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My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson) -
I saw this and thought it could almost be on the collecting instruments thread... I don't know if it's the same photographer but some of these images looked like a series of pictures of abandoned country houses which the Guardian published a while ago. -
Remarkably resonant images.....
Years ago I visited the St Georges Hall in Liverpool, when it was open for the leisurely perusal and admiration of its mosaic flooring.... knowing there was a small concert hall hidden away in there somewhere, I asked an attendant about it. "No, it isn't open" he said.... "but I could take you up there for a look if you like..."
"Wonderful" I said... "I'll just find Mum"..... his face fell....just a little. But he remained friendly and eager and Mum's irrepressible sparkiness soon cheered him up (oh, I was soon a mere onlooker..).
Winding our way through dark corridors and stacked chairs, mysterious sudden staircases and a final very grand doorway, we entered this domed, dusty, grimy, cobwebbed and neglected hall... with a piano, evidently long-unplayed and out of tune, there on the stage, illuminated from above by a large skylight. The grace of a dormant musical God, I thought...
Ghosts and memories, hidden, unwritten, unspoken.... I asked one of the inseparable new chums to play a note or two whilst I retreated to mid hall, "to try the acoustic" I said... (already the incurable audiophile...). Willing attempts at Für Elise were soon abandoned.
"Individual notes are fine, thanks" I said. "Try the bass, a bit louder".....
Since then it has of course been luxuriously refurbished, as a prime venue for chamber and instrumental recitals, adjunctive to each RLPO season...
I attended a chamber-orchestra concert there.... which included Frankenstein!...by HK Gruber..."when we dead awaken", I thought...
But I didn't care for the acoustic very much.
(I think I preferred it, or the suggestive image of it, the dusty, musty smells and spiders... before the renovation...)
***
Reminds me of this heartbreaker from The Pianist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-mw4CSfnI
....keep the kleenex handy....Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 11-08-19, 16:06.Comment
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Wonderful evocation, jayne.Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View PostRemarkably resonant images.....
Years ago I visited the St Georges Hall in Liverpool, when it was open for the leisurely perusal and admiration of its mosaic flooring.... knowing there was a small concert hall hidden away in there somewhere, I asked an attendant about it. "No, it isn't open" he said.... "but I could take you up there for a look if you like..."
"Wonderful" I said... "I'll just find Mum"..... his face fell....just a little. But he remained friendly and eager and Mum's irrepressible sparkiness soon cheered him up (oh, I was soon a mere onlooker..).
Winding our way through dark corridors and stacked chairs, mysterious sudden staircases and a final very grand doorway, we entered this domed, dusty, grimy, cobwebbed and neglected hall... with a piano, evidently long-unplayed and out of tune, there on the stage, illuminated from above by a large skylight. The grace of a dormant musical God, I thought...
Ghosts and memories, hidden, unwritten, unspoken.... I asked one of the inseparable new chums to play a note or two whilst I retreated to mid hall, "to try the acoustic" I said... (already the incurable audiophile...). Willing attempts at Für Elise were soon abandoned.
"Individual notes are fine, thanks" I said. "Try the bass, a bit louder".....
Since then it has of course been luxuriously refurbished, as a prime venue for chamber and instrumental recitals, adjunctive to each RLPO season...
I attended a chamber-orchestra concert there.... which included Frankenstein!...by HK Gruber..."when we dead awaken", I thought...
But I didn't care for the acoustic very much.
(I think I preferred it, or the suggestive image of it, the dusty, musty smells and spiders... before the renovation...)
***
Reminds me of this heartbreaker from The Pianist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K-mw4CSfnI
....keep the kleenex handy....
Speaking of elderly joannas - pianos in rhythming slang - my dear Mum bequeathed me a beautiful 1930s Blüthner table grand. Dad reckoned I'd get £50,000 for it when the time came. Fifty grand for a grand! But when the time did come to sell the family home and move to where I now am, Blüthners said it had been subject to non-ideal conditions and in loco too long - it was 30 years. And in any case, the particular manufacturing line that had produced it had all been vitiated by a hard, difficult to control tone. I'd long wondered what was wrong about my playing! In short it would have to be completely gutted and refurbished - which the firm would do, the casing was in beautiful condition, not a scratch or stain - but he did give me a couple of thousand quid for it.Comment
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