I sent this yesterday by email to the Financial Editor of The Guardian:
The first page of yesterday's Business Section had an article headed "High street suffers worst July for a decade". The plain sense of this is that we are to believe sales in July 2005 were lower than in July 1995! But this was reporting the British Retail Consortium's estimate that sales in July were 1.9% down on July 2004. Maybe this was the biggest decline between successive Julys in a decade, but following quite a lot of growth during the previous nine years. I submit that your heading and similar comments on TV News were unduly pessimistic
Mary and I attended this, the 278th Annual Meeting of the Three Choirs of Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester, for only two of its extra-long nine days at Worcester. We travelled early on Sunday morning (7th August) to get there in time for the 10.30 am Festival Eucharist in the Cathedral. We made it, just with the only seats available being in the very front row. (For the Festival, Worcester turns around with the orchestras and choirs at the West End for the concerts. The service stayed the same way round with a temporary altar and lectern.) It was a splendid service, musically and liturgically with an appropriate sermon by the Bishop, Dr Peter Selby on miracles (unexpected happenings in our lives) both good and bad and how we should respond.
After lunch on the Green, we went by coach to Malvern Priory for our first concert: an organ recital by Thomas Trotter. It was packed and the doors werent opened until 15 minutes before it was due to start, prompting comments that Christian revival had stated with long queues of people anxious to be in church! Thomas Trotter played Bach Concerto in D minor after Vivaldi BWW 596, James Macmillan Le Tombeau de Georges Roualt a very strange modern work, Schumann Canon in A flat, Elgar Sonata in G op 28, Ad Wammas Miroir a delightful minimalist piece by the former keyboard player of the 1970s cult Dutch group "Finch" and Wagner arr Lemare Overture Die Meistersinger.
On our return to the city we had time to establish ourselves at our B&B and get something to eat before the evening concert in the Cathedral, an all-Russian treat. Shostakovich Festival Overture was an invigorating introit. Shosta, back in favour after the death of Stalin wrote this commission for the 37th Anniversary of the 1917 Revolution - in days before the celebration. Then we were entranced by Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky. This commemorates the defeat of invading Teutonic invaders in 1242 and was originally written for Eisenstein's 1938 film. It suited Stalin's aim of rehabilitating nationalism, and the film was banned in West Germany until 1966. What we heard was the cantata Prokofiev made from the music in 1939. The orchestra was the Birmingham Philharmonic, with the Festival Chorus and mezzo-soprano Elena Prokina, under the baton of Adrian Lucas, the Worcester organist/choirmaster and Artistic Director of the Festival. The performance was magnificent. Imagine how the music and the film helped maintain morale during the siege of Leningrad that began in September 1941 and lasted for 900 days. The final item was Rachmaninov The Bells, a setting in Russian of a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, with Frances McCafferty (soprano), Ilya Levinsky (tenor) and Pavel Baransky (baritone) who flew in from Kiev that day to replace Vladimir Moroz who had been taken ill. The various presence of bells in Russian life sleigh riding, weddings, fire alarms, funerals were explored; the way in which other instruments as well as tubular bells and xylophones can produce bell-like tones is amazing. But perhaps because we were tired after a long day we didn't enjoy this so much as the rest of the programme.
At breakfast next morning we made the acquaintance of two fellow guests, older than us, from Rustington. We compared notes on the organ recital and we reported on the Russian concert they had not attended. Like many festival-goers they were very knowledgeable and in fact he leads musical appreciation classes for the University of the Third Age. We spent the morning in the sunshine by the Cathedral and by the river, which in that part is a swan sanctuary. We met and spoke with Roy Massey, retired Hereford organist/choir master, who features on a painting hanging on our dining room wall with him, his choir and his dog proceeding across the Green towards the Cathedral.
We attended the Festival Society Lunch in the Festival Marquee. As ever, there a was very friendly atmosphere as indeed there always is over the whole Festival performers, very musically knowledgeable folk and ignoramuses like us who just like the music and the ambiance meet and talk freely with anyone. The Guest Speaker was Howard Blake whose Elgar Commission Songs of Truth and Glory had just had its first performance at St Martin's Church. He spoke about the travails of composing, in particular commissions. George Carey as Archbishop once invited him to write something "to revive the Church of England"! He was commissioned to set the Charter of the United Nations to music. It was first performed in front of high officials and heads of state and government. He was presented to the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles. "Too many words", grunted Philip. "Too many words", added Charles. It is the UN Charter, explained Howard Blake. "Humph", expostulated Philip. It reminded the speaker of a know-all's criticism of Mozart: "too many notes". More seriously, Blake expressed the belief that Schoenberg's 12 tonal theory has now had its day. All notes are not of equal value; the dominant, sub-dominant etc exist in nature. A budding composer should write "what you feel is right for you". But each country has its own cultural heritage. "English conductors for English works!"
OAPs, Festival Society members and students are admitted to rehearsals. In the afternoon we went into the Cathedral for the second half of rehearsals of Elgar The Light of Life and Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings just orchestra and soloists. We have heard rehearsal before that were just a run through the pieces. This was different. Many stops, much verbal exchange between conductor, soloists, leader and other section principals and some beautiful excerpts of music. To judge by the review in The Guardian, it all went well on the night. We then had a cream tea, joined by new friends from St Edmunds we had met at the lunch who had also been at the rehearsal. That was our last sight of the festival. We visited some old friends who now live in Worcester and drove home on Tuesday morning. The roads were nearly as quiet as on Sunday, at least from Worcester to Oxford.