Beta Sigma Phi's Philosophy

It was the last Lunch Hour Concert of the year. This always takes the form of a competition between four top students at the Conservatorium. This year it was two pianos, a cello and a flute.

The first and second prizes are donated by Beta Sigma Phi, a group of ladies with eighteen hundred dollars to spare. The winner gets twelve hundred dollars and the runner up gets six. The two finalist prizes are donated by the Elder Conservatorium and are worth three hundred dollars each.

By this you can see that the Elder Conservatorium doesn't really like Beta Sigma Phi's philosophy. They could save a hundred and fifty dollars by continuing the diminishment of prize money, but they don't.

This year I thought I'd picked the winner. It was the flute girl. She walked on stage wearing an unbecoming dress. It was long and shiny and several shades of purple, and was gathered unnaturally at the front. Her hair was brown and crinkly, and flat on top. She wore glasses, and carried a flute.

Now this is all very well you are thinking, but the competition is not about looks.

I know.

My reason for mentioning looks is that by the end of her two pieces I was of a different opinion, and thought her hair and dress were quite delightful. Any one who can work that sort of transformation with a flute deserves to win .

But no. My flute girl only got three hundred dollars.

Where are You Coming From Daughter?

On Friday I was in the Elder Hall, sitting next to my mum, who had a dreadful cold. We were waiting for the Lunch Hour Concert to begin. We'd sat at the end of a row in case my mum had a coughing fit, which was quite likely. She rummaged in her bag for a sweet.

Would you like a Butter Menthol? she asked me. I said, Err..... yes thank you, I would.

That could be a song.

Would you like a Butter Menthol ? she asked me.
I said, Err.... yes thank you, I would.
But then I felt suddenly certain
Her cold germs would do me no good.
Butter Menthols are not wrapped up these days
And ones she had touched were inside
If I was unlucky and ate one
It might be the reason I died.
Cough cough.....

How very silly. I apologise wholeheartedly for that. Now to continue.....

The concert was Rosalind Martin, singing songs of Chopin and Schumann, in a lacy latte dress.
Most of the songs were about longing, and as a consequence were quite sad. But my favorite was the Lithuanian Song: ( of course it was in Lithuanian )

Very early one morning, the sun was rising,
Near the glass window Mother was sitting;
Where, she asks, are you coming from my daughter?
Where did you get your wreath all wet?

The daughter replies that it's wet because she had to get up early to fetch water, but Mother isn't having any of it, and accuses her daughter of running off into a field to chat with a boy.

It's true, it's true, Mother, truth I'd rather say-
My sweetheart I spotted in the field;
We only spent a few minutes talking,
And in that time, dew settled on my wreath.

You can see why I liked it.

The Sock and Mr Jesus

Another Friday another Lunch Hour Concert. We were expecting a cello and a piano. But the program notes said 'Organ'. Oh yes, a change of program.

The organ music began, the ceiling cracked. It may have been cracked already. You notice things when you are looking up. The organ is high.

Usually that is all there is to do. Look up. But there was a double screen set up on the stage so you could see the organist's shoes on the left and his hands on the right. So I soon forgot the cracks in the ceiling.

The organ music was having even more alarming effects on the audience between me and the screens.

For instance. A man two rows in front developed a hole in the top of his head. It may have been there already. But you notice these things with an organ.

Another man four rows in front performed a peculiar wrinkling shiver from his neck to his crown, through his sparse hair.

A psychology professor looked twenty years younger as his neck became smooth. It may have been like that already. You notice things under an organ.

No one thought the organ music was funny. Except me. Diddle diddle diddly diddly dee....paaarp!
Diddle diddle diddly diddly dee...paaarp! Diddle diddle diddly diddly dee...paaarp!

Don't tell me that's not funny.

One of the pieces James Tibbles played was Herr Jesus hat ein Gartchen. It had five variations, all the same. The notes said the title meant King Jesus hath a Garden. But I beg to differ. That is Mr Jesus hath a Garden.

Two things happened at the end. One, James Tibbles came down the stairs and took a bow.
So we could see him.

Two, I asked my mum how it had been and she said not very good I don't like organ music. Did you have your hearing aids in? I asked and she said No, that would have been a hundred times worse.

Three, as I was getting up out of my seat, I saw that the person in front had left a brightly striped sock on the floor.

One too many things.

How Late Their Fathers Be!

I was at a Lunch Hour Concert yesterday. Greta Bradman sang The Sunset, which is Respighi's musical version for soprano and string quartet of Robert Ascoli's Italian translation of Shelley's poem The Sunset.

That meant there was a lot to do. Follow the Italian, follow the English, listen to the music, listen to Greta and watch Greta. Impossible to do them all. I chose to pay attention to Greta, because she was so pretty, and she wore a shot silk lilac dress with a ruffle on one shoulder. Her voice was high and pure.

It was the right choice. The Sunset is Shelley at his dippiest. A young man and his lady walk into a forest at sunset, to 'know the unreserve of mingled being', after which the the young man says, Is it not strange Isabel? I never saw the sun. They agree that they will look at it tomorrow, but the next morning the young man is dead and cold. The young lady has to spend the rest of her life looking after her aged father. You see what I mean.

The second song that Greta sang was a setting of an Emily Dickinson poem, How Slow the Wind.

It's a short poem, and it goes like this:

how slow the wind-
how slow the sea-
how late their Fathers be!

Greta sang it so beautifully you could almost think it made sense, but what does it mean? I didn't know. When I got home I googled Emily Dickinson to see if anybody knew. At first I thought I was in luck. One site quoted the last line as : how late their Feathers be.

Oh I thought, Feathers, that makes a lot more sense. But on further reflection I concluded that Feathers made no more sense than Fathers.

