a concert

I went this afternoon to the second of my music society's series of winter concerts.  We had a string quartet, very nice, joined for the latter part of the performance by an extra violist.  I am not sure I knew that somebody who played the viola was called a violist, but that's how he's described in the programme.  The quartet were the Eeden Quartet, formerly called the Wu after their first violin, Ms Wu, who has left.  First violinists do seem a starry lot with a tendency to move.  Far better if you are a young up-and-coming quartet to name yourselves after a composer who is safely dead, or their birthplace, or some moniker you can stick with notwithstanding changes in personnel.

The Eeden all looked absurdly young, which is merely a sign that I am getting absurdly older since they are well established musicians who have performed at the Wigmore Hall and in the BBC Proms and all sorts of places.  The extra violist Graham Oppenheimer was even better established, having played with the likes of the Lindsay, and holding several music management and teaching positions. It was a great treat to hear them in a church in Suffolk instead of having to schlep up to London. They played Haydn's Dream Quartet, Mozart's String Quintet in C, and Brahms String Quintet no 2 in G major.  I love Haydn, who always sounds so cheerful about life, and was grateful to the committee member who is nudging his way towards becoming Concert Secretary if the Chairman has anything to do with it for the inclusion of the Brahms.  Maybe I should start lobbying for Franck's Violin Sonata, I don't mind whether the violin version or the arrangement for cello, but I think I sit below the salt when it comes to programming.

The church was very cold, and at the AGM that followed the concert the verger warned us that it was likely to be even colder by the time of the next concert in January.  The original system was to use the church for the first and last concerts of the season, and hold the others in the village hall where there is some hope of the heating nudging the hall close to what would normally be considered room temperature.  In the church there is no hope at all, even with the central heating on.  I did feel it was rather a waste when I had changed out of my gardening clothes into a quite upmarket black polo neck sweater, tunic dress and natty black jacket, that all anybody could see of my outfit for the entire evening was my polo neck and my boots, because I never took my greatcoat off.  I kept my hat on for the actual performance, only removing it for the interval tea and the AGM because it seemed to be making the point too emphatically that the room was freezing to stand there drinking tea in a hat.

The village hall presents two difficulties.  One is that as the fire regulations have tightened the effective capacity has shrunk.  We'd have barely fitted tonight's audience in the hall, and it would be sad to have to turn people away at the door.  Besides, we need the gate money.  Rising quartets and internationally respected violists cost more than we'd get if we sold every seat in the village hall at full price, which we don't because there's a loyal core of season ticket holders.  Sponsorship plugs the gap, but the music society still needs bums on seats, and sometimes those seats need to be a freezing pew.

I took the minutes of the AGM, since taking minutes is one of the few tangible things I actually do on the committee, beyond making cheese straws and helping move chairs about.  They will make perfect sense once the Chairman has helped fill in the gaps for the real names of some of the proposers and seconders.  Seconded by the wife of the tall, thin man who lives in Lawford won't really do.