NICE BEACH
From the Greek Villa, it is a short ride to the centre of Nice. The first thing that I noticed about Nice is that it is a big city. This is far different from the little towns and villages that I hav been visiting recently. There are a couple of features that tell you that this is a big city. The first is that beyond the city centre, there is plenty of residential, business, and other kinds of buildings and buzzing that is typical of city life. In the city centre this is only magnified.
The other thing that I noticed in Nice for the first time during this trip is homeless people. Along with all the benefits of a big city, Nice also has the drawbacks of any big city, too. To be sure, the homeless problem in Nice is nothing like I accustomed to in New York City, but there were a few, and after traveling in more upscale neighborhoods, this seemed to jump out at me, as though I had forgotten all of the problems of the real world while on holiday....
So to return to forgetting about real world problems, I went to the beach. Actually, this was a diversion that I had not planned for today, but since Nice is right on the sea, and the beach is basically across the street from the city centre, I chose to take advantage of this opportunity. However, because I had not planned for this, I had to find and run into one of the small boutiques that might sell swim trunks. I bought the cheapest pair that I could find, and then jumped into the water.
One curious feature of the beaches of Cote d'Azur is that the coast is not covered with sand, but rather with big rocks. They were rocks that were weathered by the sea, and so they were round and smooth, but with enough of them on the shore, it takes a little getting-used-to to sit, lie, down, or even wade in the water. Every time I came back from the water, I slipped on the moving rocks that seemed to move under me, and found myself unbalanced and stumbling my way back to my spot. In any case, once I found my ground, the clear blue sea provided a nice setting for all the beautiful people.
CIMIEZ MONASTERY CONCERT
Later in the evening, I was treated to a classical concert in Cimiez Monastery. Before entering the main monastery, they were serving wine in the outside grounds that had a nice garden and a view of the eastern side of Nice. This view didn't provide much of the main attractions, but at night, with all of the street lights on, the view was still attractive.
About nine o'clock, they allowed us into the main grounds of the monastery.
There was a great open courtyard within that fit about three hundred people, with a stage that was more than suitable for chamber groups.
The program was a couple of Schumann oboe-piano duets: Adagio and Allegro (op.70), and Abendlied (op.85); a Brahms violin-piano duet in D minor (op.108); and a violin-cell-piano trio in A minor by Tchaikovsky (Op.50).
While the melody and accompaniment was pleasant enough, I don't agree that the timbre of the oboe is suitable for a solo performance, so I didn't like those pieces, despite the fact that they were well played, and offered a calm, welcoming introduction to the more intense pieces which followed.
I very much enjoyed the Brahms piece. The violinist, Hamao Fujiwara, played with the appropriate intensity during the fast parts, so much so that I would not have been surprised if he had summoned a whirlwind which might have taken him and the pianist, Katsurako Mikami, away.
I was surprised after only thirty five minutes that they would have an intermission. Had I known the length of the Tchaikovsky piece beforehand, it would have realized it made sense. I found it a bit unfair to program this Tchaikovsky piece with the duets, since from the first notes, the tones that the Umberto Clerici's cello sung woke us all to what we had been missing in the duets. The variations of the main theme carried throughout the different movements of the long work, and Laurent Korcia's violin played with the force when necessary, so much so that when his playing (or was it the wind) blew his score off the stand, he rose to play alongside the piano and read from that score. However, he also brought a finesse and gentleness when Tchaikovsky required it. Johan Schmidt's piano was exciting and took advantage of the ornamentation and flurry of notes that did not merely accompany, but partnered decoratively with the strings.
The only low point of the trio's performance was that they didn't have a suitable encore ready when the audience demanded it, so, exhausted, they replayed one of the slower parts from their performance.
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