Delayed Days!

What are the signs of a real capital city? Murder, mayhem, rape, violence on an escalating scale, traffic gridlock, death of the inner city, high level corruption, world class paintings, an opera house, an international airport, a rapid transit system, a landmark building, and civic pride.

How does Cardiff fit this profile? Far be it from me to speculate how many of the requisites above apply to my fair city, but the element which is uppermost in my mind today is that of the airport.

I know it is fashionable, especially among the classes who habitually travel by air in a class which is not steerage with knees tucked firmly underneath chins, to decry the growing trend of folk to travel by air. Global warming and the cataclysms which threaten to follow that phenomenon should make us think more than once about the consequences of trivial foreign (or domestic) travel by plane. To me it seems as if the chattering classes are a little miffed by the fact that anyone can now hold a conversation and pepper their talk with details of foreign cities and resorts which, at one time, would have been the preserve of the rich and the very rich.

It is the same sort of argument which is used in the debate about the Amazonian rain forest and the destruction thereof. We in the west decry the indiscriminate cutting of the rainforest (“the lungs” we are told, “of the world”) by rapacious capitalists intent on making money, while carefully ignoring the fact that countries like Great Britain were once densely wooded. Where did that timber go? Why, it was fed into the furnaces that stoked up the Industrial Revolution and make this country a pre-eminent economic power. We got rich by destroying our environment, but perish the thought that any country should follow our lead.

It is a symptom of class fear: the Victorians were the best exemplars of the terror that comes with increased industrialisation and the expansion of the fruits of capitalism actually allowing the Other Breeds Without the Law to enjoy the fruits of increases in the standard of living. Travel and communication are the basic elements which allow people to know, develop, learn and expect. No wonder that these were taxed and limited by the governing classes to keep the people down. I had thought that we had developed further than the Victorians, but there again I always did have a hazy idea of history.

Once the Pandora’s box of consumerism, instant communication and cheap travel has been opened and the concepts have been firmly embedded in the consciousness of a people, it will take a revolution of grim repression to close it again.

One of my many heroes was Clive Jenkins (of whom I can do a passable imitation, though for depressingly few people who still remember him) trade union leader of ASTMS and bon viveur. His epicurean tastes always got him in trouble in the scum press, but he invariably used to say something like, “Yes I like caviar, champagne and good cigars, and I am working to enable all members of the working classes to enjoy them too.” He should have been a Jesuit!

I can’t help thinking that all the preceding history babble is mere justification for the continuation of cheap flights so that I may continue to swan my way around the world. Fair point, but it seems to me to be justification enough.

Saturday 9th

I can only plead that a fun filled day of chauffeuring has precluded the necessary scribbling to the quotidian mean. I will do better today, though I only have until the afternoon to write something, as I am going to the Rocky Horror Show with Michael Aspel as the narrator. Makes a bit of a change from the concert yesterday in Saint David’s Hall with Britten, Bartok and Shostakovich!

The concert hall was depressingly empty. Although Huw said that while waiting with the tickets he thought that the audience was amazingly varied in its demographic, just looking around showed that the majority of the people sitting in their scattered seats were older rather than younger. It is a fact that a sizable chunk of the teaching profession is reaching retirement age, we live in an ageing society, but if classical music is to survive without absolutely breathtaking subsidy (instead of the present merely extortionate subsidy) a new audience is going to have to be attracted.

The programme was not that taxing: The Sea Interludes by Benjamin Britten; Third Piano Concerto by Bartok and Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. The concert and each piece were introduced by Michael Berkeley. This is an innovation and I can only applaud the BBC by making the link between performers and audience a little less intimidating. The presenter had that plumy voice beloved of the BBC Third Service and his comments were directed towards a listening public with some degree of musical knowledge. I thought that the level was about right for the audience that was in front of him and the likely audience listening to the broadcast on Radio 3, but I’m not sure that it would encourage a first time visitor to come again, and it was not the sort of commentary which would make the music approachable for a musical neophyte.

Having said that, I do not want a dumbing down of the content of a programme or the way in which the music is described: but that in itself is perhaps a condemnation of classical music to oblivion. Unless habitual concert goers feel some intellectual pain then the level of communication for the concerts will probably not reach outside the comfort zone of dedicated audiophiles. It is a tricky problem. Some concerts will perhaps price themselves realistically, and therefore price themselves out of the pocket of most normal music goers, while the BBC with its commitment to music for all will have an increasingly difficult problem in providing music at any sort of reasonable price. It seems to me that the television license is the only way to fund the majority of the BBC if it wants to keep up or expand its present remit.

Sunday 10th

Meanwhile the concert: the choice of programme was interesting and not necessarily ‘pop’ but the composers were mainstream and the pieces of music relatively well known.

The Britten was a revelation. I realised that it was the first time that I had heard the music played as a concert piece in a purpose built concert hall. Previously I have had to contend with the Acoustic of Death in that hell hole for opera – the New Theatre. The sophistication of the orchestration is not fully appreciated without the clarity of a superlative orchestra playing with verve which was the keynote of the performance of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The sharp delineation of the soundscape of the pieces was a delight to hear. My only reservations were in ‘Moonlight’ where the ensemble playing was not quite as exact as in the other pieces, but this is a cavilling criticism and it did not detract from the overall impression.

Llyr Williams’ performance in the Bartok Piano Concerto No 3 was the best that I have heard him give. There was an authority about his playing which fully deserved the enthusiastic reception given at the end and, unheard of treat from a British performer; he did an encore of another piece by Bartok (I think!)

The star performances were reserved for the last item on the programme, Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10. This is a piece which has to be heard in the concert hall so that the pianissimo opening of the symphony can be appreciated. There were no false moments in this symphony and the orchestra and conductor seemed to be fully in accord. The enthusiasm of the conductor at the end of his mammoth piece of music was more akin to the scoring of a goal, and I think fully justified in its glittering achievement.

Thierry Fischer continues to impress and he certainly seems to have the full support of the orchestra in the way that he want the music to sound. I look forward to the next concert.

The Rocky Horror Show was the usual phantasmagoria where the audience seemed to be vying (and in many cases outdoing) the antics on the stage!

The set was intelligent and well used with a few moments of genuine theatrical presence. Janet (Slut!) using vigorous hand movements to get the windscreen wipers working characterised the ambiguous single entendre that worked so well on stage. The use of ladders, sliding flats and models worked incredibly well and Rocky managed to combine a chiselled six pack with a more than decent singing voice! It was a good ensemble production only limited by the fact that it was the first of two performances that night.

Michael Aspel was magisterial as the narrator, but his performance did not manage to eclipse the defining performance of Charles Grey and, in the same way, other performances by Frank N Furter and Riff Raff were too close to the characters in the film to be comfortable and they were not good enough to make you forget the originals.

The chit chat between actors and audience was limited, more I think by the necessity of getting the audience out for the second house than any disinclination on the part of the actors to respond to a hyped up group of weirdly dressed observers! I think that the second house would probably have been more open ended.

The after performance meal in the Italian restaurant Trattoria Pulcinella was grotesquely overpriced, taking full advantage of the proximity to Christmas to fleece the willing and gullible paying public. If I had known that the price for four was going to be £150 (admittedly with a few bottles of wine, house wine, thrown in) I would have looked elsewhere. But elsewhere at a reasonable price probably doesn’t exist in the centre of Cardiff on the 9th of December.

After taking the Catalans back to their plane, the rest of the day has been one where rest and relaxation has been the order of the rest of the day.

We will probably spend the next week finding where Carles has placed the objects that took his fancy.

At least it will give me an incentive to clean properly. Who knows what I might find.