On Wednesday evening, I went to the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank Centre to hear the Icelandic pianist, Víkingur Ólafsson, play Brahms’ Piano Concerto No 1, the tickets for which I’d booked aeons ago, in ignorance of the future significance of the date. Ólafsson’s marvellous name conjures someone ruggedly bearded, a tame puffin or guillemot perhaps sitting on the shoulder of his tufty jumper, when in fact he looks more like one of the cast of Mad Men. But either way, to see him on stage is incredibly exciting. He plays with such fervour, leaning into the orchestra whenever his fingers are idle, his body like a flag in high wind.
Ólafsson’s encore was immaculately well judged. “This is a prayer for the world,” he said, before giving the crowd his version of Ave Maria, composed by his countryman Sigvaldi Kaldalóns. Don’t worry: this isn’t one of those awful hopey, joy-is-a-strategy columns. We’re where we are now because one lot of people is wholly unable to imagine how another lot of people thinks; it would be sensible of me not to make any assumptions about how you felt last Wednesday.
