09 March, 2014

It was all so very English!

King's as we approached - the BBC vans outside
There are few, if any, things today which can make me feel proud to be English – not the hollow jingoistic patriotism of military parades, “Help for Heroes” and men sporting silly hats, gold braid and rows of meaningless bits of tin that they call medals and with which we are supposed to be impressed. Certainly not today’s quick fix and sleazy, opportunistic  politicians and definitely not the trivialising of the life and culture of what was once, allegedly, a great empire and civilization. A civilization that spawned some of the great minds and works of English and world history but today thinks that “Strictly Come Dancing” is high culture and  worthwhile entertainment, that “The X Factor”  is some sort of definitive guide to excellence  and that Russell Brand or Stephen Fry's banal utterances constitute meaningful wit, insight or social commentary. But above all, not the hero worship and celebrity seeking that characterises the age and ranges from the “selfie” photograph, to the  mindless deification of all sport and of very ordinary sportsmen, to the pure theatrical soap opera that is the royal family. As a nation we have lost so much and gained so little. Of course, we are not alone – the same is true elsewhere in much of the world and pervades all walks of life. Over the past week or so our news broadcasts have been filled with the manufactured “hype” of the BAFTA film awards and the Oscars – who will win, aren’t these highly paid celebrities important, what will they say in their speech, will they cry, who will wear the most glamorous dress, who will be once again disappointed.........who  cares? The entertainment industry, and Hollywood in particular, has an obscene propensity for self congratulation and making the trivial, the unimportant and the ordinary sound worthwhile, vital and valuable. Can there be a sadder and more telling verdict upon our modern age than last week's "selfie" photo taken at the Oscars and thrust upon us through every media outlet; some of the worlds most famous, wealthy and at the same time least talented people taking a photo of themselves congratulating each other!

Oh, aren't we Oscar attenders a wonderful lot. We may be
completely talentless and plastic but it's the image that counts -
and we are ensuring that our image stays firmly in your mind
otherwise our limited very talents would ensure that our "A"
list status would soon become "X" list!
But the really sad thing about it is that society swallows it and wants to gorge itself upon it. Whether it be standing watching the stars walk up the red carpet, drooling over photographs of the royals and their every comment and change of clothes or, like the crowds in the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the Emperor’s new clothes, applauding the poor or the ordinary and calling it high culture the result is the same – we have lost the ability to know and appreciate things which are of real value and of which we can be proud. Listen to people – especially younger people in the street or a bar – or look at the mindless comments on social networking sites and you will witness the gross misuse of language where an everyday event such as an evening out in the local pub, a visit to the zoo, meeting a friend or eating a plate of lasagne is described as “fantastic”, “amazing” or, the dreaded, “awesome”. Listen to football pundits and they will describe a simple goal as a “great goal” when all the player (who is paid an eye watering amount of money each week to perform this simple task!) had to do was tap the ball into an empty goal (24 feet wide and 8 feet high - longer and higher than my lounge wall!). Listen to young parents (and, sadly, young teachers) today talking to their children and you will hear the ordinary and what should be the expected praised as if it was the greatest thing that ever happened: “Oh, well done John for sitting quietly” (when the child has been asked to sit quietly – i.e. it is an expectation), or “What a good boy you are for eating that potato” (even though the child has dragged out this simple operation, picked at his food throughout the meal and generally caused what should be a pleasant meal time to become a battle ground for the past half an hour!). We praise and applaud the normal and the expected rather than the special and the outstanding. We can no longer discriminate between the worthwhile and valuable and the ordinary and everyday. We have, I fear, lost our sense of perspective.
Henry VI - I wonder if he realised what
a treasure he was leaving for future
generations

I often wonder what great minds and personalities of the past would think if they returned and cast their eyes over 21st century western “civilisation” – John Milton, Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Oliver Cromwell,  Thomas Rainsborough, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Franklin Roosevelt................... a guess would be that many of them would shake their heads in disbelief and no little sadness.

So, it was with both huge satisfaction and pleasure that I emerged into the night air at about half past nine last Wednesday night (March 5th) knowing that I had been present at something that really was wonderful, a truly once in  a life time event and that for a couple of hours I had sat, often open mouthed, sometimes stunned but at the same time humbled as I witnessed something that really did make me feel proud to be British - or, more precisely, English. Hundreds of others, like me emerged into the cold night of Cambridge knowing that we had been privileged to see and hear something, which in absolute terms, was very, very special. I had, earlier in the day, passed a shop in Cambridge selling birthday cards and in the window was a large card saying “Have a really awesome birthday” – what we witnessed on Wednesday evening really was awesome – in the real sense of the word, not the overused and trivialised word that we so often hear today describing the very ordinary, the expected and the average.

