Then all the colours will bleed into one…

It’s strange how life’s roads diverge (and not always “in a yellow wood”); yet, sometimes, then cross, run in parallel, until they meet again at some glistening, memorable moment. I have known (of) Martin Roscoe (above), on and off, for most of my life. In fact, many years ago, I was the choirmaster of the church near-enough-next-door to where he lived – his prodigious practising forming a wonderful, intermittent soundtrack to my Friday nights: trekking to the same pub with the adults of the choir, that he would later also retire to. We once even played the same piano in the same concert (but, sadly – from my perspective – not simultaneously…)! And I have thus admired him from afar; and occasionally bumped into him at his recitals.

I also met Peter Maxwell Davies – always ‘Max’ – many times: initially when he was leading The Fires of London. And, again, I would “bump into him” now and again. When I was a young musician, he was extremely generous with his time: those vivid inquisitive eyes twinkling acutely as he demanded to know more about my life, my experiences, my compositions. He was a great man; a good bloke… – as well as one of our greatest composers… – and there are many who already miss him sorely. Including me.

Many of these paths therefore lead back to the RNCM: where Max and Martin (and Peter Donohoe) were students; where I spent a lot of time when much younger; and where some of my greatest musical mentors happened to teach. Some of these paths therefore lead to last night: when Martin – after a masterclass in playing Mozart, accompanied by the Orchestra of the Swan – returned to the stage and played Max’s Farewell to Stromness.

I used to sob gently, simply trying to perform this. So I held my hands in prayer; bowed my head; and let the tears flow. For those few minutes, Max was with me; and yet I was alone with Martin’s beautiful, heartfelt, heart-probing rendition. We three had met at one of those glistening, memorable moments. And the globe paused on its axis.

The subsequent applause was, therefore, quite a shock. It turns out that I was surrounded by many, many others – also rapt, I think.

¶

We were all there – in Northampton High School (with its fantastic setting and facilities) – for a superbly-programmed (and yet free!) concert involving a wonderful conjunction of forces: not only OOTS; but the school’s Senior Orchestra; Senior Choir; Junior School Choir; and Ladies’ Chamber Choir.

This concert is… an amazing opportunity for our girls to work and perform with one of the top chamber orchestras in the country. Nearly one hundred performers from year 6 up to Sixth Form and including our Ladies’ Chamber Choir will be rehearsing with the Orchestra of the Swan in the afternoon, and then will join them in the concert to perform three choral pieces at the beginning of the programme.

– Northampton High School

Perhaps you would expect, though, at a free event like this one for the music to be of a lesser quality; for the playing to be a little more (shall we say) relaxed? But with the Orchestra of the Swan the centre around which everything revolved – and in a school where music seems to flow keenly and readily; and the girls wear a constant variety of smiles – of course, everything was as wonderfully accomplished and emotionally affecting as always.

The varied programme began with U2, Coldplay, and John Rutter – the extended forces led with great precision and verve by Joanne Drew, Director of Music. (I do so like a choir that sits and stands on the button!) After being stunned by the “quick fire of youth” that is Edward’s Boys, earlier in the year, last night the proceedings opened with voices wearing “the rose Of youth… from which the world should note Something particular” – that is, who were ‘lit’, ‘way live’, if not quite ‘savage’. (I may be “old and reverend”, but not “too old to learn”, I hope, how to be ‘down with the kids’. Um.) Seriously, they were well wicked.

I do apologize – somewhat (but especially to my older demographic) – for the above, er, slang: but, in a past life, I conducted a prize-winning girls’ choir, and yet I was truly amazed by the evening’s wonderful singing – the purity of tone; the enthusiasm; the cohesiveness; the dynamic control. And there were some sensationally good solos, too!

U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – “among the greatest tracks in music history” (and one I am proud to have heard live, nearly thirty years ago…) – especially with its “gospel qualities”, is perfect for such powerful choral work. And yet I could not imagine how on earth the orchestra could replicate The Edge’s matchless guitar playing. Credit must therefore go to arranger Mark Benham for producing something as exhilarating as the original. And, of course, to the choir for giving it their all. Wow. (That the members of OOTS – following on from the lovely hushed opening of the school orchestra – all treated this as an equal to the works that followed, says much about their enthusiasm for education and their delight in joining forces.)

