This Saturday offers the perfect combination for me - the England vs Paraguay game in the afternoon, followed by a Mikhail Pletnev recital at the Barbican in the evening, writes Martin Kettle.
I've done some good, if unorthodox, double-headers of this kind in the past. Years ago I went on an anti-Vietnam war demonstration in Grosvenor Square in the afternoon and then took in an Otto Klemperer concert at the Festival Hall in the evening. A few years later I saw Greg Chappell score an imperious century against England at Lords and still got to Covent Garden in time to catch Caballé (I think) in La Traviata. Hard to improve on that.
But a World Cup game followed by one of my all-time favourite pianists offers something almost in the same league. Can anyone offer any similar combinations?
There's only one trouble. When the tickets for Pletnev went on sale, he was advertised as playing Bach and, especially exciting for me, the Chopin preludes. This week, though, the Barbican circulated an email announcing that the programme has changed: Pletnev will now play Tchaikovsky and Schumann instead.
Full marks to the Barbican for customer care. But only average marks for the great pianist - and Pletnev has form on this. A few years ago I arrived at the Festival Hall expecting one programme only for Pletnev to announce that he was playing something completely different.
Memories there of Arturo Bendetti Michelangeli, whose appearances also offered no guarantee that he would actually turn up, never mind that he would perform what he had been scheduled to play.
I can see the excitement of not knowing what you're about to hear: it can make a concert sound wonderfully fresh. But sometimes you also want to hear a great artist actually perform a favourite work as advertised. I've been thinking about Pletnev's Chopin preludes off and on for months now; I just hope England, at least, manage to perform as billed.