John Eliot Gardiner
We had booked seats for the concert many weeks ago having read an article in The Guardian. The articles suggested that it would be one of the musical highlights of the year – and, indeed, so it was. The great conductor John Eliot Gardiner and his world renowned Monteverdi Choir were performing the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 – one of the world’s very great works – in King’s College Chapel. Eliot Gardiner had first performed the work as an undergraduate at King’s on March 5th 1964 and this was to be a fiftieth anniversary concert. On that March 5th night in 1964 he put together a group of unknown singers – that group became the  Monteverdi Choir  – and the rest is musical history, both for him and the Choir. He and they are without doubt two of the great exponents of choral music and especially of ancient music. I didn’t expect to be able to get tickets, we knew they would be like gold dust – but we were lucky, the booking office told us we had got the last two.  So, we have looked forward to the event for weeks. King’s College Chapel is one of our favourite places and the Vespers one of our favourite works – to put the two together and with Gardiner and the Montiverdi Choir plus the English Baroque soloists was not to be missed.

And so at about 7 o’clock on Wednesday evening we made our way through the twilight of King’s College quad and towards the great Chapel – one of the very great buildings of England. Few places in the whole of the country can have so much history attached, few places can have seen so many of the great names of England – academics, politicians, royalty, great names of literature, science and the arts, world leaders and the rest - walk past it and through it. Outside stood the BBC outside broadcast vans – the concert was being broadcast live on the radio – and a line of people already stood outside the chapel waiting to take their seats. As we stood there we heard locals confirming how difficult tickets had been to get. We stood next to another couple who had come all the way from south Wales to be at the concert.
The wonderful ceiling

As we stood there I reflected how very English it all was. Here we were at one of the great events of the musical year, where the great and good of the musical (and other worlds) would be; we were standing waiting to gain entry into one of the very greatest buildings of England and indeed, the world and to see some of the greatest musical names perform. And yet, and yet....... there was little or no security, certainly no bull necked security guards, just a gentle university porter politely stopping anyone going in until the doors officially opened. There was no red carpet, no glitz, no flashing lights or media coverage, no celebrity status – the great, the good and the peasants (Pat and I!) all queued up together, standing in the chilly night air, all speaking in whispers so as not to disturb the tranquillity of the King’s quad. A hastily typed notice was sellotaped to the gate advising people of the entrance for those with unsighted tickets and that was about the sum total of the “organisation”. In the great buildings of King’s College windows were lit as people inside got on with their everyday work – no-one bothered to look out and see the growing queue, no one was looking for “the stars”. It was so typically English and so very ordinary – and in being so it was, in these days of constant hyperbole, so very extraordinary!
The King's Quad at dusk - we queued from the door on the bottom left

And at last we were allowed in. We had our tickets at the ready but no-one bothered to check them. Yet, despite the lack of security and despite the fact that every seat was taken, no-one tried to get in without  ticket, no-one caused a fuss – it all just happened. England at its best – unassuming, calm, polite, gentle, unhurried, taking everything in its moderate stride. All qualities that we increasingly seem to have lost. I swear, had some budding Al Qaeda terrorist cell  planned to commit some act of terrorism and strike at this, the very heart of the English Establishment, their venture would have failed miserably. They would have been put off, confused, by the ordinariness of the occasion – and anyway, the folk in the queue would, like elderly  headmistresses and  headmasters, have simply glared at them, wagged their fingers in admonishment and gently, but firmly, told them not to be so silly. "Go home" the would be terrorists would have been told "and take a warm bath, make yourselves some nice toasted crumpets and jam with a nice cup of tea - and and then have an early night in bed. You'll feel much better in the morning. There's a good chap!" They would have been sent slinking off into the dusk, tails between their legs, humbly apologising for disturbing the event and thoroughly chastened! There were no “plastic people” trying to sell us trivia or escorting us to our seats, there were no "loud" people intent upon making themselves the centre of attraction or showing their ignorance and lack of awareness by breaking the quietness and solemnity, there were no ice cream sellers or refreshments available, no “have a nice day” insincerity, no CDs for sale, no commemorative mugs or other "tat",  no “comfort breaks” (what an awful Americanism!) planned (for there are no public toilets in Kings College Chapel!). Even though the work was almost two hours in length there were no concessions made that would trivialise the evening. In short, the expectation was that people would behave in a manner to suit the occasion and the venue, there was no dumbing down. It was English stiff upper lip time! It was what we, the audience expected and demanded.
The poster advertising the first concert 50 years ago
Many of the then unknown performers are now
musical superstars

