​Yesterday was Thanksgiving and, on my morning walk, I mused on those topics for which I wished to give thanks. I came up with the defeat of Trump, the return of Alex Cora to Fenway, and my rediscovery of Dando Shaft*. At which point I returned home to find that, in their infinite lack of wisdom, the government had placed Leamington Spa in Tier 3 on the basis that it falls in the same county as Coventry, Rugby, Nuneaton and Bedworth. All of which are some distance from Leamington geographically, socially, and culturally. Not to mention in terms of Covid infection rates.
 
You may think that this is a sub-genre of NIMBYism, and it probably is, but the decision is unfair, unjust and unwarranted.
 
Four weeks ago, we went into Lockdown 2 in Tier 1. Four weeks of quarantine later, we are in Tier 3.
 
WTF?
 
I have been a good boy throughout both periods of lockdown. I have done what I was told and tried to maintain respect for authority. I have listened with great attention to the proclamations of government and government advisors. Yes, even those of Johnson and Hancock. I have accepted their decisions, even when it prevented me from visiting my 94 year old mother. I have “followed the science”.
 
Much good it has done me. I and thousands of others who have obeyed the rules are now to lose freedoms because of arbitrary decisions made by those with no idea of how people live their lives.
 
The prime minister spoke of the “whack-a-mole” approach which would ensure a targeted response. But now he has reneged on this and picked up his scattergun.
 
My argument is not libertarian. I do not believe that there is no such thing as society; rather the reverse. I am not with those MPs in the Tory party who come from this tradition and will, perhaps, vote against their government on Wednesday.
 
But I’ll take their votes if it means that some common sense will be brought to bear on this complex issue. I’ll take their votes if it makes a difference to those businesses which will not re-open because of this decision. I’ll take their votes if it means that thousands of young people will have jobs next year. I’ll take their votes if it means grandchildren can see grandparents.
 
This is a major crisis. Simplistic solutions based on simplistic analysis will not suffice.
 
And don’t forget, like Sunak, I haven’t even mentioned Brexit yet.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: *Prompted by  twitter thread, I have been listening to Dando Shaft, a Coventry band with a Leamington singer, which rivalled the Fairports and the ISB in the early ‘70s but never achieved the success they deserved (though they did receive a great deal of critical acclaim). I commend them to you, although yesterday and today, what’s playing is The Complete Last Waltz, the greatest ever Thanksgiving show. And yes, I do omit the Neil Diamond bit.
 

The received wisdom is clear: disunited parties do not win elections. Which effectively rules out both our ‘major’ political movements. Both are undergoing a struggle for the ‘soul’ of their movements: not only the policies and ideologies, but also the emotional and cultural approaches to the development and communication of those policies. For many, this is more crucial and voteworthy than specific plans and programmes.
 
It is significant that Starmer is following the example of Johnson a year ago when he (Johnson) expelled the likes of Dominic Grieve, Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke. Subsequently, he enforced a compulsory commitment to his Brexit plans from every Tory candidate. Not one refused.
 
It would appear that Starmer is pursuing a similar course. He has sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey. He has introduced the politics of abstention. And he (or, as he has argued, his unelected General Secretary) has suspended Jeremy Corbyn.
 
What’s more, he (or, as he has argued, his unelected General Secretary) has forbidden Labour members to discuss these issues. And he (or, as he has argued, his unelected General Secretary) has suspended members and officials who have gone ahead and discussed the implications of his actions.
 
Further, peevishly, he has now withdrawn the whip from the newly reinstated former leader. And posted on Twitter a crass and lengthy thread which is ill-written, inaccurate and self-serving.
 
I cannot judge whether this attack on the left and campaign of self-aggrandisement has reached its climax. If not, it must be pretty close.
 
I am, however, unconvinced that his determination to purge the party of those who are not of his persuasion (you may think as I do that this is a form of the factionalism of which he accuses the left) has come to an end. Despite the huge numbers of resignations and the even greater numbers of subscription cancellations, there are still many of us remaining. And we will not go quietly.
 
He has a name which is revered in the party. (Had I had a son, he would have been called Keir also.) He was a human rights lawyer. He was elected on a series of pledges, all of which have been forgotten or contradicted since the election itself.
 
It is clear that his agenda is and has been to take back control of the Labour party.

His machinations during the General Election campaign leave no doubt that his plan was to undermine the party and its leader and seize the opportunity. And it came to fruition.
 