Coldplay’s encomium for lost life, Fix You, has similar yearning characteristics, of course: but here – with amazing maturity – was rendered almost as a religious anthem. Again arranged by Benham, this simply grew in ecstasy; and merged “the boundaries of popular and classical music” perfectly.

We were then treated to John Rutter’s The Lord bless you and keep you – I suppose, in a way, a short transitional work; a benediction that led even more obviously to the music that followed. And here, the choir truly excelled themselves: especially those high notes at the work’s “Amen” climax.

This was as thrilling and rousing an opening to a ‘classical’ concert as I have experienced in a while; and one you might think hard to follow….

¶

I suppose I had been drawn to the event by the variety of the works on offer – a little bit of intrigue, especially with regards to the U2 and Coldplay that opened the evening. But this curiosity was accompanied by a profound and long-lasting love for both Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins (BWV 1043) and Mozart’s Symphony No.29 (K201) – which were to follow after the interval.

First, though, fellow Lancastrian and “celebrated British pianist Martin Roscoe [with] his prodigious technique and authority… customary grace and lucid phrasing” was to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 (you know, the slow-movement one from Elvira Madigan – which is, as Roscoe rightfully stated, actually quite a boring film…).

I think maybe that’s my favorite melody in the world, but then I always feel that every time I hear a Mozart melody no matter what it is.

– Leonard Bernstein: Young People’s Concert: What Is Classical Music?

Let me get one thing out of the way, here: the orchestra and conducting were great, as you would expect – it’s just that I spent the whole work concentrating on Roscoe’s understated, lustrous illumination of music I believed I knew well. There is something intensely mesmerizing about his insightful mastery; and he made the Yamaha CFX concert grand sing in all registers: revealing new relationships between notes, phrases, chords, scales, echoes of themes. This was never a competition with the orchestra for supremacy, either – the balance was perfect; and, as with all such great musicians, communication between all involved was conspicuous and generous.

I suspect this is as perfect a performance as I will ever experience. There was a purity of thought, of technique, of engagement with the music that transcends any of my clumsy attempts to describe it (that’s for sure…).

That it was followed by the Maxwell Davies encore… – well, what can I say…?

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face and I

Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face and I

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

– Coldplay: Fix You

¶

After the interval (a deep gulp of fresh air, and reminiscences with the affable Roscoe), we were down to core OOTS for the Bach. After criticizing Curtis, previously, for not taking the helm for this, tonight it just worked so very, very well. This is probably down to the fact that both soloists are foundational members of the orchestra – and their rapport (as well as their delight) was astounding.

Adding a trio of the school’s talented musicians (two cellists and a viola player) to the ensemble helped give the accompaniment a more continuo-like feel; and enabled Le Page and Leech to soar over it – their close relationship painted plangently with equality and tonality to die for. I so love this work; and last night it fulfilled my heart’s deepest desires. This is as it should be. Impeccable musicianship and emotion.

¶

And so it was, too, with my favourite Mozart symphony. I could simply have repeated my earlier review – but with only sixteen musicians on the stage (rejoined by Curtis), somehow yet more magic was conjured. You could follow the line of every single instrument with ease; and yet the melodies floated cohesively into the air, with stunning contrasts of light and shade. (The image that came to mind was what my mum calls “an Edward Seago sky”.)

Special mention must be made, though, of the subtleties and dynamic variations of the self-propelling second movement. Also: the peerless horn playing of Francesca Moore-Bridger and Laeticia Stott. You could tell from Curtis’ generous applause and gentle smirk that even he knew this was so very special… – as was the whole evening….

