It is amazing how many quality amateur choirs there are in Bath and there is
an amateur orchestra and various instrumental groups. It is an enormous
interest compared with the tiny numbers that turn up for poetry. And the
time people must volunteer is quite staggering.
Regarding Wells Cathedral did you climb up to the Chapterhouse David L.
That is my favourite spot. The only time I went to a Festival concert there
(Mozart's Ave RErum) i was behind a pillar so I havent been back.
Regarding Sebald I have read all the prose books published before his
untimely death but have avoided the poetry cos I dont think of him as a poet
and they cost money in hardback. Austerlitz is prob my favourite but they
are all worth reading.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 4:52 AM
Subject: Re: Bath in Mozart
> David Latane wrote:
>
>> Last night we heard the 25-year old concertmaster of
>> the Richmond Symphony (Karen Johnston) play the
>> Sibelius violin concerto, with her new old fiddle. The
>> audience for Classical music may be dodgy as Douglas
>> says, but the quality in places like Richmond,
>> Virginia, is better than ever.
>
>> http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)
>
> I think eccentric might be a better word than dodgy. Saturday last in
> Leicester, at the beautiful and should not exist church of St James the
> Greater (built 1899-1914 and not too many doors away from Larkin's
> favourite
> attic-flat), we heard the Berlioz Te Deum, some songs by Faure, excerpts
> from Vierne, and the Duruffle Requiem (a work which was new to me). The
> performers were the amteur but dedicated City of Leicester choir, fronted
> by
> semi-pro bass, tenor and soprano and supported by the church's organist.
> Things like this go on all the time, and get little publicity, as a friend
> of mine is in the choir I know just how much hard work goes into preparing
> their 6 to 8 concerts a year, you know, rehearsals twice a week, almost
> week
> in week out, they get the odd 'holiday'.
> It's quite comparable to the amount of work that goes into supporting
> 'serious' poetry in the fact of its unpaidness, though I would suggest
> that
> the musicians on average are more au fait with the techiques of their art.
> I
> didn't report, btw, just how enjoyable Jack Mapanje's reading here the
> other
> week was, one of the interesting things was this was a joint venture with
> De
> Montfort University, which is literally over the road from where I live,
> for
> the first time, after living next door for over seven years, I was able to
> make links with people based there, the irony of our mutual co-existence
> at
> close quarters without mutual awareness was a treat.
> Anyhow the Mapanje reading was a 'success': we had 34 people there! (The
> concert had about 150, a 'smallish' turnout!)
>
> Just read Hamburger's translation of W.G.Sebald's 'After Nature' - anyone
> else know the work - I'd be interested in discussion of aspects of it.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
> --
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