When all else fails, turn to Music!

OK, OK, I am fully aware that this is not music that I normally listen to, but these staves are here as an illustration rather than anything else!

The terrible truth is starting to drift into my mind. The people who came to view my house yesterday have not been fighting to get their money into my bank account. It was only some lights left on (bizarrely because the estate agent tried to turn off some lights that I had left on deliberately) that told me that anyone had been viewing the house. I felt vaguely violated, as though a tidy burglar had been in my home and decided against taking anything!

That reminds of the time that I actually was burgled. We came back from a night out in Cardiff and discovered that the door was locked from the inside. When we went round to the back of the house to try and gain entry we found the door open. Inside there was careful chaos, with some drawers turned out and property scattered around the floor. My partner was much more upset that I was. Perhaps because the only thing taken was a coat - which wasn't mine. Understandable anger!

The one thing about that incident that still irritates me to this day is not that the burglars were never caught, in spite of the imprint of a trainer left clearly on the wall of the downstairs loo (near a tiny window, they must have used kids for entry, just like Bill Sykes!), not, as I say that the miscreants were not caught, no, the real irritation was that they didn't take my dad's camera.

My dad's camera was an expensive SLR which had been camera of the year a years previously. The thieves had taken in out of the drawer, had looked at it, and then not stolen it. How dare they! What the hell do I have to have for them to consider it worthy of theft? Thieves have no class!

Anyway. No sale by the look of it. Not that I am becoming manically depressed or anything. Oh no. Not me. Nor I.

As a way of lifting this non existent depression. I decided to go to a concert at Saint David's Hall in Cardiff.

Ravel - Bolero; Canteloube - Songs of the Auvergne; Poulenc - Concerto for Two Pianos and Saint-Saens - Symphony No 3 (Organ). The Orchestra was the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the conductor Grant Llewellyn. The soprano in the Canteloube was Patricia Rozario and the two pianists were Frank Braley and Anne Queffelec.

The Bolero was played very much like a concerto for orchestra with the individual instrumentalists showing their abilities, one expert following another until the spell was broken by the messy playing of the trombonist. God knows the piece is vulgar enough without the conducting of Grant Llewellyn, but his capricious approach to the tempi added to the garish obviousness of the whole occasion. The separation of the players meant that there was little sense of ensemble in the playing which was harsh and abrupt, harmony was sacrificed to clarity.

I can only consider the Canteloube from the point of view of the orchestration. My seat, behind the orchestra, gave me a great view of the soprano's back, but the only sound I heard he make was the reflected echo from the front rows of the seats.

This section of songs from the Songs of the Auvergne meant that the concerto for orchestra theme continued. The pieces gave the orchestra another occasion to showcase their skills. I must admit that sitting where I was, liberated from the tyranny of the voice in a series of songs the orchestra effect was lively, engrossing and whimsical.

The Poulenc was an extraordinary piece of music. I kept expecting to see an French black and white film flickering away above the orchestra, becuase the music would have been an excellen accompanyment to the images. Can we be expected to take this confection of a concerto seriously? I think not. It was yet another showcase of musical ability, but I don't think that it amounted to any more than a series of scintillating musical fireworks, episodic and perhaps no more than that.

Sitting within feet of the organ, you cannot fail to become part of the music in a symphony like the third by Saint-Saens. The second entry of the organ in those cheap chords which penetrate you directly was magical. The full power of the orchestra agmented by the mighty organ was unleased on a wallowing audience and we duly were swept away by the power of the music. Grant Llewellyn's interpretation certainly had power and command but it lacked sophistication.

An evening full of interest, but one which left me feeling slightly cheated. I was looking for more personality in the music. Unlike Rodin's statue of Balzac, that mighty figure wrapped in his heroic cloak, I didn't feel that there was a structure underneath the bombastic show of Llewellyn's presentation: a fantastic outside, but a hollow interior.

Today (Saturday) ANOTHER viewing. Different people. Different hopes. I will continue this later after coffee with a colleague (past colleague, remember retirement) who is struggling with the effects of working in a secondary school under 'special measures'.

Now I don't want you to think that I am being morbid, but I've had a response from the visits of people to my home. I am too depressed to find out exactly what they thought of ("your beautiful home, don't get me wrong" [estate agent]) my home, but the fact is that they have not offered me vast sums of cash.

Now I am faced with a decision: panic or not to panic. the first course of action is to listen to the advice of an estate agent (sic.) and lower the price by some £10k; listen to friends and lower it by £5k; listen to my nearest and dearest and think that this is early days and have the courage to stick out for what I think my home is worth or, lastly, go to bed and weep. I have to say that the last alternative sounds good to me.

I have made a resolution to do something each day which will give me the basis for a more interesting post than worrying about mere money. Sob! And that is what I will do.

Tomorrow (Sunday): broadcast to the nation. Midday will see me (well hear me) with others taking part in the BBC Wales Radio programme, "Something Else" , surely this will give me a more interesting basis to write. Tomorrow will tell. Keep reading!