Needful things.

Let us imagine a conversation.

“Do you have a job?”
“No.”
“Do you have a regular income?”
“No.”
“Do you own an ipod 60 GB video mp3 player? The most expensive player in the range?
“Yes.”
“Have you just bought another ipod, to be specific an ipod 80GB video mp3 player?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anything wrong with the previous ipod?”
“Yes. It was full up.”

There is a wonderful fin de siecle feel, a je ne sait quoi moment, as we say in Kennerleigh Road, about that. In the same league of thoughtlessness, most would say, with the myth of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt.

Many who know me will be shocked by such a wilfully extravagant, financially inept and gloriously unreasonable gesture of purchasing. I have to say that if they think that, then they know me little. I am particularly adept at the sort of logic that would make an extremist Jesuit baulk; especially when it involves an aspect of any form of retail therapy (it is, by the way, most encouraging to see so many people now accept this treatment, placing it firmly in the realm of therapeutic medication.)

One feels that like Louis Armstrong in a different context, if one has to explain any purchase, the questioners would thereby show themselves not be able to appreciate the answer with the correct degree of dignity.

Suffice to say that this purchase (with another more difficult to justify, though just as expensive) exists and, like the early prose works of Evelyn Waugh, must be accepted as a sardonic comment on the prevailing mores of our decadent society, in whose grip, I am, of course, merely a helpless pawn. Ahem.

The concert last night in St David’s Hall more than lived up to my expectations. Having decided enthusiastically to adopt at least some of the precepts of frugality given my present reduced circumstances [for the sake of the logical flow of this and succeeding paragraphs, please ignore any financial inconsistencies in the preceding paragraphs.] I went down town by bus. By the time that I arrived in the centre, the start of the concert was looming.

I rushed into the reception of the hall and gasped out my need for a ticket. The one that I was given was in the rarefied atmosphere of Tier 13. This was well into the area involving the massive indignity of having to go to ‘The Higher Tiers’ an ignominy that, in my previous incarnation as a Full Subscription Concert Goer, I had never previously had to endure. By the time that I got near to my seat, up seemingly endless flights of stairs, I was breathless and slightly juddery. There was a further schlep to my final destination of an actual seat and I slumped down, that in itself almost being the signal for the orchestra to come out to take their places.

The first shock of the night was to discover that there was another piece of music before the ‘Turangalila Symphony.’ This was Florent Schmitt’s ‘Psaume XLVII.’ I had never heard of either the composer or the piece. The fact that there was a full chorus of the BBC National Chorus of Wales sitting behind the orchestra and the further fact that the light for the organist was on, suggested a full blooded piece of music!

It was extraordinary: full of power and a thoroughly engaging musicality. The realization that I was sitting above the level of the elevated Chorus gave an almost mystical sense of separation with mellifluous voices wafting from the regions below. The piece was full of musical invention and the range of percussion used as an integral part of the experience showed why (according to the brief programme notes) Stravinsky admired Schmitt.

The music was so high powered, especially when sung with such gusto by the chorus, that the introduction of Christine Buffle as the soprano element in the piece, was a period of calm and contemplation rather than further excitement. This however did not last as she lustily joined in with everyone else in some rousing music. It was the sort of music that instantly attracted you and made you want to add it to your ipod (see!) and, in the interval chatting with Mike and Lynne a singer from the chorus joined us, enthused about the music and informed us that though it was difficult to find as a recording she was able to get hold of it by going to a web site called something like ‘crotchet.com’ and pay only £6 to possess it. Something to find out and to add to the ipod now that it has new memory for further music.

The Messiaen was fantastic. When listening to the wall of musical excitement which comprises so much of this extraordinary symphony, my mind is drawn back to the BBC Welsh Orchestra that I used to support when I was still in school. My traumatic memories of the exposed (in every sense of the word) horns in Beethoven’s Third symphony still sear the happy times of hearing famous music live for the first time. The idea of the Orchestra from the seventies even thinking about attempting a work as complex and challenging in orchestral terms, as Turangalila would have been unthinkable. How times have changed! When listening to the BBC NOW means never having to make compromises in your critical judgement.

The conductor, Thierry Fischer, conducted with the enthusiastic support of the orchestra and with considerable gymnastic flair: his pelvic gyrations were particularly ‘giving’! This delighted glances that Fischer gave at the superb piano playing of Roger Muraro and his complete ignoring of the Ondes Martinot player, Jacques Tchamkerten, seemed to be an astute artistic judgement.

As usual I was overwhelmed by the physical presence of this music and yet again found myself delighting in the inventive narrative flow of the piece. I can’t say that I wanted to hear it all again at the end because I knew that Paul was waiting for me to whisk me back to Rumney and dinner made by Paul Squared.

Calamari and home made meat balls followed by roulade and cream with the final course being a vast selection of irresistible cheeses. I felt that my refusal to eat German smoked processed cheese made me almost ascetic in my approach!. Who could ask for better at the end of a stimulating evening.

Oh yes, and a few glasses of wine, after all we are only human.