¶

I may have to stop reviewing OOTS concerts soon: as I have run out of ways to explain and describe their majesty; their translucence; their ability to conquer all the peaks they face; to produce flawless radiance at the drop of a baton. That the forces of Northampton High School meshed so perfectly with them just piled on the amazement. My thanks therefore to every single person involved. I could not have been happier….

If he stops to think he starts to cry…

I have been a U2 fan for as long as I can remember: from 1980’s Boy LP (when I Will Follow grabbed me by the pit of the stomach – and has never let go…) onwards (we didn’t have CDs – and it would have taken over seven hours to download using a well connected 28.8 kbit/s modem – in those days, y’know – so ask your parents or grandparents why those twelve-inch circular slabs of (mainly) black vinyl are “Even better than the real thing”) – and was fortunate enough to see them perform at their peak in Leeds, in 1987 as part of their Joshua Tree tour. Although I don’t recall it in perfect detail – Wayne Hussey, lead-singer of The Mission, later said that he didn’t remember it at all: and they produced a barnstorming set as one of the support acts! – I do recollect that it was as much religious experience as concert.

As you can imagine, I was therefore (in a minority of those?) delighted to ‘discover’ that U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, had automagically appeared on both my iPhone and iPad (as it might have done on yours), as part of Apple’s typically lavish launch of the iPhone 6.

¶

Art – great or otherwise – depends for its ‘success’, I believe, largely on meaning – not that it should signify or suggest, necessarily, the same thing to different viewers, readers or listeners. Interpretation – and the bond that forms between subject and object – is key.

It doesn’t matter, therefore (perhaps) what Bono intended when he conceived the lyrics for The Troubles – the last of his band’s Songs of Innocence. However, it does matter – to me – that they provoke a response (in addition to that of the almost epilogic music): in this case, deeply probing my emotional innards – “Somebody stepped inside your soul” – and speaking (singing) to the quintessence of the being I have become – not necessarily through choice; but in response to the major, injurious incidents (and their repercussions) that have helped(?) shape me, and which have been refined by my respondence.

I have a will for survival

So you can hurt me and hurt me some more

Ten years ago, learning a new way of living, I produced an essay (for one of my medical specialists) entitled Always deal with what pain is…. At the time, due to enforced medical retirement, and being bound both to bed and barracks (by my then perceived limitations), I had been doing rather a lot of reading – as I’m sure you can imagine. And one of the books that made most impact on me – because of its strong humour and resilience (things that I no doubt needed to share in, just then – and still do…) – was Robert Twigger’s Angry White Pyjamas: about him joining “the Tokyo Riot Police on their year-long, brutally demanding course of budo training”.

Coincidentally (and resonantly) enough, Twigger deals frequently with his (and his companions’) experiences of pain; and I found the following excerpts filled with that resonance:

…pain is personal, pain is subjective. You should never judge another man’s pain. Not only is the amount of pain subjective for any given injury, so different people are sensitive to different pains. It is difficult to conclude that someone has ‘a high pain threshold’ because he may tolerate a migraine without painkillers but scream blue murder if his finger is nicked by a penknife.​

     The area is further muddied by imagination – indeed, this is the major contributor to an over-reaction to pain. It’s not the pain in itself, it’s what the pain means which is so distressing.

     It is one thing to be able to suffer pain. It takes a second level of stoicism to ignore the damage that the pain signifies.

It’s easier to convince yourself it doesn’t hurt when you are shouting. This is the distraction-method of fighting pain, the preferred Western way. The preferred Eastern way is detachment.

I asked [Sato] why he never let pain show on his face.

     “If I show pain, I feel a different kind of pain, a kind of pain that tells me to stop. But if I keep a clear face then the pain is not so bad. We call it ‘the face of Kannon’, a face like the Buddha.”

Dimly, I could already grasp there were two levels of pain. Pain (1) was the actual sensation. It was on the level of an objective observation: “I have been stung by a bee. There is a pain in my upper left forearm.” Pain (2) is the subjective reaction: “Ow! It hurts! It really hurts!”

     Young children only experience pain (2). It hurts and hurts and hurts and then it’s over and they stop crying.

