Hampshire: County 19

One of the joys of this project has been revisiting places I know, reconnecting with people from my past, as I’ve twisted arms of everyone I can think of to help arrange performances in every conceivable corner of the country. 

Hampshire was always going to be Winchester, if possible, and the person to organise it could only be Hilary. I spent my gap year between school and university working in Winchester, and she was one of my two bosses. She was then, and remains now, a force of nature. Few people have worked out how to say no to her… which is extremely useful when she is organising a mad project for you! (…if somewhat embarrassing when you’re walking through the Close and she’s trilling at people you’ve never met before that they simply must come, waving a donation bucket in their face. That Is How You Get Things Done.)

And so I found myself returning to the city two Tuesdays in a row, on each occasion giving a lunchtime concert in the cathedral as part of their weekly series, and then a longer afternoon concert down the road at St Michael’s (‘Michla’, in local speak).

The cathedral concerts are usually performed by promising young musicians in the area, so I felt a bit fraudulent on that count, being very definitely Not Quite So Young Any More, though very grateful for having been given two slots in the schedule! The North Transept is a remarkable space: with its great height and Romanesque arches, it could almost (with eyes half shut) be a corner of the Colosseum. It’s so unusual compared to the gothic architecture we’re used to in this country’s cathedrals; as someone commented in response to my picture on Twitter, it makes you realise how extraordinary the Romanesque cathedral – of which the transepts are the main survivors – once was. An English Cluny, he suggests…

On the hour, every hour, a member of the clergy team asks the visitors to be quiet for a moment and offers prayers. Just as I was arriving to practise, the prayers acknowledged that this building has been here through war and peace, plague and health, for nearly 1,000 years. That’s quite a thought, war and plague never far from our minds today, and it felt like an inspiring bit of scene-setting for playing this music – which similarly covers, as I always say, so much of human experience, in a way that doesn’t change over time (although admittedly the 300 years since Bach published this collection seems quiet small in comparison to the 1,000 years since these stones were laid!). 

Because the building is open to visitors at the same time, there is inevitably a certain amount of coming and going at the back of these concerts: on the one (honest) hand, it can be a little distracting having people moving around in your field of vision; but on the other (much more important hand) it means people stumble across this music who didn’t come for it! Two young children sat at the back for much of the first concert. A group of mayors were visiting as part of a conference (one of whom kindly left me a souvenir pen!). A couple came up to me after the second week, saying they’d never been to a classical piano concert before, and that they were bowled over by it. They noticed that it felt as though a whole group of people was playing because there was so much going on in the music (yes! Counterpoint in a nutshell!), and they were quite emotional talking about the power of the music, the feeling of being transported somewhere completely other by the shared live experience, in that moment, in that place, alone with their thoughts, but in it together.

I had, years ago, performed in the cathedral series before, so I knew roughly how that might be – but I wasn’t sure what to expect over in Michla. The first ever choral society rehearsals I played for used to be in that space (Britten War Requiem – talk about in at the deep end!), so I had some memory of it, but in recent years the building has been completely overhauled and feels completely different. Essentially used as Winchester College’s overflow chapel (because the school has outgrown the main one), this is also now a flexible rehearsal space: the pews are gone, comfortable (movable) chairs have replaced them, and the school’s incredible maintenance team turn it around in no time from concert to wind band practice (as at the end of my performances), or presumably to church service setup as needed. Owing to an overrunning restoration job in Hamburg on the piano that normally lives here, Steinway had been persuaded to send a (temporary) replacement instrument – an upgrade, in fact, on the regular piano, as this turned out to be a shiny new Steinway D (full-size and top-notch, in other words). The combination of the instrument and the space – with its light and height – was wonderful: I found the two Michla concerts very peaceful. And although technically these (long) performances were drop-in, drop-out, there was a real attentiveness and stillness amongst the listeners. 

Several people came to the ‘whole’ 48, others to just part; old friendships were renewed, and new acquaintances formed. A violist colleague came, my parents came, loyal friends and supporters came who claim to live quite near but actually made a real effort to get there, a friend from my teen years who now lives in Winchester was there, the mum of a childhood friend was there, several familiar faces from my Winchester year were there. My ‘other’ boss from that gap year, Christopher, was there, and it was so lovely to see him again. I had a chance to catch up with a virger friend there, son of a late dear friend. The performances were cocooned in meticulously planned meal breaks – breakfast at the Ivy (fancy!), snacks wrapped and smuggled into green rooms (less fancy but equally appreciated), meals at Hilary and Colin’s (including one prepared by a fabulous friend of theirs who I hadn’t even met before). As always on these Bach trips there’s not enough time. But some time is better than none, and it was precious to catch up, and to meet new people, and to laugh at how everything is different yet everything is the same since I was a green 18-year-old gap student in a music department.

There’s a funny (self-generated, of course) pressure that I’ve noticed going back to play at places where I was a ‘promising youngster’ at some earlier stage – this isn’t the first project performance that falls into that category. When people hold high hopes for you at an early stage of life it’s almost impossible to feel anything other than that you haven’t quite measured up – and that’s an odd bit of performance psychology to handle (though, of course, like most bits of performance psychology to handle, it has almost nothing to do with actual facts…). But that is so outweighed by the joy of seeing people again in those places who have been such a pivotal part of my journey as a musician and a person. My job in Winchester was split between Winchester College – where I was Assistant Organist – and the choir school, Pilgrims, where I supervised early morning instrumental practice (not my best time of day), conducted ensembles, accompanied exams, had a first go at teaching the piano, organised things, photocopied things, mended things. I learned so much in that year, amongst which perhaps the overarching idea is that if you’re going to do something, it’s really better to do it seriously well if you possibly can. And that doing that will take a lot of work. But it’ll be worth it. Also – Hilary was the first person who suggested to me that I was actually quite good at accompanying, and should think about doing it more. She has a lot to answer for and I’m so grateful.

Massive thanks not only to Hilary, who came into the first day of this straight off the back of the Winchester Chamber Music Festival of which she is a very hands-on Chair, but also to Nick – Head of Keyboard, and currently also Acting Director of Music (quite a combination of jobs – I have no idea how he does it, let alone efficiently and with a smile) at Winchester College. School life doesn’t stand still, and within hours of finishing playing, I was adjudicating the inaugural Peter Tombling Bach prize – awarded in memory of a late member of staff who (as well as teaching maths, being a housemaster and cheering sports teams from the side) was a dedicatee of Bach’s music, a professional musician in all but name, and performed the 48 himself through a series of lecture recitals. The new prize was for the performance of Bach, and the students ranged from singers to string players and from pianists to organists, some very expereinced, some less so, but all drawn to the challenges and rewards of this music. I have no idea whether I was helpful to them, but I very much enjoyed hearing them, and musing with them on the fact that the challenges never stop being challenging but the rewards never fail to recompense.

A long day, then! – both weeks. But in both cases it was finished with a welcome glass of wine – week 1 of course in the Wykeham Arms, because where else, and week 2 at high speed in the pub nearest the station with my dear friend Vicki! 

Very sweetly, after the last performance, I was presented with a bottle of fizz, and the generous vote of thanks commented that the process of hearing this music had been, “Exciting… moving…. emotionally draining…. but most of all exhilarating.” I’ll take that. Thank you.