Categories: concerts
Tags: music, concert, musings, random
Date: 10 February 2006 21:18:04
I went to the most fantastic concert last night. One thing I was aware of when I was doing my London culture vulture stuff was that I never managed to get to much in the way of live performances - it was mainly museums and exhibitions. However, I rectified that this time with a great concert by the Scottish Ensemble, a string ensemble made up of players who are all soloists in their own right. Each year they do a season playing with "rising stars", and this month they were performing with the 16 year old clarinettist Julian Bliss. I know that people bandy about the term "child prodigy", but this guy was incredible - he performed at the Proms in 2002 (when he was 12 or 13) and has already built up quite an international performing career, despite not doing his A'levels till next year! The Ensemble performed the Mendelssohn Octet and Copland's "Hoe Down" from "Rodeo", and then they were joined by harpist Sally Pryce for Debussy's "Danses Sacree et Profane" (it struck me watching this, as it often does at this sort of thing, what a ridiculous-looking instrument the harp is. She played it beautifully, and it was amazing to watch her fingers gliding and picking their way over the strings, how she ever figures out which one is which I really don't know). They did two pieces with Julian Bliss - Finzi's "Five Bagatelles" and the Copland Clarinet Concerto. I must say, although I'd booked the ticket as I'd particularly wanted to hear the Copland (one of my favourite works), the highlight of the concert for me was the Finzi. Beautiful, lush, yet so simple, it's not technically all that difficult in the scheme of things for the clarinet (I was playing it at his age), but the sound he made was incredible - perfect control throughout the whole range of the instrument, he made the music soar for me, and the Ensemble's accompaniment really was the icing on the cake.
I was surprised by how emotional I felt during the Finzi, and I left feeling really reflective. Up till then I had been thinking about how the concert would be perfect if the man in front of me hadn't had a head (I had to keep peering round him, and couldn't see the whole group at the same time!), but during the Finzi I just closed my eyes and felt myself transported back in time - partly to that lush, green, idyllic England of the inter-War period that probably never really existed anyway (as exemplified by Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Delius and co), and partly to when I was his age, when music was all I wanted to do, when anything seemed possible. I must confess to a little twinge of, well, not quite sadness or regret, but a little twinge of *something* - a sense of something lost forever, as I've got bogged down in responsibilities and life has started to take its toll. There's so much I'm really glad about, with the benefit of hindsight, and I'm not regretting the way life has turned out, but it did get me musing somewhat. It's amazing the power of music to do that, to transport you back to a particular time, particular moment even, in a way that more tangible things like photos can't always, and a lot of earlier 20th century British music, particularly if it's stuff I've played myself, gets under my skin to some really quite hidden places.