     The basic character of pain, and almost indistinguishable from it, is the desire for it to go away. A masochist doesn’t want it to go away. This serves to neutralize the pain (2) content of the experience, since pain (2) is the “It hurts!” side, when it seems as if the pain is everywhere and not localized, as if it is attacking your brain directly, and is indistinguishable from the desire for it to stop. In a way pain (2) is “Please stop now”.

     Growing older increases the domain of pain (1). We may experience chronic pain, for example, which won’t go away. We either become miserable or we cordon it off, localize it, objectify it (“There is a pain”), and then we learn to almost ignore it. Almost.

     Slowly I was beginning to see that the senshusei course was a lot about coping with pain, about losing the pain (2) experience and getting pain under control on the pain (1) level. If you train until you faint then you have lost the pain (2) element. If you stop when “it hurts” you may be doing the safe thing, but you are not commanding your body, it is commanding you. There may be a time when your life depends on who is in command.

¶

I was also delving into a plethora of what could be described as ‘medical textbooks’; and Twigger’s revelations tied in well with Jean Craig’s “two levels of pain”, described in Managing Chronic Pain:

The primary level is where the ‘sensation of pain’ is sensed through the nerve endings that recognise pain in reaction to an injury [nociceptive pain]….

     The secondary level of pain is the ‘perception of pain’ where the pain message radiates from deep structures in the brain to the outer cortex where it is linked with thought, feelings, mood, attitudes and beliefs.

But my foremost bookish love is fiction; and there’s a leitmotif of chronic pain in Mary Doria Russell’s wonderful, heart-hollowing book The Sparrow, and its sequel Children of God – both about “the nature of faith and what it means to be ‘human’” – and I think one of the most telling passages (at the time, for me, and my understanding of phantom pain and its correlation with chronicity and plasticity…) is this:

“My uncle lost most of his right hand when I was about eight…. My aunt used to think he was lying about the pain to get sympathy,” Joseba said…. “Dead dogs don’t bite, she used to say. The hand’s not there anymore. How can something that’s not there hurt? My uncle used to tell her, Pain is as real as God. Invisible, unmeasurable, powerful –”

     “And a bitch to live with,” Sandoz whispered…. “Just like your aunt.”

However, to get back to Robert Twigger for a moment – and an elemental objective for the rest of my life:

Always deal with what pain is and never with what it means.

And that’s the main challenge, isn’t it? Because of the make-up of my personality – especially my introversion and intellect – I am compelled to research as deeply as I can the situations I find myself in, one by one. And then I have to draw my own conclusions from the plethora, the mountains, of conflicting information: so that I can try and take my life forward. I have to draw my own conclusions… – and then ignore them….

Atypically (and somewhat astonishingly), what prompted all this was that my consultant had asked me how I saw myself working in partnership with him to help me deal with the constant high levels of pain I experienced (and still do…); and what I had been through (endured) before encountering him. And, in response, one of the best summations I had found – that expressed what I felt, at the time, more pertinently or skilfully than I could have done – came from Eloise Carr and Eileen Mann’s Pain: Creative Approaches to Effective Management:

We now live in a society that has high expectations of what health care can deliver, and those in pain are no longer prepared to suffer in silence. However, when we are faced with pain that challenges our ability to relieve it, or even in some cases understand it, the encounter can be frustrating and unsatisfactory for [medics] and patients alike.

In essence, what my answer boiled down to was that I wanted to be in control… – and still do (to some degree) – of the pain; this situation; my life (especially as people in chronic pain who take control are known to get both better treatment and life quality as a result): because I knew that, as every day passed by, achingly, slowly, so my self-identity was gradually being eroded. But I was repeatedly reaching the twin, defeatist dead-ends of either “having to live with it” (my fault, if I couldn’t, or didn’t want to) or “there’s nothing else we can do for you” (their – or medicine’s nameless – fault; but still really mine, for having the temerity to ask for help…).

