Epiphanies Like London Buses

You know how it is: you go weeks and weeks without a single epiphany, and then two of them come along at once. Well, maybe not simultaneously - let's say a week apart. And neither of them was red, it must be said, or had numbers and destinations displayed on the front. Those things apart, these epiphanies were uncannily like London buses. Uncannily so.

Epiphany number 1 was about music. Namely, that it is an amazing, rich, life-enhancing and rewarding thing. I've known this before, I think, at various times in my life, but two things have (joyously) reminded me of this in the past couple of weeks.

Firstly, there was the performance of Hadyn's The Creation at a church in a village a few miles from where I live: this performance was a joint effort on the part of the amateur choral society from a nearby town and a group of professional musicians and soloists. The weather on the evening of the performance was suitably Biblical: a full-dark Saturday evening in March rendered dramatic by heavy rain blowing white and horizontal through the headlights on a strong, gusty wind. White headlights showed here and there in the dark landscape as we went up and down the hills and dips, the wipers swept runnels of rain across the screen, and I hoped that there'd be no cars coming up behind me to dazzle my vision as I drove rather nervously through the twisty lanes with their potholes and ill-defined edges to the roadway.

After a fraught negotiation of the narrow high street, over-parked with too many cars and too little light, I parked at the far end of the village and we walked back through the heavy rain, then up the slippery path to the church door, taking care to avoid the missing stones in the path (the empty apertures for which were full of slick, shiny mud).

The church at Everdon was big, and full of people waiting to take their places in the pews or in the additional seating (stacking-type plastic seats) at the rear of the nave. The demographic was typical of classical concerts - mainly people in late middle age or older (such that I felt like a real youngster) - and dressed either in smart 'going out' gear or the beige and grey uniform of the casual elderly. The space in front of the rood screen was set up with music stands and seating, and a wood, wire and gaffer tape framework (which looked distinctly rickety) supported a series of very white, very bright lights. The front-most audience seats were about three feet from the performers' chairs, and the overall effect was of a very cramped, packed hall before an amateur theatrical performance.

A very attractive woman in a posh frock came in. One of the soloists: it was a bit chilly for that kind of do. Through the gap in the curtains behind the rood screen I could see the members of the chorus moving about. The orchestra members started to arrive, coming in through the big door to my left, trailing the smell of the wet night outside, and then gradually the splendid sound of an orchestra tuning up began to assemble in the space under the hammer beam roof.

The acoustic in the church wasn't brilliant, such that when the orchestra (brass, strings, woodwind, continuo, kettle drum(s)) and the choir (50+) were at full tilt the sound blurred and merged, like music over-amplified through inadequate speakers. For the most part, though, the playing was spot-on, the soloists good (the bass was the strongest, in my view) - despite the conductor's baton swooping dangerously close to their eye sockets as he conducted the orchestra over their heads, and the words and 'story' (out of the Bible and Milton) fully intelligible (despite some rather awkward translations/constructions in the libretto...): I particularly liked some of the onomatopoeic elements, especially the bit about the 'sinuous worm' that slithered along at the bottom of the bass's range).

Other entertaining elements included: the rain drumming on the roof, audible in the quiet passages where the libretto dealt with the inundation of the earth; the bat that swooped across the nave; and the big butterfly, perhaps brought out of hibernation by the unaccustomed heat from the bodies, lights and heaters, which drifted across the spaces above and behind the orchestra, moving perilously close to the white hot-looking lights.

The music lasted for the best part of two hours, and at the end my shoulder blades ached from the two curtain calls to which we clapped the singers/orchestra/chorus. I was left feeling privileged to have been able to enjoy such excellent music making so close to home, and to be able to hear all the different instruments and singers joining together in this complex music. A concrete reminder of the beauty and intricacy of music.