looks more interesting.
Wimbledon occupies TV time from 12 to 8.30 every day, with a summary from 9.30 tp 10.30. I didnt stay around for all of that yesterday -- off to National Gallery to meet David Packwood. I didt know what he looked like. So when a large man appeared in the Poussin room with my Poussin book in his hand, I thought I'd found him.
I took him to the Pompidou in Irving Street which always has excellent cheesecake and good coffee. There we sat and talked about his Poussin project for two hours loud enough to be heard over the coffee machine by the manager and the waitresses -- or so I noticed turning round at one moment to see them making gestures to one another. They saw me looking and were a bit embarrassed, but the scene ended in general laughter.
Maybe the best part of the conversation and the cause of even greater laughter was his revelation to me that when he asked one of the Brit art historians [who deservedly should be forever nameless] why my book wasnt in their library, he got the reply: We've banished Tony Green to New Zealand.
Meanwhile, back at the books: I've just bought and have been reading the Memoirs of Ksschinska -- the powerful premier ballerina assoluta of the Maryinsky, who had been in love with Nicolas II when he was the Tsarevitch, subsequently protected by Grand Dukes and finally married to the Grand Duke André. Her glittering career of jewels villas parties triumphant personal successes was accomplished in the company of a seemingly endless array of Grand Dukes Duchesses and the crowned heads of Europe. Abruptly the Revolution of 1917 took everything, villas, money and jewels, and sent her into exile in what she repeatedly calls the Emigration -- among whatever remained of the Romanoffs and their associates of the old regime. It is a surprisingly chilly rarely intimate account, rather a list of people, possessions and favourable reviews. Prokofiev on Prokofiev, bought yesterday, looks more interesting.
Posted by: Tony Green / 9:58 AM 
