Interested on the platform at Epsom station to see a chap with a large ball of blue knitting wool, plus needles. Perhaps he was plotting something creative at our University of Creation.
Arrived at the RFH to find the ante-chamber rather full of people there for a performance by a couple of country music types with banjos. Which would have been fine in a pub, but rather annoying when you turn up for a concert. The QEH is rather into this sort of thing as well, at least it was and I dare say it will be again after its refurbishment, but at least at the RFH they have got a lot more space. One can get away from the unwanted crowds and noise.
There were also a few people who were or were close to being bag-people. come in from the cold. But there were not a lot of them and they were not being a nuisance. While the people heading for the organ concert were a bit clubby, looking rather like the people you might get at a real ale festival or a model railway exhibition. Although that said, once in the auditorium, about two thirds full, the audience was surprisingly mixed, with plenty of young people. Perhaps they liked the fact that it was cheap - maybe a third of the usual price
They got the ordering of programmes wrong and ran out, which resulted in some quite bad tempered grumbling from the organ buffs. Which the young man selling ice cream near me quite failed to deal with, it taking a young lady with a handful of photocopied running orders to smooth things down. She was busy, active and engaged and soon had all the grumpies eating out of her hand, as it were.
I rather liked the programme, which while a composite for the series, did include quite a lot of stuff about organs, in particular this one, only slightly above my head. One certainly got one's £4 worth. The only off note being an introductory note from the artistic director, a lady called Jude Kelly, which included some rather pretentious sounding stuff about exploring what it means to be human.
However, the music itself turned out to be a bit of a medley, and while there was plenty to enjoy, I was not able to settle to it. No sooner had one tuned into one thing, than one was onto the next. Plus, despite the big talk in the programme of the big organs in the churches of the north Germany of Bach's day, I thought that this was the wrong organ for the job. Far too big and flashy for this relatively delicate music. Too much rumbling from the big bass pipes, too much stereo as the music flitted from one side of the organ to the other. The 'Die Kunst der Fuge' which I had heard a few years back on a portable organ at the QEH, and noticed at reference 2, had worked much better.
But at least we did not have the irritating lumière to go with our son, as we had had last time. On the other hand, I thought being able to see the back of the organist from the socks up was an unnecessary distraction, despite the useful reminder of what an athletic business it was to play with two hands and two feet, and I was irritated by so many of the front pipes being decorative - in a rather naff sort of way. One would have thought that there were plenty enough real ones for that not to be necessary.
Pleased to find that the rain had stopped on exit and made the 2124 from Waterloo.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/organ-time.html.
Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=fugue+holland.
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