To go back to Robert Twigger – for the last time – what I really wanted…

…was to break the subjective link between how you feel and how you perform. Instead, [the aim was] to replace it with a decided goal and achievement of that goal using the body, rather than the body dictating what the goal should be.

And I therefore finished my essay with a list of objectives (which were more like demands) – the most important of which was to “Learn my limits” – so I could then ignore them, as well as my conclusions…!

There are so many things that I used to take for granted, that came so easily, that are now so difficult or too painful to make any sense of in what I’ve come to think of as an ‘increased-pain/benefit analysis’…. I walk because it has helped to get (and keeps) me fit, and has helped me lose significant weight (putting less stress on my body). I type this document to express my thoughts so much better than I do when I open my mouth, etc..

     But, where, between bungee jumping and struggling to get out of bed, do my true limits lie? What makes sense? What could do me an injury (apart from [my neurologist’s] advice not to do “anything that involves significant lifting or manoeuvring one’s head into awkward and difficult positions”)…?

     Jean Craig says that “Acceptance of chronic pain is probably the most difficult step of all but the most important, because it allows you to get on with your life”; and that this means “not only acknowledging that you are in pain, but that while you are experiencing pain, high physical and mental demands on yourself are quite unrealistic”. But, as you’ve already said, this (to me) is “b*ll*cks”. Why should I accept it? I know there are limitations – but I don’t want them to be at such a low (almost vegetative) level….

He, thankfully – of course – agreed.

So what does this all have to do with U2?

Well, like Tom’s “little green devil” in Smitten Kitten, I have always personified my pain – as a constant presence in my life – and quite frequently talk to it, have a moan at it, sometimes chide it for its bad behaviour – it’s very rarely good – as catharsis. As you can imagine, these interactions tend towards soliloquizing; but they are my way of getting by, getting through what current Government benefit application forms call – in their typical Miniluv doublespeak – permanent and significant “discomfort”.

Having therefore elaborated to my pain management consultant (a fairly new specialism in the UK, back then) that I knew there were “limitations” to my physical (and, sometimes, psychological) exertions – I made it acutely clear that I didn’t want to feel (and would try not to be) trapped by them. I still don’t. And I try my best to expand and exceed them on a regular basis – always knowing that this “bad behaviour” on my behalf will then come back and bite me on my overweight behind… – but that I will still have achieved an infinitessimal incorporeal victory in an eternal campaign of war.

Listening to The Troubles for the first time (using the modern and minute miracles of Bluetooth-enabled hearing instruments), it was obvious to me immediately that the “Somebody” the song referred to was my “little green devil” made concrete – voiced by Lykke Li in this colloquy – and how it had taken (attempted to – had I let it? – take) over my life:

Somebody stepped inside your soul

Somebody stepped inside your soul

Little by little they robbed and stole

Till someone else was in control

However, there is a subsequent message (meaning and interpretation) in there – sung by Bono himself – aimed squarely at me, and my profession to understand and be able to overcome my limits:

You think it’s easier

To put your finger on the trouble

When the trouble is you

And you think it’s easier

To know your own tricks

Well, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do

And I could quite happily walk around with a T-shirt (well, it would have to be a fleece-lined hoodie, at the moment…) bearing the following response:

I have a will for survival

So you can hurt me and hurt me some more

¶

Another principle I would wear proudly – from Pat Wall’s ‘bible’, Pain – the science of suffering – is already engraved on every cell of my recalcitrant body:

Coping is not ignoring. In fact, it is the opposite… [learning] to live with… pain in a realistic context… the beginning of a series of steps that give a sense of understanding and a type of control.

…and this – even though it is someone-else’s (hard-won) conclusion – I will never disregard. In its perceptive summation, it is what drags me out of bed in the morning; what pushes me along the footpaths by the River Avon; what stabs my stubby fingers imperfectly at the keyboard. It has become a promise to myself – the hardest thing I’ll ever do…. But if I’m coping successfully, I’m living victoriously – besting my pain at least once a day (rather than controlling it) – by hauling myself up (maybe with a stick; maybe one at a time) that series of steps. Even if it only the beginning….