It's a sight to behold when you first enter the ground of the Imperial Palace - a vast vista with harmonious architectural proportions.
But after millions of tourists trotting about year after year, all the buildings are in desperate needs of maintenance and repair. At first, it seems obvious what needs to be done - dusting the place down, pull out the weeds, repaint the peeling walls. However, when one considers the age of some of these buildings and the building material used, one realises it is not an easy job. The Temple of Harmony (太和殿), the grandest building in the palace, is now under scarfolding. The positive sign is that the Palace Museum is working with expert restorers from Italy to conduct investigation and research, and to identify the best way to carry out restoration. It is expected to re-open in October 2007. Let's hope the Chinese government has the will to commit to an Eternal Restoration and Maintenance project for this historic monument.
Those of us London-centric folks easily forget there are great concert halls in other parts of the world. I remember as a young kid buying DG LPs with von Karajan on the front cover conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So as my first visit to the city, a visit to the Philharmonie to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was a must. Ivan Fisher started the evening's concert with Haydn Symphony 88. A light and delightful work. As I'd expected, the acoustic of the hall was amazing - probably a good 2.5 second of reverberation - and much more generous than the Royal Festival Hall in London. The strings sounded sweet and the timpani came through clearly with definition. The audience was then treated to Béla Bartók's Seven Pieces for Choir and Chamber Orchestra: the Berlin Phil reduced in size occupying only half of the stage while the Netherlands Youth Choir took the other half. These young performers (all female) sang in Hungarian from memory - not easy at all - and rea...
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