As leader, he has abstained a great deal and whipped his MPs to do the same. He has, in his words, exercised supportive opposition. Only after months when the conversation amongst members centred on the growing evidence of cronyism and corruption has he mentioned it in Parliament.
 
His actions, rather than his words, have been exclusively against the left. Just as Johnson’s were against the Remainer Tories.
 
But the events of last weekend have shown that Johnson has seen the error of this approach. Cummings is going. Cain is no longer enabled. The spin is now of a new, more mellow leadership from Johnson, a new, more compassionate conservatism. Yeh, right!
 
Perhaps Johnson or Carrie sense that, despite the propaganda of the mainstream press, the Cummings strategy is fatally flawed in the long term. You cannot govern when your party is “like rats in a sack”.
 
And Starmer should watch, listen and learn. Because Labour is not his party. It is ours.

Today from the everysmith vaults: ​A friend sends me a link to a magazine article which lists the  best Ry Cooder albums in order of merit. I didn't agree with any of the placings. But it did remind me of one album which was placed somewhere in the mid-30s out of 50. The soundtrack to Performance, with jagger and Anita Pallenberg, directed by Nick Roeg. I had not listened for decades, but I should have done.

“We should treat the 2017 manifesto as our foundational document; the radicalism and the hope that inspired across the country was real.” These are my thoughts exactly; but they are not my words. The words are Keir Starmer’s, during his leadership campaign, and he went on to commit himself and the Labour Party to ten pledges. These included raising taxes on big business and the rich, increasing public investment and public ownership, scrapping tuition fees, abolishing and replacing Universal Credit, and defending the rights of migrants.
 
I was passionately involved in the events which Owen Jones describes in his new book, This Land: The Story of a Movement. But it turns out I didn’t know the half of it.
 
I knew, of course, of the McNichol groupuscule and its determination to undermine the new leadership at any cost. I knew that Mandelson had claimed that each day was an opportunity to bring down Corbyn. And I knew of the chicken coup, the machinations of Tom Watson, the claims of anti-semitism, the frustrating policy changes over Brexit.
 
What I didn’t realize was what a contrary old bugger was Corbyn himself. What made him an inspirational leader made him a shit CEO.
 
Owen tells of his sulking fits, his refusal to speak to McDonnell for weeks, his tardiness, his dislike of conflict, is going AWOL for hours and days.
 
And he also tells us of the incompetence of his hand-picked staff.
 
One of the key criticisms we make of Johnson and Gove is that their background as newspaper columnists makes them ill-equipped to run a country. There is a great divide between banging out a thousand words once a week and mastering the detail required to conceive and implement policy. The latter matters.
 
Owen of course is also a newspaper columnist, and in my judgement, a good one. He writes well and fluently in his columns, on Twitter and in this book. But he knows his limitations. He rejected a role in the inner circle.
 
Seamus Milne, the so-called posh-boy Stalinist, did not. He accepted with alacrity. And although he and Owen were both Guardian contributors, it is clear that Owen made the right choice and Milne the wrong one. Milne was more than capable of over-ruling the decisions of others, but barely able to make one himself.
 
He was, however, responsible for Labour’s strapline in 2017. “For the many, not the few” was not a new phrase by any means – it goes back to at least to Shelley - but it resonated as strongly as “Take back control” and “Get Brexit done”.
 
Newspaper people should stick to the knitting. And the essence of leadership is to surround oneself with people with specific and complementary skills. One such is John McDonnell who emerges from this story, unsurprisingly, as one of the few grown-ups in the room. He had – he has - the experience and expertise, the total commitment and work ethic to run an economy and a leader’s office.
 
Which makes reading of Corbyn’s sulky disagreement with him all the more difficult to take. And it is not made easier by Owen’s final chapter, entitled “The centre cannot hold”.
 
It is, as Owen says, important that we learn the lessons of the last five years, that Labour integrates its radicalism with organisation and competence. I suspect that those who voted for Starmer had something like this in their minds as they did so.
 
So far, I have seen and heard very little competence and no radicalism at all.
 
Let’s hope I am wrong.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: A lovely studio session from Mike Bloomfield and Janis Joplin. Not sure where I got this. It’s marked Unknown Studio, San Francisco, December 1969. But it’s brilliant. Listen to Janis singing Had To Get Out Of Texas. So glad she did.