At 7.45 pm John Eliot Gardiner walked down the central aisle to take his place at the front of the orchestra. There was no fanfare, rhythmic clapping or extended  standing ovation as there might have been at an awful American staged event - just a reserved acknowledgement of the great man's presence and the silence. The solo bass stepped forward, his deep voice ringing around the Chapel and opening  the work and then the choir’s voices rose in splendour, filling the great Chapel with the most glorious sound – I swear that there a mighty intake of breath at that sound. In a Times review of a Gardiner/Monteverdi Choir concert in 2011 reviewer Richard Morrison famously said:  “If all the world’s depressed people [could] hear this ........the pharmaceutical companies would be out of business......who needs pills to lift the spirits when we have this.......I felt as if I was flying above the clouds.....”. I'm sure that many, like me, in King's on Wednesday night when listening to those opening few bars - and for the next two hours - would echo those sentiments completely.  In this morning’s Times  Morrison was equally lavish in his praise of Wednesday’s concert “Same magnificent chapel, same glorious music, same conductor — but half a century on. ...........this was a triumph........I have never heard this masterly compendium of 17th-century sacred music interpreted with such fervour and freedom and delivered with such pungent virtuosity”. I have no doubts that every member of that audience on Wednesday would say "Amen" to that. The Daily Telegraph was equally lavish in its praise: John Eliot Gardiner’s performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, on March 5 1964 has entered musical lore, not only for giving birth to the Monteverdi Choir but for helping to shake up period-conscious performance in this country. Fifty years on to the night, Gardiner was back at King’s for a celebratory performance of the same work, his energy seemingly undiminished.......Here in Cambridge, a new-generation Monteverdi Choir – augmented in a couple of key moments by veterans of the 1964 and other early performances – was joined by the Choristers of King’s College and the English Baroque Soloists...... Everyone lent tonal weight to the kaleidoscopic final Magnificat, in which all the richness of Monteverdi’s invention comes together: it was by turns ethereal and magnificent....... “. And The Guardian was equally spellbound: “It was stirring, as performances in that chapel can hardly fail to be – full of glorious sounds from the 36 voices and the instruments of the English Baroque Soloists, full of Gardiner's typically punchy rhythms and .......cadential diminuendos, and the spatial effects were carefully choreographed. The echoes of Audi Coelum were beautifully calibrated, the trebles of the college choir added the litany of saints to the otherwise instrumental Sonata sopra Sancta Maria, and founder members of the Monteverdi Choir joined in for the closing Ave Maris Stella and Magnificat.......for Gardiner and his choir, the Vespers has become an institution, the musical equivalent of a world heritage site......”
The heraldic carvings above our seats

And as I sat – often open mouthed – I looked around me. Above me the great soaring ceiling of King’s – surely one of the great wonders of the world – looking almost like the entrance way to heaven. Certainly, I'm sure, just as its mediaeval builders intended it look! And the Choir’s voices rose to that ceiling and away into the March sky and into the heavens. The College and Chapel were founded by Henry VI – who also founded Eton - in 1441 so it was already an old building by the time that Monteverdi wrote his Vespers in Venice in the early years of the 17th century. The Vespers were originally composed to be sung in the mighty St Mark’s in Venice, and indeed Eliot Gardiner and the choir have performed them there. They are  monumental in scale, and require a choir large enough and skilful enough to cover all the vocal parts  and split into separate choirs while accompanying different soloists. When I wandered to the front of the Chapel before the concert began strange and ancient instruments were already laid out on the orchestra’s chairs and as the performance took place we were treated to the instrumental sounds of the sixteenth century. Monteverdi's unique approach to each movement of the Vespers has earned the work a place in history – it was a “first” in those far off days for  it incorporated secular music within a  religious performance and its individual movements present an array of musical forms - sonata, motet, hymn, and psalm – all within a piece of devotional music.Throughout the performance we watched and listened intrigued and amazed as singers and musicians would occasionally, and silently, leave their appointed place to disappear behind the rood screen or into an adjoining side chapel or go the back of the main Chapel to perform some part of the Vespers and give the effect of distance or echo or some other embellishment to  enrich and refine the sound. As we sat on the end of our row, and mid way through, the boy choristers of Kings College filed passed us, having left their places in the choir stalls. Led by their famous choir master Stephen Cleobury  they silently made their way to the back of the Chapel and a few moments later their glorious voices were heard behind us – truly quadraphonic sound! And then, equally silently, heads bowed, they made their way back and disappeared into their choir stalls.
The Monteverdi Choir today

