The arts world is of course at sixes and sevens because without audiences most performers and venues are losing poney hand over fist. All our adult lives we have played, sung, listened to music and gone to theatres for opera and drama of all kinds. in our family are people who depend on live performance in different ways for their livelihood, so we hold our breath and cross our fingers for the future - and there are gloomy articles about the difficulties.
But in the middle of it all there are wonderful moments of hope and inspiration. I have just starts listening to BBC Radio Lockdown theatre, productions recreated at home by artists who would have been performing them in theatres. For us, the most marvellous moments have come from the live lunchtime concerts broadcast by the BBC from an almost empty Wigmore Hall in London. The whole catalogue of currently available ones is here. Among many marvels the Bach recital by Angela Hewitt this week was special
Some performers have said it isn't the same, or as good, without a live audience - that must be true I guess - audiences pay artists fees, artists thrive on applause and appreciation, and acoustics are different in empty halls. But the sense of rapt attention, focus and concentration in many of the performances we have heard is wonderful, even over the radio waves, and several artists have spoken of the privilege they feel to have been invited in this month's series. The BBC has considerable clout and influence in this sphere, and audiences for music have increased many-fold - we can only hope that the constant noise of wrecking moves from part of the British govt are quelled by the obvious value of such cultural activity in times of national crisis.
Saturday mornings are usually a special treat on Radio 3, with Record Review throwing up goodies known and unknown, and then Jess Gillam. We admired her in her runner-up role when Sheku Kanneh-Mason won BBC Young Musician, but the BBC obviously recognised multi-talent when they found it, and she has become a radio presenter as to the manner born. One of our friends is pleased to have known her growing up in Cumbria.
Meanwhile Mary and I have our own musical pastimes - Mary works very hard on the cello as is obvious from my reports of her success in the little concert she took part in at the Val du Séran, and she enjoys the work - she was delighted to hear last week that her teacher at the Vauvert music school is likely to give her a longer lesson each week. We actually have and she uses 2 cellos, one tuned to modern pitch (which can be anything from A=440 upwards) and the other at 'baroque' pitch, A=415 - the latter belongs to a friend who no longer plays, and we are always grateful to him for lending Mary the instrument, especially as shortly we'll have the chance to play chamber music with our musician friends who live in the Cevennes. Meanwhile we have been trying recorder sonatas without the keyboard, by Benedetto Marcello, Daniel Purcell and Croft.