Famous Last Words.

The people in the Elder Hall were waiting for the Lunch Hour Concert to begin. Two men were chatting. One of them was going on holiday to South America. Soon they got on to the topic of Scott of the Antarctic.

They didn't remember the whole story but they remembered it in parts. I am put in mind of the famous words of Titus Oates, said one.

Oh yes, said the other. I know.

He said, continued the first man, I'm going out and I may be some time.

They both agreed that it had been a noble suicide.

Then, the music began.

Then, the music ended.

Everyone filed out, except for me and my mum.

A blue bag lay under the seat in front. A flat blue bag with words printed in white on one side: Walk Against Want 2004.

I picked it up and placed it on top of the seat.

Who was sitting there? we asked each other. We couldn't remember.

He was next to a woman in a red coat, said my mum.

So he was, I said.

An old man came back along the row and picked up the bag. Titus Oates. He had been quite some time.

Getting old, he smiled.

Making Sense of Haydn

It's Friday. I'm at the Lunch Hour Concert with my mum. We've arrived early because it's the Australian String Quartet. We're sitting in the middle of the fifth row from the front, behind two empty seats. We have a good view of the stage from here.

Two of the tallest men ever sit down in front of us. Our row's filled up, we can't move now. My man has dark curly hair and a black cardigan. He looks like Alain De Botton, before Alain De Botton went bald, but not before the balding had begun, ever so slightly. My mother's man is even taller than mine. He has grey hair, a black jumper and red trousers. I deduce that he is German. The men start talking. Alain de Botton is English. The German is German, I was right.

I read the program. Haydn wrote a squillion string quartets and the two we are to hear are good ones. The first one features a Witches Minuet and the sounds of a donkey. It features interlocking intervals of descending fifths, and later on, thirteenths. I resolve to listen out for them.

Meanwhile I am trying to listen to Alain de Botton and the German. Try as I might, I can't catch what they're saying. Only the word economics, light, and intersecting lines.

The Australian String Quartet come on. They are wearing black and green and looking very pretty. Rachel's hair is cherry red, at the ends. I listen for the Witches Minuet. I have to wait a long time, but I hear it, because I'm following the program notes. I don't identify The Donkey, or the thirteenths. Or the fifths.

The concert is over and the two tall men remain seated. Alain de Botton says something I can't catch, except for 'stream of conciousness'. The German laughs. They stand up. I see his red trousers again.

I couldn't hear that properly, says my mum. My hearing aids were switched off.

On our way out we stop at the desk to ask if anyone has found my mum's umbrella. Jeanette goes downstairs to have a look. Claire the manager engages us in conversation. Aren't they wonderful! she says. And so are those quartets! A lot of people think that Haydn is a bit wishy washy, but these two pieces are so feisty.

Feisty, yes, I suppose that's what they are. Jeanette can't find the umbrella.

Later, my mum buys a new one.

Inexplicable Winds

You wouldn't say it was a windy day. But just as I was passing North Terrace House this morning, on my way to a lunch hour concert, a leaf blew up into my hand. No, I didn't catch it, it blew up from the footpath and lodged itself between two of my fingers, which at the time happened to be a exactly a leaf width apart. I thought it quite remarkable.

Later, in the concert hall, listening to the Wind Ensemble, I began to contemplate the inexplicability of winds. This came about because I was trying to match up the composers' intentions as set forth in the program notes with the actual sounds that were coming out of the instruments, and they did not seem to match up.

One of the percussionists was clashing the cymbals very close to her fringe. You would have thought perhaps the wind she created would have moved the fringe but no, it moved her ponytail instead.

They played The Dam Busters march. An old man in the row in front of me tapped his knee in time. Ahh, I thought, it'll soon be Anzac Day. He will probably be weeping by the end. But it was me who had a teary eye when everyone stopped clapping.

On the walk home it was still not windy. The sky was high and grey and a few little spots of rain fell on the footpath which was littered with fallen leaves.

The wind is like music, I thought, and the fallen leaves and gumnuts and blossoms are the applause.

I was pleased with this thought, and it did not matter one bit to me that it made no sense at all.

Ignorance

At the Lunch Hour Concert I was sitting behind four middle aged people who were together. Something nasty had happened in the garden of one of them. One said, Have you seen The Shining? No, said another, have you seen Eyes Wide Shut?

The Chamber Ensemble came on stage in twos and threes. As they appeared some people at the back would clap. This continued disconcertingly as the stage filled up.

The first piece was by William Walton. I don't know a thing about William Walton, except what was in the notes. He wrote some music for a Shakespeare film in the 1940s. A Shakespeare film. Classy.

So, I'm listening. I hear traffic. Sigh. I hear chipmunks. Yuk. I hear bees. Hmm. I hear spooky noises, like the movement of curtains in a dark house at night. William Walton must have written this one for a film as well, I think. A multi-purpose piece. And very 1940s-ish.

They stop playing. The conductor indicates a young man sitting in the sixth row on the left. The composer. He is Stephen Tanoto. He takes a bow.

Thus I realise, and so do the 4 in front of me, that we had not been listening to William Walton.

Ha Ha they laugh. Ha Ha Ha. We didn't think it sounded much like Walton.

Well, I did. But now I know it wasn't. I am miffed, and can't get into this new Walton which they are playing now. Sure it has chipmunks. And traffic, and what's this? Carrots! But I feel cheated. I had been looking forward to the Tanoto. It was based on a chipmunk-free madrigal, and I missed it.

This new Walton madrigal piece was in 4 movements. The people at the back clapped in between, with decreasing confidence.

It ended. The people in front of me clapped ostentatiously, turning towards one another and nodding. That was the Walton alright. We always knew.