There are surely few buildings, apart from St Mark’s, where the Vespers are so at home – but King’s is one of them. As I sat there I wondered how many great musicians and musical offerings had been heard by that ceiling and those walls in the six centuries of their life. Not only great choirs in great concerts, but the everyday services that take place there. When we first arrived at Kings on Wednesday afternoon we could have gone in (for free) to listen to the world famous Choral Evensong sung by the boy choristers of Kings. The King’s Choir is itself world famous – especially so since every Christmas Eve the famous carol concert takes place which is broadcast throughout the world and which for many heralds the start of Christmas . As we had meandered around Cambridge’s streets and looked at  the other world famous colleges many, like King’s, had boards outside informing the public that they were welcome to join Evensong in the college chapels. As it was Ash Wednesday many of these services would be special affairs – at King’s the choir were singing the works of the sixteenth century English composer William Byrd. Byrd, like Monteverdi, was composing at the time when music was emerging from the era of plainsong to polyphony and the Vespers of 1610 are amongst the early works to celebrate the newly emerging musical sound. In their day they were very much “new sound”, cutting edge!

And I thought, too, as I sat there how many others had sat, like me, over the centuries and listened to the magnificent music and great words that have been spoken in King’s College Chapel. The list of the great minds and great leaders who are part of King’s history is a list which in many ways tracks the course of English (and indeed world) history since the sixteenth century: Francis Walsingham (Secretary to Elizabeth 1st and her “spy master” – the first James Bond!) , Robert Walpole the great statesman and effectively the first English Prime Minister, EM Forster the famous novelist,  John Maynard Keynes the economist whose theories dominated 20th century economics and politics and who is once again increasingly in fashion, JK Galbraith, the great American economist, Andrew Davis world famous conductor, Bernard Williams, the philosopher, Eric Hobsbawm arguably the world’s greatest historian, Rupert Brooke the famous poet, Alan Turing the mathematician who cracked the wartime German Enigma Code and who is regarded as the father of the modern computer......... and, of course, Eliot Gardiner amongst King’s past students there are six Nobel prize winners – just from this one constituent college of Cambridge University. All these, and thousands of others, will have looked, as I looked, at the magnificent stained glass of the Chapel’s windows – the glass amongst the most precious and outstanding in the world. It was made and put there by the great Flemish glass maker  Barnard Flower in the late fifteenth century. Flower was employed by Henry VI for the work but for a time was himself a refugee fleeing from persecution in his own land. Had Flower been alive today it is more than likely that our modern immigration laws would have denied him entry to the country. How much we have changed – for the worse. And then I looked at the walls with their intricate heraldic carvings and patterns. What fifteenth century craftsmen carved these? What did he go home to each night? Did he know that his day’s work would be marvelled at half a millennia after his death? That his work really could be described as awesome? I looked at the carved crowns, the lions rampant, the unicorns and the great carved roses. The roses, not Tudor roses, for Henry VI came before the Tudor dynasty nor were they Lancastrian or Yorkist Roses (even though Henry was of the family of Lancaster and the Wars of the Roses broke out during his reign) - no, they symbolise two things: the white rose represents the Virgin Mary, one of King’s patron saints and they  also represent the bringing forth of the flower of knowledge. It is perhaps not insignificant that Henry, although often forgotten in the great swathe of English history and amongst the magnificence of other monarchs such as Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, should be symbolised by the rose of knowledge, for despite a period when he himself was considered to be mad  his reign is, above all, remembered for his commitment to learning and education. Very appropriate.
Half way through!

