Thrilling Moments

I’ve just been reading about wonderful performances experienced by Elaine at Random Jottings and I was immediately reminded of one of the best birthday treats of my life. Back in the very late 1970s I was still living at home, in Bath, but was just about grownup and earning my own living. We were lucky enough to have the wonderful Bath Festival held in the city every year and I had usually been involved in fringe events with my drama group. This particular year, I decided that I would buy a ticket to every single lunchtime performance. As they were short concerts, and in the day, they were much more affordable. I worked as a Civil Servant so I saved up plenty of flexi-time so that I could get myself to and from the concerts as well as allowing time for the performances themselves.

I can hardly remember what I saw and heard except for the concert on my birthday. The performer was a pianist, a dark foreigner with a beard. He played Bartok which I believe is probably not the sort of thing for neophyte concert-goers……. but ….

……….. his hands posed above the piano he played as if his very being depended on the music .. the music was alive and I could feel it. I have never before and never since felt that way about any music. I knew it was something special. As a single entity, the audience was bowled over by his performance and we clapped and clapped and clapped and clapped and clapped and clapped until our hands ached. He was so unassuming. He humbly stood and bowed at the end of the piece, almost as if he was thanking us. When the applause would not die down he seemed stunned as though he had not known how well he could play and what an experience it was to hear the music that eminated from him.

I was so pleased that I had gone to that performance not knowing anything about the music or the pianist. No one needed to tell me, I just knew he was an amazing pianist, I could feel it. His name was Andre Tchaikowksy and it wasn’t until he died a few years later that I found out that I “should” have thought he was something special. That is probably the mark of true genius. It is obvious even to those who have no idea about such matters.

When my birthday comes round later this year, don’t bother racking your brains for the perfect present because nothing will ever come anywhere near what he gave to me that day. I tremble now when I remember it and I doubt if I will ever feel like that about anything ever, for the rest of my life.

Togetherness

Just when you think they don’t want to spend any time with you EVER again they surprise you. My little darling couldn’t wait to show me what she had learnt at her guitar lesson.

 

 

 

This is her 5th guitar lesson and I believe she is getting so much out of it because she started her lessons when she was older. We even ended up almost playing together, she playing her newly learnt Led Zeppelin riff and me attempting to play the music from the film Jeux Interdits, on one string!

Diamonds are . . . for listening to

I have no idea where or why I bought this CD but a recent archaelogical dig, in my alleged dining room, unearthed this shining treasure. THE DIAMOND OF FERRARA Ex Umbris, subtitled “Music from the Court of Ercole I”

Ercole d’Este was born in 1431 and was Duke of Ferrara from 1471 to 1505. His son became the second husband of Lucrezia Borgia and his other connections read like a 15th century Who’s Who. Ercole was a patron of all the arts, a sort of cross between Prince Charles and Andrew Lloyd Webber. The blurb inside the CD case says that Ercole and his rellies had a fancy that they were descended from the legendary hero Rugiero “and even named many of their children after characters in the Carolingian romances”. As far as I can make out, this Carolingian stuff all came about well before 1066 and split three ways into what would later become France, Germany & Italy. It does indeed sound like a version of the archetypal story where the three sons go off to seek their fortune or the kingdom is divided between them . Somewhere in this Carolingian stew is Pepin Heristal, a name I came across years ago in a thin book by John Steinbeck called “The Short Reign of Pippin IV”. For those of you with some knowledge of Carolingian history you may see a joke in the title of the book. Oh by the way “Carolingian” means “descended from Charlemagne”.

“The diamond of the title refers to an insignia of the Este family” and also to one of the oieces on the Cd “O triumphale diamante” a piece commissionned for the wedding of Ercole’s son, Alfonso to Lucretia Borgia. The CD has a varied selectionof pieces, some secular, some religious, some poetry set to music and some dances. This Cd has the power to relax and lift up at the same time. I must confess to turning up the volume so I could and be soothed by it whilst soaking in a luxurious scented bath before floating into a welcoming bed atthe end of a hard day at work. Oh and there is a touch of humour as well as we hear about the exploits of Scaramella, a 15th century lad who swaggers around, falls in love, goes off to war and sails “in a galley so he can kiss a jewess”.