24.11.90
Huddersfield? Surely shome mishtake? Well, a logical progression: Toronto, Munich, Huddersfield…
It’s quite nice, actually. I arrived at around 3.30pm, up for some of the music festival (the first time I’ve caught it – though I was tempted in 1982…) - perhaps the best time. Huddersfield was cold, wet, descending into the twilight. Gaudy Xmas lights were here and there; the rest strip lighting, bulbs. I sit now in Merrie England – an irresistible invitation – amidst mock Black & White, toasted scone and coffee before me. It’s really rather pleasant.
Walking around, even the shopping centre, long and low (à la Delhi) looks right. The Town Hall is small, and the Library (closing as I got there) very municipal, ringed by base mercantilism. The people look very northern: prematurely aged, displaced from 1990 to 1930, plus a fair number of Asians – who seem pretty integrated. I’m staying at the Huddersfield Hotel on Kirkgate – incredibly cheap (£22), nice old Victorian job, the type England excels in.
Thought about my trip down from Skye: 10 hours, the length of the island – why Britain is perfect: graspable by personal journey. And why the car is such bliss: such a metaphor for freedom, self-actualisation. I sit now in a smokey, greasy spoon cafe. So what drew me here? Well, it is about the only place serving food – and it happens to be called El Greco… I am surrounded by (apart from the tobacco smoke) mewling infants with their hard-pressed mums.
I have just come out of St Paul’s Hall at 6pm – feels like 11pm. Concert given by Postnikova and Schnittke (I’ve just realised who she is...). First piece: four-handed arrangement of Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” (by Shostakovich). Very heavy, muddy, poorly coordinated. Nearly fell asleep.
The, Schnittke’s Piano Sonata. Utterly gob-smacking, totally compelling, beautiful, varied, sonorous, delicate – yup, I really like it. Interesting effects: coughs all over the place. One poor sod had to leave – I know the feeling – and went outside. Unfortunately, such was the rapt attention this strangulated racking was still audible. An idea for a film – ideas for such increasingly impinge… Also the music tuner forgot – and Postnikova’s frightening final forearm cluster – with its last wrong note caught by the LH fifth finger. St Paul’s pretty much full. Usual anorak and B.O. crowd, plain-faced women. Schnittke very frail, long, lank hair – like something out of Dickens. That clash of person and art…
Along to the Town Hall for the 7.30 Schnittke. Beautifully restored: gleaming white, lime green, strawberry pink, cool light blue, dull guilt. Unfortunately, the orchestra is raised five feet up on a stage, beneath the splendid organ – topped by a rose-window type splay of trumpet stops. Could be a good house again.
What can I say? Simply one of the self-evidently greatest concerts I have ever been to. As proof of which, I stood at the end – perhaps the first time I have ever condescended to give such a standing ovation. The first work was Mahler’s Symphonic Prelude of 1876 – that is when he was 16. As ever, these first works are so revealing. Wagner very present, but also already Mahlerian footprints – especially the love of the submediant note. Lots of young brass, very bumptious, plangent oboes etc.
Then Schnittke’s “Ritual for Orchestra” – memorial to the victims of the Second World War. As soon as it began – on the lowest notes of the tuba – it was obvious this piece had an utter inevitability about it – as the Piano Sonata did too. It simply – so beautifully simply – worked its way up from the lowest notes, higher and higher, to a huge climax and then fell down in volume, but continued to rise and rise, until it finished on tubular bells. Gripping, moving, very Part like. The fourth (fourth!) violin concerto with György Pauk as soloist – looking very like Michael Gambon at times. Magisterial performance (though what all the silent moving of bows around was, I know not). The work again so right – except for the last movement, that seemed slightly tacked-on. Shame.
After the interval, Schnittke’s Faust Cantata for huge forces, including the Huddersfield Choral Society, and its large complement of large ladies, with the largest at the top of a quarter pyramid like a fairy on top of a Xmas tree – all done out in Come Dancing pink taffeta. Again, just so successful, thrilling, varied – and right. Particularly interesting in its melding of styles – something present in his other works too – including here a full-blown tango and Berlinesque chanteuse. A stern, Wotanish John Tomlinson, an ethereal Paul Esswood – the first time I’ve seen him – a vampish Fiona Kimm – the Town Hall full to bursting with singers, players – and us. And with the applause, Schnittke looks so frail, and his music so powerful.
25.11.90
Now in the Art Gallery, waiting for the musicians to play. The smell of wax polish everywhere. A nice, provincial exhibition of local watercolours outside, and a roomful of 20th century greats.
Breakfast – very English, reading the Observer. Then for a walk round the town. I love Sunday mornings. The silence and the peace. As ever (cf. Delhi Connaught Place) I am slightly disappointed when I see a place with the great black tent of night lifted. Everything looks too small. By night, it is like being in a huge, low hall. Huddersfield, it turns out, is rather small. Round the Polytechnic: depressing, angular, soulless buildings.
Walking around, I am asked the way – foreigners: not Russians, but Lithuanians. I would love to travel in Lithuania...Latvia, Estonia, Frisia – a travel around the edge of Europe, the marginalised lands, marginalised people.
Last night: I forgot about the Tristan quotation at the mention of the name “Wagner” in the Faust – obvious, but fun. Then round the town, the local lads and lasses out in their Yorkshire finery. On the way up I couldn’t understand what someone in the motorway cafe sad. Reminds me of the ferry from Euboea, as I asked for coffee.
Now in the Polytechnic Common Room, with a nice view to the hills, sitting in a beautifully carved chair complete with note-taking spatulate right arm (dextrism again). I forgot to mention (again) last night’s aborted visit to Orkestrion. Sparsely populated in St Paul’s – and justly so. Usual nameless impro stuff – and TOO DAMN LOUD. I fled to preserve my vestigial hearing.
As ever, I find it hard to imagine what it is like living in somewhere like Huddersfield. Perhaps everything is relative (yes, probably, mate) – after all, London was at one time small absolutely (and relative to now) – but was still a metropolis.
Caged bird twitter and churr…
After lunch, a final walk around Huddersfield – now bathed in winter sun, with its inhabitants out and about. Very pleasant. Back to St Paul’s for the Lithuanian stuff. First piece – very varied, but good – others rather too episodic – though some nice use of folk instruments – especially in the third piece – minimalist minimalism – Lithuanian Steve Reich. Clearly a vibrant scene, though.
Under me, on the café bridge the cars pass like fireworks.
