In fact the memories started before the concert even began! St Mary’s lies behind what was once the teacher training college (now part of Nottingham Trent University) and overlooks the Trent from the steep sided Clifton Grove. When Pat and I were courting – both trainee teachers at the College – it was where 60 years ago we used to go for walks, hand in hand, through the woodland looking down on the Trent far below us. Last night we both laughed, remembering vividly, one evening when walking through the Grove it had seemed a good idea to scramble down the steep slope to the river - it was the sort of daft thing one does as a twenty year old. We got down alright but getting back up was another matter; I just managed it but poor Pat was struggling. I had visions of calling out the fire brigade but as the last light of the day faded and the city of Nottingham lit up in the distance we somehow managed to extract Pat. We didn’t try it again, but the memory lived on - a mixture of mirth and embarrassment! A few minutes later we entered the ancient and exquisite little Church of St Mary the Virgin. The last time I had been there was, I think, in 1965 when as a history student at Clifton our group had gone to the Church as part of our “History Method” course – teaching us how and when to use historical places and artifacts in the classroom to teach children history. As I sat in St Mary’s last night I reflected that 60 years ago - a life time – neither Pat or I could have ever imagined that we would be here again as 80 year olds with our own grown up children and grandchildren. As Pat said, a lot of water – the Trent – has passed by since then!
And so to the concert. The four works brought, each in their different ways, wonderful memories. The first work, Joseph Haydn’s Symphony 99 was a rousing start to the evening. Papa Haydn knew a good tune when he composed it and all his works are filled with splendid tunes; if you feel a bit low at the start of a Haydn work (even a solemn Mass) you will be feeling much better by the time the last notes fade away! As I sat entranced, the Orchestra giving a lively and lyrical rendering of Papa Haydn’s composition I was taken back a few years to one of the most magical and memorable days of my life. Pat and I were in Austria on holiday and we visited the small town of Eisenstadt where Haydn spent most of his working life composing, conducting and making music at the Esterházy Palace, home of the Princes of Esterházy one of the great and powerful families of Europe. I had stood, moved, in the Great Hall where Haydn would have stood to conduct his orchestras and later visited his rooms in the Palace to see the things that he would have known. It was a glorious, Austrian summers day and we sat eating a very deliciously decadent Sachertorte and drinking a deliciously strong Austrian coffee in the sun.
After the Haydn we went to France to enjoy Gabriel Fauré’s suite Masques et bergamasques. This was a work that I didn’t know but enjoyed enormously. Written as a theatrical entertainment commissioned for Albert I, Prince of Monaco in 1919 it is one of Fauré’s most popular work and for me captured exactly the feeling of France: bright, sunny, light hearted – all the ingredients of the many French holidays that Pat and I have enjoyed in that wonderful country over the years. It was just the sort of jolly and bright music that we all needed having just experienced Storm Claudia in Nottingham, two days of continuous heavy rain and strong winds, and the Orchestra carried it off to perfection.
A pleasant short interval (including for Pat a piece of excellent walnut and coffee cake!) was followed by one of my all time favourites Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins. This is one of the twelve concerti for string instruments that comprise L'estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration). Described by musicologists as "perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental music to appear during the whole of the eighteenth century” and is an absolute joy. I often listen to this on a hot summer’s afternoon as I stand over the BBQ – it takes me back to perhaps my favourite place on the planet – Venice. Last night as the rain fell on Nottingham I was transported to far away, to La Serenissima; when I closed my eyes I could hear the water lapping on the Grand Canal, see the soft pastel colours and stone, and feel the warm Venetian sun on my back as the two violins beautifully harmonised and wove their charms with the rest of the strings.
And so to the final work, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4 (the Italian). A truly well known work that I guess many could hum along to without knowing what it was called. Mendelssohn, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s favourite composer, like Haydn fifty plus years before knew a good tune when he composed it and this work is no exception. Written during, and after, he travelled to Italy in 1831 Mendelssohn wrote to his father: “ This is Italy! And now has begun what I have always thought ... to be the supreme joy in life. And I am loving it…... The Italian symphony is making great progress. It will be the jolliest piece I have ever done, especially the last movement. I have not found anything for the slow movement yet, and I think that I will save that for Naples.” Mendelssohn was not wrong; Pat and I love Italy and the Italians, from the first time we visited many, many years ago we both felt completely at home. To just sit and listen to Italians talking (and without my understanding a word) I am entranced by the beauty of the language and the obvious love of life that it portrays.
It was indeed a jolly piece to round of a splendid evening – it brought back so many happy memories of times past and places visited. It was just right for a stormy East Midlands night and for me, as 80 year old with very painful sciatica it was a real tonic! Under the excellent, energetic, enthusiastic and baton of Andrew Foxley the Chamber Orchestra gave us a night to remember. Lively, bright, jolly and above all musical I don’t think anyone could have left St Mary’s not feeling better and with a spring in their step – even my sciatic pain seemed a little less severe! There is nothing quite like live music and especially so when performed by an enthusiastic and talented group of musically adept and mature musicians in the intimate atmosphere of a place like St Mary’s, it has an added vibrancy and warmth that CDs, streaming and the great concert halls can never replicate. It was both gratifying and heart warming, too, to see so many young people as members of the Orchestra – and in the audience; clearly, despite the efforts of our political masters and “educational” (I use the term loosely) institutions like Nottingham University to limit or discontinue music and arts courses and concentrate upon STEM curriculum subjects not every youngster is getting their Philistine message.
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