Robert Peston thinks he knows everything. He thinks he knows what our leaders are thinking, usually because ‘a source’ has told him. He never tells us the identity of these sources of course, but we are assured that it is true. After PMQs, he reported as follows: “A saddened Boris Johnson urges Starmer to return to ‘more of the spirit of togetherness we saw yesterday’. A moment of great pathos.” (My italics.)
 
My friend Simon Garrett was quick to point out that he means bathos.
 
Johnson, “a revered classicist”, would have corrected him immediately. Pathos, from the Greek for suffering, is a quality which evokes pity; bathos, from the Greek for depth, is a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous.
 
My point is not that of a pedant. It is that of a political activist.
 
What Peston was reporting and what his words reinforced is a new narrative which is emanating from this government.
 
According to this narrative and these sources, Johnson is a hard-working prime minister who is working day and night to fight this virus. He should be supported all the way by a responsible opposition in an informal parliament of national unity. Instead, Starmer is constantly carping, cavilling and criticizing. He is undermining the heroic struggle of Johnson and Cummins and thus the national effort to overcome Covid in the UK.
 
The ebullient Churchillian prime minister is gone. He’s a victim. We should feel sorry for him.
 
I don’t. But nor will you hear from me stuff about him lying in a bed of his own making, although he is.
 
The problem is that the whole country is in the same bed that was (un)made by Johnson and Cummins. We are all in this together.
 
Unless you are Johnson and Cummins. Unless you are one of their cronies. Unless you are Serco or a Russian oligarch or Green or Dyson.
 
Of course, Starmer has barely been critical at all. All these shenanigans rate hardly a mention in his speeches or questioning. A new leadership would appear to be no leadership at all. There are no policies being announced. There are no debates or discussions within the party. In fact, the party is not allowed to discuss anything of any import.
 
I acknowledge that Starmer is smarter than Johnson. (I have only just realized this is an anagram.) But right now, and despite protestations on both sides to the contrary, the differences are minor if they exist at all.
 
“Strange all this Difference should be
‘Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!”

Today from the everysmith vaults: ​I gave up both whiskey and whisky more than thirty years ago and have eschewed them ever since. But that hasn't stopped me listening (on my smart toaster) to the new Theme Time Radio Hour from Bob Dylan. Two hours of banter and music about whiskey/whisky. 

You know you’re getting old when you count up the number of Tory prime ministers who have held sway during your lifetime: in my case, it is Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Heath, Thatcher, Major, Cameron, May, and now Johnson. Ten of them. And I had no ideological connection with any of them. I loathed them all. The prime of my life has been under the aegis of Tory prime ministers.
 
But with Johnson, it is fundamentally different. Churchill was a racist and imperialist. Eden, despite being MP for my own constituency, was a wuss. Macmillan, an avowedly one-nation-Tory, was a manipulator, only one-nation while it served his purposes. Heath was out of his depth. Thatcher did not even believe in society. Major was thrown in at the deep end and could never get out. Cameron was a chancer. May was the architect of the hostile environment and a church-goer.
 
But Johnson? He makes you yearn for the old days.
 
The days when Churchill claimed that mustard gas was permissible against “inferior races”; when Eden invaded Egypt; when Macmillan “laid down his friends for his life”; when Douglas-Hume did – well, what did he do?
 
When Heath took on the unions with the 3-day week; when Major did fuck-all; when Cameron introduced austerity and called the EU referendum; when May presided over the Windrush scandal and universal credit.
 
Ah! Those were the days.
 
No thinking person could have any ideological empathy with any of these people who seem to rise inexorably to the top of the Tory party. But my loathing for Johnson is not based on ideology. Or at least not exclusively or even primarily.
 
It is the result of his corruption, incompetence and cronyism, his lying and his selfishness, his ego and vanity.
 
He is not solely a bad prime minister. He is a seriously unpleasant human being. He is a spoilt brat who has been handed everything he wanted until, suddenly and without warning, he was called on to take responsibility.
 
He was responsible for the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. But not responsible for it. It was the EU.
 
He was responsible for playing down the Covid crisis, claiming that this was an opportunity which Britain would be “brave’ enough to exploit. But this was because he was misled by “the science”.
 
He was responsible for God knows how many children. But they are not his responsibility.
 
He was responsible for a frightening alliance with Putin and the Russian funding oligarchs. But that was Labour.
 
He was responsible for some of the most outrageously racist writing I have ever read. But not his responsibility: it was taken out of context.
 
