I like modern circus. I like Philip Glass. I don’t particularly like opera, but I’m willing to listen to it if I get circus and Philip Glass to compensate.

We saw Philip Glass’ opera Satyagraha at Folkoperan. They combined the opera with a circus performance by Cirkus Cirkör. A surprising combination that worked surprisingly well: the two complemented each other, and the combination never felt forced. Performances of minimalist music can benefit some kind of visual complement – I’m thinking of Koyaanisqatsi for example.

Satyagraha deals with the early life of Mahatma Gandhi and the beginnings of his theory of non-violent resistance. Each circus act fit into the story and illustrated each scene much more tangibly than the music could possibly do. Balancing on a tightrope to symbolize passage through an annoyed crowd. a teeterboard act to illustrate a battle, etc.

Even so the performance was relatively… vague. Not concrete. It consisted not so much of events from those years in Gandhi’s life, as interpretations of feelings and associations around those events.

I wonder how much sense the opera would even make on its own. Probably not much at all, given that it is in sanskrit. But then again I don’t suppose “sense” is what opera-goers want and expect from opera performances.

Threads, nets and knitting have been recurring themes in Cirkus Cirkör’s performances in recent years, and they were part of this performance as well. It sounds gimmicky but again it worked really well.

The final scene initially made no sense to me but made a strong impression. Six actors walked in a circle, taking turns to push a giant wheel, thereby winding rope on it. A seventh actor guided the rope. It went on for a long time. Combined with the music, which for this scene was particularly minimalistic, the effect was hypnotic. I thought it mostly symbolic. Only later did I connect this wheel to the spinning wheel on India’s flag, and learn that spinning was an important part of Gandhi’s later politics in India.

The opera on its own would probably not have been enough to keep me interested for 2+ hours, and the circus acts were not impressive enough to fill a whole evening either. But the two together made for an interesting and memorable performance.

Simon Bolivar Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel, at Berwaldhallen. Desenne, Villa-Lobos and Ravel. Desenne was a modern composer unknown to me; not particularly interesting. Villa-Lobos I had heard of but didn’t know much about. I mostly went there to hear the Ravel pieces.

Listening to great music with my eyes closed leads to a qualitatively different experience.

It’s not always possible. I can only get immersed in great music – not any particular favourite piece of mine, but music with emotional and acoustic depth. It has to be performed well. And finally, the acoustics are important – this just does not work with over-amplified concerts.

But when it works, it’s like magic.

When I see the orchestra, the music comes from the orchestra in front of me, at some distance. It has a location in space. It is outside of me.

When I close my eyes, the music comes closer, expands and fills everything. I am immersed in it. There is no more light or colour or movement, nothing to compete with the music. The music is no longer produced by people moving their arms and touching instruments. It simply exists all of its own. It is like a substance around me that swells and flows and shifts and pulsates, akin to an endlessly moving ocean wave in a world where gravity cannot decide which way is down.

I joined a colleague for a Friday night out at a club – Soul Train. More of an evening club than a nightclub, really, since they opened at 19:00 and closed at 22:00. An after work disco, I guess.

The photo shows the official photographer at the club. We took photos of each other.

The whole thing was kind of fun but oh my god the sound level. If this is what other people regularly subject their ears to, it’s a wonder that they are not all deaf. I put in earplugs (which I always have in my handbag) the moment I got there – had it not been for those, I would have lasted a few minutes, tops.

I do not understand the point of turning up the volume to 11. Yes, loud music sounds better and is more danceable than quiet music, but only up to a point. At this volume and probably with cheapish speakers to boot, the music just sounds atrocious, with distortion and crackling bass. You cannot speak to your friends; you cannot even order a drink without yelling. Where is the fun in that?

Today we went to a concert with Helen Sjöholm and Magnus Carlson, and Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester. They sang pop songs, mostly older ones, mostly moody and melancholy – Nick Cave, Depeche Mode, David Bowie etc.

Helen Sjöholm is one of my favourite Swedish artists – I love her voice and the way she sings. I had no idea who Magnus Carlson was (turns out he is quite well known) but Helen Sjöholm on her own would be enough for me.

The concert was nice, but no more than that. I had hoped for something better. I didn’t think the songs they performed really let her shine – the programme seemed to consist of songs that they liked, and that the audience would like, rather than songs that suited her voice and style best. I came there to listen to Helen Sjöholm, but got more enjoyment out of listening to Magnus Carlson.

And, like almost all concerts, the sound was too loud and unbalanced in my opinion.

I understand that most singers need amplification. But a symphonic orchestra should be able to fill a concert hall with sound without any amplification. Now Adrian was holding his hands over his ears and complaining the music was too loud, and I had to agree. It was not quite loud enough to hurt my ears, but definitely louder than I had expected. It had truly never crossed my mind that we would need to bring hearing protectors to a concert with a symphonic orchestra.

Adrian likes music and I had hoped he might actually enjoy this concert. Perhaps not as much as Eric and I, but some. He didn’t get a chance because he was too busy covering his ears.

I also wish the sound technicians prioritized the singers more. The song and the singer’s voice is what it is all about, to me. I want the song to soar, and the orchestra to back and accompany it. Most concerts amplify them to about equal “weight”.

If I was filthy rich and had nothing better to do with my money, I would pay for private concerts with my favourite singers – sound engineered to fit my taste and not to the needs of people with dull or damaged hearing!

This is Ramy Essam at Best of Sweden, a concert with five singers who are famous in their countries of origin but effectively unknown in Sweden. They were all unknown to me.

I am trying to get back into the habit of experiencing culture other than literature: going to the theatre and cinema, concerts and exhibitions. Sometimes on my own, sometimes with Eric, sometimes with the kids, sometimes all of us together.

