Berberis' World

Saturday, 9th October 2010, Royal Festival Hall.

“Following their success last year with Dvorák’s ‘Requiem’… Neeme Järvi and the London Philharmonic presented two better-known choral works in this Royal Festival Hall concert. The moving ‘Stabat Mater’ and jubilant ‘Te Deum’… The London Philharmonic Chorus was on fine form, impressively unanimous in moments of both subtle intimacy and full-throated might… the magnificent a cappella passage at the end of the final chorus was spine-tingling.”

Graham Rogers, classicalsource.com

“…excellent, well-balanced choral work… a wonderful ‘Paradisi gloria’ and a miraculous unaccompanied choral moment near the end… The London Philharmonic Choir remains a superb group, working impressively as a single body at either end of the dynamic spectrum.”

Colin Clarke, musicweb-international.com

“Superbly drilled, the London Philharmonic Choir came into its own in the a cappella passages, but sang impressively throughout.”

Erica Jeal, guardian.co.uk

Better known, eh? Well, I’d not heard either of these pieces before, and it took a while for each of them to grow on me. In the end, I much preferred the Stabat Mater to the Te Deum, but my enjoyment (and the anticipation of savouring the wonderful lines of the opening movement) was somewhat spoiled by the fact that it was taken at what I considered to be an indecently fast tempo. Dvorak wrote the Stabat Mater during a relatively short period of time when three of his children died – one at only 2 days of age – and the opening movement should not (in my humble opinion) have been taken at a Usain Bolt-like breakneck speed.

Maestro Jarvi’s stated reason for proceeding with such alacrity was that the opening movement is ‘very long’ (between 17 and 20 minutes) and he didn’t want to “bore” the audience! The recording I’ve been listening to takes the opening at a slower – frankly, more respectful – tempo, which makes so much more sense against the background of Dvorak’s undoubted grief. For the sake of doing proper justice to some very moving music, I’d have risked one or two people possibly being bored. No, I’d have risked them all being bored in order that just one or two of them might hear the anguish, the aching poignancy contained in those bars.

But he is the Maestro, and he has the baton, and we follow it whether we like it or not. Anyway, after the sprint to Movement 2, things were allowed to calm down a bit. I particularly enjoyed both the ‘Eia, Mater’ and the ‘Virgo, Virginum’, although (once again) I was unlucky enough to catch something virulent in the run-up to the concert, which meant that I had a much better final rehearsal than performance. Just as well they recorded both.

The final movement is written to be played at the same tempo as the first. Thankfully, Jarvi took notice of the composer’s instructions and conducted it at a speed that I think both we (the choir) and the audience (at the receiving end) found more appropriate. At the very end, the unaccompanied ‘Quando corpus’ was less conducted than fought, with Jarvi clutching the baton with both hands, wielding it in the manner of Obi-Wan Kenobi battling Darth Vader. I almost expected lightning to shoot from it.

As usual, I ran out of breath at the worst moments, which just reinforces my belief that singing lessons would be a good idea. I think we managed to remember everything Neville had nagged us about – most importantly the fact that Maestro Jarvi could be ‘unpredictable’ in his interpretation – as he seemed quite happy at all three curtain calls.

Not to forget the Te Deum: it was quite Christmassy.

Every now and again, I get obsessed with something. Right this minute, this something is barbershop. I could listen to this all day. I’m at the very least an agnostic, but even I get teary at these guys’ rendition of “It Is Well With My Soul”. They are truly awesome.

Saturday, 4th September 2010.

A friend of mine left London today, to go oop Nowath to teach. We joined the LPC at roughly the same time – I think I had my audition a week or two earlier – but only met properly just before the Xmas concert at Bishopsgate that same year. We got chatting in the corridor as we lined up before the concert, and I liked her straight away. She was clever and funny and, having felt a little out of my depth in this new musical environment, it was good to see a friendly face at rehearsals. We would sit at the back, generally enjoying ourselves as we worked through the piece.

We were always laughing at something; we’d rename pieces, draw cartoons, make up new words and, frankly, act like a couple of kids, to the disapproval of some of the more senior members of the choir. Elijah’s folded beard springs instantly to mind, as does ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ in front of 2000 or so clinical immunologists. We renamed it ‘Bobby Charlton’ and dared each other to sing that instead. It was a lot of fun, and I will miss that. Rehearsals for Dvorak start on Monday, and it’s going to be odd her not being there.