I could go on. And given half a chance, I will. But right now, the evidence is too much. Even the BBC is beginning to recognise the signs.
 
This man must go. And so should this shambles of a cabinet.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: In these physically distanced times, tickets for strong quartet concerts are at a premium. But I have managed to acquire one for the Carducci performing Beethoven Opus 95 and Shostakovich String Quartet #9. I have been listening to the Amadeus recording of the former and the Kodaly version of the latter in preparation for an evening in the Holy Trinity Church, where I am not a regular worshipper.
 

Yesterday was August 30th. It was devoted to celebrations of the birthday of Ted Williams and John Peel. A long lunch, England overcoming Pakistan in the T20 slugfest, followed by the Sox beating the World Series Champions at a deserted Fenway by way of Raphael’s 4 for 4 and a debut home run from young Bobby Dalbec, the first since Daniel Nava’s Grand Slam a decade ago. A good day.
 
But t’was not ever thus. In fact, this shortened season has been no fun at all. No Mookie, no Sale, no Price and now no Mitch. More than half way through the season, we sit bottom of the AL East, with a 12-22 record. We are 11.5 games back
 
How does this member of the Red Sox Nation find consolation at such a time?
 
With a wonderful new(ish) book from Gabriel Schechter entitled Spanking the Yankees: 366 Days of Bronx Bummers.
 
In the UK, we call this a ‘bog book’. I’m not sure whether there is an American equivalent of this expression but you can probably guess that it is a book for opening at random and dipping into on the lavatory.
 
It is a detailed record of cock-ups and disasters which have beset the Evil Empire month by month and day by day.
 
For those who have suffered over the centuries from the smug superiority of the Yankee franchise, and this includes not only obnoxious Boston fans like myself but also the millions out there who have no allegiance to the Sox, this makes for great reading. It has extended my morning ablutions schedule significantly because there is so much material out there, and now it’s all in here.
 
It’s page after page of gaffes on and off the field. Defeat from the jaws of victory. Bad trades (remember DLsbury?) and poor plays. From Opening Day to the off-season.
 
I’ve been starting each morning with these healthy doses of schadenfreude, smiling and chuckling at each entry. And then the book comes with me to the office where the indexes allow me to revisit specific events, particular players and on-this-day embarrassments.
 
I commend this to anyone who loves baseball and hates the Yankees. Even Yankees fans can benefit, because it proves what many of us have known all along.
 
Yankees really do suck.
 
I am pathetically grateful to Fawn Neun of Summer Game Books for sending me a review copy. Thanks Fawn.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: My eldest daughter recently sent me a playlist of the stuff she listens to in her evenings on the veranda in Cary, North Carolina. Amongst the dross (sorry Vix!)was a track from a duo called Mandolin Orange. Serendipitously, a day or so later, a Deadhead friend also emailed me a few links to the same band. And now I have half a dozen albums and several live shows. Check out Wildfire and their cover of Boots of Spanish Leather and then listen to … well, pretty much everything.

Prompted by an excellent Radio 4 dramatization of The Plague, I have been re-reading the Camus novel for the first time in maybe thirty years. And this time round, for me, it is more powerful, more frightening and more relevant, on both a literal and an allegorical reading, than before.
 
Before, I read it as an allegory of the struggle against Fascism. I was not alone in this; indeed, I was in good company. Barthes, Sartre, de Beauvoir all saw it this way, and criticised Camus for using allegory to address such an issue. Too trivial, too slight, too frivolous for such gravity. It is a criticism which could equally be levelled at Orwell.
 
This time, I found myself – it was neither conscious nor deliberate – reading it as a straightforward narrative, taking it at face value.
 
Of course, I noted the parallels and prescience, permitting myself a smile of recognition at references to face masks, to death counts, to the quarantine precautions, the dithering and delays of the authorities.
 
But it is also a story, and a damn good one.
 
It is the history of an outbreak of plague in the town of Oran.
“The town itself, let us admit, is ugly”. Its inhabitants are bored and boring, living an abstract, tedious, routine-filled existence; what Heidigger called “everydayness”.
 
But Jean Tarrou, the communist turned pacifist who is instrumental in the volunteer resistance, records, “I am determined to be the historian of those who have no history”.
 
The plague, the Absurd, transforms the everydayness. Gradually, reluctantly, the Oranians come to realise that they must succumb or fight. No-one can remain indifferent to the indifference of the universe.
 
