Tuesday, July 18: We joined the Landys at Marble House for a 7:00 PM concert of Hugo Wolf’s Mörike Lieder, sung by three baritones, Peter Edelmann, his brother Paul-Armin Edelmann, and Scott Hendricks. Tom Hrynkiv accompanied brilliantly on the piano. It is impossible to say which of the three baritones was the best. It would be like saying which wine is your favorite. Each had his particular strengths and none had any glaring weakness. It was a great and satisfying concert. From there we went to the Marina Grille, where we had a wonderful dinner with Newport’s best view, looking across the harbor at the old city, nestled amidst countless splendid yachts. Newport was empty this evening, and it was most relaxing.

Wednesday, July 19: The Rothenbergs came down from Newton to join us. We had fresh grilled swordfish from Aquidneck Lobster (they just slice it for you to order right of the just-caught and only charge $6.00/lb.) and a wonderful salad, with cheap Champagne (which, to me, is just as good as Dom Perignon) to wash it down. A unique and thrilling evening of virtuoso two-piano music for 8 hands. For the first half, Frederic Chiu and Nelson Goerner, a wonderful Argentinian pianist played works of Alkan (the contemporary of Liszt, a learned Jew who, it is said, was crushed to death when the entire Babylonian Talmud fell off his bookshelves upon him) and Litolff. Goerner’s face and name are indeterminate. One cannot be sure whether his father was a survivor of the camps who escaped to Argentina, or whether he was the kommandandt of one of the camps. Whatever…he played beautifully, as did Chiu. The music was bombastic, floridly exhibitionistic, and thrilling, with crashing 40-fingered chords resounding through the Great Hall of the Breakers. After intermission, Piers Lane (dressed, as usual, in his Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, with long golden curly locks. He is Australian, and could have been the model for Geoffrey Rush in "Shine" if the first one hadn’t worked out) teamed up with Hamish Milne, the ramrod tall and thin British pianist who plays without facial expression, but with enormous power and sensitivity, to play a Rhapsody on Ukranian Themes by Liapunov and Scriabin’s Piano Concerto in F# Minor, in orchestral reduction for piano. A stupendous evening.

Thursday, July 20: I worked the morning in a nursing home so we could buy a few more tickets. At 4:00 PM, we went to Ochre Court for more of the Dvorakiad. Mirian Conti, the Argentinian pianist joined Alain Jacquon to play Five Legends that were quite lyrical. Then came the famous "Dumky" Piano Trio, played by Livia Sohn, Jirí Bárta, and Frederic Chiu. This is a most unusual piece, a good deal of it written in a non-diatonic scale, very exotic, light, elegant, in a sophisticated reworking of a folk idiom. It was fabulous. After intermission, a Capriccio with Livia Sohn and Mirian Conti, and finally "The American" String Quartet, sounding very much like the New World Symphony in miniature, filled with catchy, syncopated, familiar, hummable folk melodies. It was played by the Moscow String Quartet, four women who are faculty members at the Moscow Conservatory. They have played together for many years, and it shows. They were supremely polished, and played in unison and off each other like a fine Swiss watch.

Afterwards, we ate a picnic supper at First Beach, then joined Les Gutterman and Janet Engelhart at St. Michael’s School, where Ocean State Lyric Opera was putting on The Pirates of Penzance.  The review in the newspaper heralded it as a great improvement over the Cabot Street Players from which it evolved, and with whom I used to do G & S myself. The critic was wrong. Sure the Pirate King (Douglas Jabara from New York) had a great professional baritone voice, but Ken Clauser was the quintessential Pirate King of all time. And the chorus was no better than ours, and the slapstick was the same. The sets were just as grungy, and while they had two pianos for accompaniment, we had a full orchestra, albeit a ragged one. Still it was a very funny and exciting production. Afterward, we came back to the condo for dessert.