A different kind of listening

I celebrated the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning with eight others. Ann and Paul were back in church after a highly enjoyable outing to Milan via Geneva and Montreux. They brought me back a bar of Swiss chocolate as thank you for informing them about the best way they could make use of their few days in the Suisse Romande!

I was glad to have an acupuncture appointment after lunch, after a couple of unpleasant and energy draining days. It certainly did me good, as I walked around Bute park and Pontcanna Fields for two hours before returning home. Clare and I had tickets for a guitar recital at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the evening. We missed the bus we were certain would get us to the town centre in good time, so we decided to walk there instead, as we did once before. It took us thirty five minutes - so I reckon I must have walked a good seven miles today, due to the acupuncture boost.

The recitalist was a young Frenchman, Gabriel Blanco. Our seats were several rows from the stage and we could hear every single note perfectly, thanks to the remarkable acoustic design of the Dora Stoutzker Hall. He played music from several 19th and 20th century composers, several of whom I'd never heard of - French, Italian, Argentinian. He devoted the first part of the second half to Bach's Chaconne in D minor, written originally for the violin, but transcribed for piano and guitar several times over the past 250 years.

I'm pretty sure I heard Andres Segovia play it in Bristol's Colston Hall in my teens. It was probably the longest solo piece of music I'd ever listened to at that time. I got to know it very well indeed as a student in Bristol subsequently, as my dear late friend Mike had a record of the violin version, which he played often. Hearing it after several decades took me right back to winter evenings in Churchill Hall, listening over a cup of tea, or while trying to write up and learn lecture notes. I remember the structure of the music far better than I remember the information I was trying to process at the time.

Gabriel Blanco's guitar technique was remarkable, but not just for the fluency and dexterity of his playing. The dynamic range of the sounds he produced, his use of silence, and above all the softness of his tone. The guitar, being a plucked instrument, produces a range of percussive sounds which can produce marvellous rhythms, and the act of plucking can add a sharp edge to the notes produced. A clear soft edged plucking sound brings a gentle lyricism to melody. I find that very special. On top of his notable repertoire of guitar music to engage with, this concert was a different kind of listening experience for me, having been a guitar player of sorts for over fifty years. Such a treat!