the mag­ic of clas­si­cal music, live!

Well, just in case you’re not going to the foot­ball on Sat­ur­day (!) there’s some­thing you sim­ply must do. Get in the train and go to Oxford, to the North Wall, and hear Eng­lish Sin­fo­nia play. We went last evening to a con­cert at the Grosvenor Chapel here in May­fair, spon­sored in a very lord­ly fash­ion by our land­lords the Grosvenor fam­i­ly, and it was a glo­ri­ous, unfor­get­table evening. We went last year dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son (at least Avery’s grand­moth­er and I did, the rest of the fam­i­ly base­ly aban­don­ing us for I for­get what much less cul­tur­al­ly enlight­en­ing evening’s enter­tain­ment), so at least I knew what we were in for. And sil­ly John refused to go again! So I took Avery’s great friend Jamie, her­self a pret­ty mean vio­lin­ist, and could not have had a more appre­cia­tive cou­ple of guests.

We set­tled down in our front-pew seats, fresh (or rather just flus­tered) from get­ting Avery out of rid­ing clothes and into some­thing for the con­cert, and hav­ing Jamie dropped off by her mum right before the con­cert. The church atmos­phere qui­etened us right down, as did the lit votive can­dles all along the stained glass win­dows to either side. Autum­nal flow­ers filled the nave, and lots of posh look­ing peo­ple filled the pews: in par­tic­u­lar a very large, well-uphol­stered lady very well-dressed, full pow­dered, hair all bee-hived and lac­quered into place. And with her was a tiny lit­tle youngish man, not look­ing at all as if went with her, so I kept my eye on them dur­ing the concert.

A Grosvenor gen­tle­man stood up and announced the con­cert, wel­comed us all, and said that tonight, for the first time ever, a new com­po­si­tion would be per­formed live, and that the com­pos­er, one Adri­an Mun­sey, was in the audi­ence to hear it (he was seat­ed direct­ly behind us). The girls were trans­fixed. Then out came the per­form­ers, and Jamie was thrilled to see that she was close enough to read the music on the stands, “St Paul’s Suite,” by Gus­tav Holst. “I could play some of that,” she said, hushed. Then the first vio­lin­ist came out and they began. I’m afraid I always cry a bit at live clas­si­cal music. What is it? It’s the com­bi­na­tion of sev­er­al notions run­ning togeth­er: the lives the music has lived, the endurance through cen­turies of notes and arrange­ments cre­at­ed by some long-dead per­son, the indi­vid­ual griefs and joys of the peo­ple who must have heard it per­formed first. And then I looked at the lit­tle girls with me and thought, “Will this inspire them to play? To lis­ten? Who will be lis­ten­ing to what they com­posed, two cen­turies from now?” Then I hap­pened to look to my right and there was the fan­cy, well-uphol­stered lady, with tears run­ning down her pow­dered cheeks. And once in awhile the tiny man beside her hand­ed her anoth­er hand­ker­chief. How much we do not know about the peo­ple across the aisle.

Final­ly the man behind us stood up and came to the aisle, vis­i­bly ner­vous. “They asked if I would like to con­duct this piece, but the play­ers assured me that no one ever pays atten­tion to the con­duc­tor, so I declined. This piece is called “Requiem,” but it is real­ly in the spir­it of a sim­ple “Rest in Peace.” And he sat down. The music began, thank­ful­ly (for me) noth­ing dis­cor­dant or mod­ern, but a beau­ti­ful­ly trace­able melody, with horns and wood­winds join­ing the strings. From the cor­ner of my eye I saw the very beau­ti­ful wife of the com­pos­er reach under his suit jack­et and grasp his hand, and he hung on for dear life. And that made me cry too. An Eng­lish gen­tle­man, hav­ing com­posed his peace to hon­or who knows what loss, “Rest in Peace,” twen­ty years my senior, hold­ing hands with his wife as he lis­tened to his pre­cious com­po­si­tion being per­formed for the first time.

It was glo­ri­ous. The vio­la play­er danced! “He’s near­ly danc­ing!” Jamie whis­pered to me joy­ful­ly, and cer­tain­ly he embod­ied his music. I looked at the wed­ding rings of the musi­cians and thought, “Are you mar­ried to anoth­er vio­lin­ist? Or an invest­ment banker? Or a great chef, or a nov­el­ist? Do you under­stand each oth­er?” At the end the Grosvenor chap spoke about a schol­ar­ship to ben­e­fit “young aspir­ing musi­cians,” and of course Avery and Jamie nudged one anoth­er in the ribs. What an evening.

From there we met John at a cute French cafe and had steak frites, and John took Jamie home in the crispy atum­nal night air.

Sad­ly Avery awoke this morn­ing with a nasty sore throat and slight fever (what the heck is 37.3 any­way?? well it turns out to be a bit over 99 degrees). Off to the doc­tor for a throat cul­ture, and back home for a for­tu­itous pot of chick­en noo­dle soup I had just hap­pened to start the night before. So the prop­er nutri­tious, com­fort­ing lunch, an after­noon in bed with hot water bot­tles, and she’s on the mend. No strep, so Ire­land here we come in the morn­ing! You shall hear not a word from me for a week, so enjoy your Octo­ber break, and I’ll be in touch soon about our lep­rechaun adventures!