Music and fire!

After a day of unsurpassed and relentless depression (none of which was my fault for a change) it was a delightful relief to go to a concert of the popular Cardiff choir, Cantemus. Their concert was held in their traditional home, Tabernacl in The Hayes.

The programme was an adventurous one with items ranging from the composer who is virtually their patron saint, Bach, to the modern and trendy composer Arvo Pärt.

The concert opened with an electrifying call of “Komm!” the opening word of “Komm, Jesu Komm” by J S Bach which filled Tabornacl and made the most of the generous acoustic that the venue affords.

The choir is comfortable with Bach and they clearly enjoyed the almost playful antiphonal intricate nature of the piece. There was strength in depth throughout the music with the confident voices of the sectional choir responding and blending with musical satisfaction. This was a long testing piece which the choir took in its stride.

The first Arvo Pärt work was Solfeggio which Robert Court, the engagingly friendly conductor explained, was basically a C major chord fragmented and explored by the sections of the choir. The music had the languorous and expansive feel of Pärt’s popular symphony, but the ease of the piece is only achieved by the exposing the members of the choir who have to be spot on with each of the musical notes. And to a large extent they were: they were well advised to put this piece after they had had an opportunity to warm up with the Bach.

The other piece by Pärt was an enjoyable (and at times enjoyably ludicrous) musical setting for the boring genealogy that, as Robert Court pointed out, you skip in the reading of the bible. This setting, which at times reminded me of an American Black spiritual, was fascinatingly repetitive in the best traditions of Philip Glass!

The pieces by Heneghan and Lawson, settings of Shakespeare and Christina Rosetti respectively, suffered by their proximity of their more famous neighbours. They were slight, but pleasingly effective.

The second half of the programme opened with Elgar pieces written for choir competitions. They explored various techniques in vocal expression with tricky demands for the singers. Serenade was, for me, the most engaging of the four pieces and the choir responded with informed enthusiasm to them all.

The two pieces arranged by Robert Court brought us back to more familiar ground, and you could sense the relief of the audience at finding something they knew!

Dafydd y garreg wen gave an opportunity for the solo voice of David Leggett: his voice was mellow and soothing, though there was a nervy tremolo barely suppressed.

Court’s version of Wiegenlied was mellifluous and textured and he was not afraid to draw some assertive strength from his singers.

The Evening Hymn was something of a disappointment with Tabernacl’s wheezy organ accompanying an uninspired chunky piece of bog standard church singing.

This was a concert that deserved a full audience, from a choir that I have seen develop over the years so that now they are attempting things that would push a professional group. Long may their individual members have the unselfish commitment to continue a fine tradition.

Talking of fine traditions there is another one developing if you look for it.

Sullen eyed, slouched against a wall, radiating menace and threat they stand. On corners, in doorways, under arches they lurk. And ordinary people have to run the gauntlet as they go about their business, sensing the silent, resentful emanations as they shudder their way through that invisible barrier that surrounds those lonely individuals. They stay at their peripheral posts of rejection, clinging to the outer skin of buildings, seemingly unable (or unwilling) to enter, like claustrophobic vampires banished to their mural boundary. The smokers!

They are the new unclean; the lepers de nos jours; the outcasts; the Outsiders – literally. As you move around town you forget that all (all) enclosed public spaces are smoke free. What betting shops are like now beggars belief: do the punters now see clearly what a futile waste of space and time they have been subsidising?

Every few paces you see a surrealistic incongruous vignette as the inside is made the outside: the manager and the bank teller; the maitre d’ and the cleaner; the beauty consultant and the cashier – all forced into the sunlight to indulge their filthy habit, trying to look unconcerned, invisible and, above all, warm. Fat chance!

I’m beginning to find it quite threatening. These people really do look as they don’t belong and don’t want to belong to what’s going on around them. They seem like resentful aliens barely tolerating the lesser breeds without the law by whom they are surrounded.

My plan would be to have a Smoke Exclusion Zone around all the public buildings which fall within the new smoke free regulations. This Zone would be wide enough to include the whole of the pavement which runs along the shop fronts etc. This would eliminate the lonely cancer factories which obstruct entrances and exits.

¡No smokeran! as La Passionaria would have said!