This was a pleasant evening. The music was maybe not the most exciting but good enough, and really varied: from Eritrean swinging 1960s rock to Egyptian hard rock. It all had a nice undercurrent of freedom, peace, acceptance and love (as in loving thy neighbour). All of these singers live in Sweden not because they are globetrotters or adventurers, but because they could not live in their country of birth. This naturally coloured their performances and lent them common themes.

A similar theme was inherent in the whole idea of this concert, which was a celebration of people with different roots and what they have to offer Sweden. Not made explicit too obviously, but still very obvious to all who were there.

Sunday night I went to see and hear Leonard Cohen live at Globen. My first concert in over 3 years. I came home with mixed impressions.

On the plus side, Cohen is in great shape despite his age and he sounds as good live as he does on any of his albums – and he really gave all he had. (As he said himself, this might be the last time he is here.) Over 3 hours on stage at the age of 76 is quite impressive. It was nice to see him live, and to spend several hours just listening to music, which is not something I do often nowadays. And the sound was good, relatively well balanced between vocals and backing music, and not too loud.

On the minus side, Globen just isn’t a good venue for a concert (except for loud rock music). It’s a huge hall with seats almost all the way around. All music is piped through a bunch of large loudspeakers, which means there is, effectively, no stereo sound. The sound will inevitably be somewhat flat and come from a point in front of you.

Another slight minus was the lighting. As with the sound, the visuals are all delivered to you via screens. (From our seats I could just about identify Leonard Cohen on the scene, but not see much more.) In this case the scene was too dimly lit, so often half of whatever was shown on screen was in a dark shadow.

There is a Swedish children’s song about a spider. It goes like this:

Imse vimse spindel klättrar upp för trå’n.
Ned faller regnet, spolar spindeln bort.
Upp stiger solen, torkar bort allt regn,
Imse vimse spindel klättrar upp igen.

It never made sense to me as a song. It doesn’t rhyme, for starters. It seems to describe a rather random sequence of events. Why would the rain wash the spider away from its thread? And what the heck is “imse vimse”, anyway? I wondered for years why anyone who sets out to write a children’s song would come up with such a weak effort.

Then one day I heard it in English. Suddenly it all said click.

The eensy weensy spider crawled up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
And the eensy weensy spider climbed up the spout again.

The lyrics rhyme! And they make sense! Instead of climbing up a thread, the spider really crawls up a water spout – and of course when it rains there’s lots of water in a water spout, which would flush the spider out. Instead of the meaningless “imse vimse” the spider is a perfectly sensible “eensy weensy” spider (or “itsy bitsy” if it’s an American spider). And the “Swedish” song is really a bad translation of an English one.

Interestingly, though, even the English version seems to be degrading and slowly slipping towards meaninglessness. I’ve heard the first words being pronounced more like “incy wincy”, and indeed Google finds 49,800 hits for “incy wincy spider” but only 47,600 hits for “eensy weensy spider”. (The American version “itsy bitsy spider” gets 465,000 hits.)

I have a lullaby. Exactly one. It helps her calm down when she is sleepy and tired, and knows that she is tired (so that she is no longer trying to crawl all over the bed) but still isn’t quite comfortable just going quietly to sleep. I don’t know whether it’s just the fact that I sing, or because it is a tune she is used to, or perhaps because it is a good lullaby – simple and repetitive melody, lots of humming mmm sounds etc.

The song is a very well-known one that every Estonian will recognise: Karumõmmi unelaul. It is about a little bear (karumõmm) who cannot sleep, because there is no one to sing for him. A honeybee (mesimumm) flies by and tells the bear to sing to himself. Bears say mõmm-mõmm in Estonian, and bees go summ-summ.

I have been singing it to Ingrid for many months. By now I know it so well that I can sing it almost unconsciously, even while I am half asleep. Sometimes I come to the end of one of the phrases (“mõmm-mõmm, mõmm-mõmm, something karujõmm”) and then I realise I don’t know which one it is, because I have sung the lyrics without any thought. I suspect that sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’ve looped the first verse several times before going on to the next one. (Nowadays I rarely need it in the middle of the night, but I used to use it more often some months ago.)

Unlike the bear, Ingrid is not yet listening to suggestions that she might sing to herself. However I am quite impressed that she is now willing to lie quietly while I sing to her, given how distant this possibility seemed 9–10 months ago.

Yesterday we went to a concert for the first time in at least 7 months – to hear Murray Perahia at the Barbican. This was a birthday gift to Eric’s father who is very fond of classical music, so Eric bought tickets well over a year in advance. Hearing a great pianist live would be a wonderful experience in any case, but our excellent seats made it even better.

The programme consisted of Bach (a partita), Beethoven (a sonata), Schumann (Fantasiestücke) and Chopin (a ballade). The Bach piece was my favourite – no surprise there. Bach is the one classical composer whose music I could put on a continuous loop for days without tiring of it. Beethoven has “too many notes” – I find his music a bit difficult to follow. Schumann’s Fantasiestücke were, as the title implies, a mixed bag: very varied. Chopin’s was technically impressive but again not as gripping as Bach.

Despite this I thought that Perahia’s style was better suited for the lighter, more romantic composers. He played very emotionally, gently, almost tenderly. I like my Bach performed firmly, with gusto and confidence – Glenn Gould’s version of the Goldberg Variations is more to my taste than Perahia’s. Not that I didn’t enjoy this, though!

I was also intrigued to simply see Murray Perahia as a person. He appeared very quiet and introverted, almost bothered by the huge crowd. His bows were polite but small, his introductions of the encores quick and clipped – I got the impression that he would have preferred to walk out as soon as he finished playing.