Still, things change, and it’s been a week of coming to terms with change. Zachary didn’t do well enough in his GCSEs to get into his 6th form of choice, so has had to rethink his immediate future. To his credit, he’s done this with only a little complaint; after a fraught few days, he took my advice and went to a local college, got himself through an interview and enrolled in just 2 days. He starts on Wednesday, and we’re hoping that it’s the wake-up call he needed after what appeared to us to be 12 months of complacency on his part. It was evident in his school work that he became either lazy or distracted just at the wrong time, and never really caught up. Perhaps concentrating on just one subject at college – rather than studying 3 for the sake of it at 6th form – will be more productive.

And both he and I will have to find someone new to sit next to.

Yes, even though it’s still a fortnight away, my brain has already gone into ‘demob’ mode, and I am currently not giving a tinker’s cuss what happens at work. Wrong, I know, but that’s how it is when you’re anticipating your first break as just a couple in 22 years.

Don’t get me wrong; going on holiday with kids can be fun. Pontins and Centerparcs (sic) have much to offer, providing you have access to cheap plonk and a barbecue. However, as your kids get older, they want more and you (having brought them up, and being thus burned out) want less. If you can weather the years when they can’t go where they want to without your permission – which you are happy to give, even though it is tempered by the fact you have to pack for their week away in Wales – there comes the day when they are both (a) able and, (b) desperate to get away from you. The only thing you have to bear in mind is that the cat might be horribly sick during the one and only week in the last decade that both your kids are away at the same time…

There are several things I want from this holiday, and they are:

1. That I don’t catch something before I go away.

2. That I have sufficient sunscreen (in both quantity and strength).

3. That I have sufficent reading material.

4. That I don’t catch something whilst away.

5. That we have access to the WWW.

I include the last solely in case the kids need to get in touch with us in case of an emergency. I can live without Twitter and email and access to everything you could ever need to know about everything in return for 10 days and 11 nights of sun, sand and sauvignon.

It’s a school night, so this rant has to end here. I’ve had a glass or 2 of cab-sauv and am feeling (1) relaxed and, (2) that perhaps I drink too much. YMMV. Elijah has nearly downloaded, and I will be off to the Land of Nod very soon. Night all.

I started writing this at work, until I realised that if what I’d written was found, I’d probably be fired. Maybe that’s just paranoia, but I’d not believed that work could get more stressful or less satisfying… yet today it did.

I walked into the office at 8.35am, and it was already 27 deg C with no movement of air whatsoever. Also, my ‘phone was ringing. As it was an internal call – usually meaning that notes/scans are missing, or patients have turned up at the wrong time – I answered it. My line manager wanted to discuss the report I’d been working on for the previous week, and how the issues it raised could be addressed. I said I’d just arrived, had not even turned on the computer, and she said she’d call later.

At just after 9, she called again. We had a brief discussion about the report and I told her that her manager had been asking for it to be emailed to her so that she could look at it. In that it changes every half an hour or less, we’d agreed to save it on a shared drive so that it could be accessed by everyone who needed to review it.

Unfortunately, I’d not fully grasped what it might mean to give everyone access without protecting the document from cock-ups. Which meant that within 30 seconds, she’d overwritten the original report and lost a week’s work.

There is an intensity of anger which cannot be articulated. It is simply felt as a knot in your stomach. Every time you think about what has caused it, the knot tightens. Your skin flushes hot and cold, your hands tremble, and you begin to wonder if your heart is going to find its way to your throat and choke you.

It wasn’t even 9.15. I called my manager and asked her what had happened to the report – I had to be direct, lest I vent my spleen – and she said that someone was checking what had happened and was sorting it out.

I don’t remember much of what I did between then and about 11.20, when it became obvious that no-one was going to sort it out. Someone made me a cup of coffee, and I rearranged the piles of work on my desk so that it might be less intimidating. The former went cold and the latter failed.

A little later – and on the basis that there surely has to be a back-up – I emailed the IT department and asked them directly if they might be able to resurrect the spreadsheet as it existed at 9.03am, but I don’t hold out much hope, to be honest. I’ve watched too many episodes of The IT Crowd to believe that more than the smallest number of IT departments have the first fucking clue what they’re doing. We shall see.

And since when does going abroad for a year in 2 days time make you eligible for urgent medical treatment? If you’re that ill, the only place you should be going is bed. I felt a surge of absolute fury, not tempered by the fact that this wasn’t the first time it had happened.

I left work at 6.30pm. When I got home, I sang along to Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Am Singing’ (from Songs in the Key of Life, an awesome album) before hanging out some laundry and having a glass or several of wine. Of which there is some left and I am going to have some more.

I feel calmer now. With any luck, I will be able to deal with all the shit that hits tomorrow’s fan with a slightly reduced feeling of hysteria than I did today’s.