As the choir rose to the final Amen of the Magnificat  there seemed again a final intake of breath from the audience and as the last sounds drained away there was total, almost stunned, silence. It almost seemed wrong to applaud in that place and at that time. But then as one the whole audience, and indeed the performers, broke into a spontaneous huge applause. Flashbulbs flashed and the ringing applause went on and on and on. But, English reserve was not cast aside – it was all very staid and tasteful – no whoops, no whistles, no cries of “More”. In front of us a group of Japanese young people applauded enthusiastically  but typically sedately and along the row elderly donnish professors wearing their Cambridge ties clapped their hands with quiet gusto – acknowledging something of very great worth but not being carried away. It was all so very “ordinary”, so very English. Whilst we all knew that we had seen and heard something  very special in a place that was very special everyone wanted to treat what they had seen and heard with respect, not glamorise and so cheapen it. But, as I sat there applauding, I thought to myself that perhaps even the ghosts that might inhabit King’s College Chapel, and who have seen many such great occasions in the Chapel’s long and illustrious life must surely have put this down as one of the most memorable events.
The King's rose

I am not one for jingoism or royalty. I don’t go much on overkill, name dropping,  excess or fashionable “style”  but I have to confess that as I emerged into the cold Cambridge night air I oozed self satisfaction and superiority!  I knew that I had been present at something very grand and I was glad to be English. My faith had been somewhat restored. In the front of our programme for the concert was a piece written by Prince Charles, Patron of the Monteverdi Choir, praising Gardiner and the Choir for the work that they have done and what they have achieved over the past half century. The words that Prince Charles wrote were just right, unassuming, just like the performers and the audience – not sensationalist, not showy, not patronising, not pretentious. There were no words like "awesome" or "fantastic" or "amazing" – just a gentle recognition of all that had been achieved and contributed.  It was the classic English understatement and exactly the atmosphere that pervaded King’s College Chapel on Wednesday night. It was indubitably one of the great musical events of the year – not just in this country but, I suspect, internationally too.  It was a most wonderful evening of truly great music. But it was also respectful of the place and the occasion, it added one more layer to the history of King’s but there were no red carpets, no glitzy “stars”, no concessions to the trivial or the cheap or the tasteless. The great and the good came, indistinguishable from the rest of us, in their overcoats and anoraks; there was no brashness or raucous whistling or calling out at the end of the performance, no encores given, no applause that went on and on – just a sustained, sincere applause -  tasteful and knowledgeable by people who knew what they had witnessed. This was definitely not Tony Blair's awful "Cool Brittania" and it certainly wasn't Margaret Thatcher's drum bashing "Rule Brittania". As we stepped out into the King's quad I thought about some words that I had read earlier in the day. I am currently reading the biography of Clement Attlee by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds. Symond's relates that Churchill disparagingly described Attlee - often regarded as the greatest Prime Minister of the twentieth century - as "a sheep dressed up in sheep's clothing" . But Symond's argues "Attlee personified Britishness - understated, unemotional in public, unfussy and with a deep and quiet pride in his country and its history" . And I also thought about the description of King's College's founder, Henry VI that I had read prior to our visit. Henry was described as "peaceful, pious and benevolent" a description that would have suited Attlee completely and which matched exactly my feelings about what I had just witnessed - it waall so very English. Henry VI and indeed Clement Attlee would, I think, have felt very much at home had they sat in Wednesday night's audience.
Gardiner takes the applause

The final bows
And I was glad that in these so often dumbed down times where the very ordinary or poor is too often considered wonderful and where the appearance is so often gauged to be of much greater importance that the substance that there are still, in this country, places, events and people who know the difference. It was worth every penny of the £50 per head mid-range tickets that we bought, and not once did I begrudge the £10 spent on the programme – it will be something to treasure and to long remember that I was there. It was worth every mile of the 90 mile trip to Cambridge and the night we spent in the local Travelodge. The event, was not only wonderful but has whetted my appetite. When we booked the tickets for the concert we also booked tickets for the Easter concert at King’s – to see Bach’s great Matthew Passion – often regarded as the world’s greatest musical work – and “starring” (a word that in this context is totally out of place) the world’s greatest counter tenor Andreas Scholl. To hear Scholl will really be a once in a life time experience, to hear him sing in the Passion  truly  “awesome” – but to hear it all in King’s surely the stuff of my dreams!   I know that I will not be disappointed – and once again glad to be reminded that we English can, despite the best efforts of the media, our dumbed down society  and our politicians of all persuasions still do it right!






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