At first, the townsfolk complain about petty, personal discomforts. They are “like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves”. They believe that their own specific suffering is more important than the communal suffering.
 
But soon, they begin to recognise that the plague erases each individual life: “a feeling normally as individual as the ache of separation from those one loves suddenly became a feeling in which all shared alike”.
 
It is a community issue, that it must be fought by each individual on behalf of all. The protagonist, Doctor Rieux, is one of those who choose to fight, to rebel, on behalf of the community.
 
Rieux and his comrades pursue their fight against this suffering each in his own way. But each of them knows that it is futile. Each of them knows that it increases the chance of contracting the disease.
 
Of course, each of them also knows that they can contract the plague even if they do not nothing.
 
So they choose to do something in the full knowledge that it is useless, futile, pointless.
 
It is a meaningless choice. But the plague frees them to make it.
 
Because, as Camus wrote, it is “the wine of the absurd and the bread of indifference which will nourish (human) greatness”. 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Emma Swift's Blonde On The Tracks. It's the songs of course, but it's also and primarily that voice.

“Why is everyone criticising Starmer? He hasn’t done anything …”. That’s a Bob Hope joke from more than half a century ago. Hope was talking about Eisenhower but the gag came to mind recently whilst perusing the latest YouGov opinion poll. Labour is nine points behind the Conservatives, and Starmer is behind both Johnson and Don’t-Know in the Best Prime Minister stakes.
 
Given that the same polls rate this administration as the worst in living memory, given that Starmer won the Labour leadership primarily because of his so-called electability, and given that even the Tory press is giving him an easy ride, one might have thought that a significant lead would be … well, a given.
 
After all, as Tony Blair said dismissively when Jeremy Corbyn was a few points ahead in the polls, “yes, but he should be 20 points up.”
 
Yes, he should have been. And so should Starmer be now.
 
Each day brings more news of government corruption and cronyism. Each morning we hear of more statistical manipulation and lies. Day after day, we learn of yet another fiasco, yet more failures.
 
But we don’t hear the ‘forensic’ voice of Keir Starmer. He’s gone to ground.
 
It’s not the message. There isn’t really one at all. So it must be the medium.
 
True, the occasional tweet sneaks out. Now and again, an article under his byline will appear, usually behind a paywall. Once in a while, we will see him claiming that some government perfidy requires ‘looking at’. But that’s about it.
 
And his deputy and the rest of his shadow cabinet are also keeping schtum.
 
The bastards who screwed us in 2017 are kicking up a fuss. Pay them off.
 
Eliminate factionalism by expelling every faction. Except ours.
 
Don’t mention Dawn Butler. Until Boris Johnson does.
 
We’re only nine points down. Don’t rock the boat.
 
Trouble is, the boat is already rocking. Membership is declining. Some are resigning. More are allowing their membership to lapse. Amongst those who will remain, there is a sense of despondency and depression.
 
So is Labour a lost cause?

Not necessarily.  In the latest Survation poll, which was published at the same time as YouGov, Labour was four points ahead amongst those under 65. But amongst over-65s, the Tories had a 46 point lead. (Hence the nine point lead overall.)
 
As a man in his seventies, I have often thought there was case to be made for 65 being the cut-off age for voting. Those who vote should have a vested interest in the future rather than the status quo.
 
Nearly 50% of Tory voters are over 65, compared to just 14% of Labour voters.
 
So I have a modest proposal for you.

We don’t need to dissolve the people and elect a new one.
 
We don’t need proportional representation or single transferable votes.
 
We simply need to make voting the sole prerogative of those between 16 and 65.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: We have just passed through the ‘Days Between’ and so Jerry has been on my mind and my turntable. Today, from the night he died, it’s Bob Weir and Ratdog at Hampton Beach. You know our love will never fade away.
 

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent. Friends have alerted me to the fact that it is more than 100 days since I last posted at Not Dark Yet: in other words, not a single post during the quarantine. True, I have had more time at my disposal but I have wasted these weeks. I have been musing rather than thinking, reading more than writing, drinking more than eating. And those issues which I cannot discuss, I have consigned to silence. Now, due to popular demand, I give you what has kept me going during these 100 days or so:
 
 
Angst and Anger
 
But primarily anger.
 
Anger at the sheer incompetence of this government – the lies, the procrastination, the inability to ensure the most elementary of precautions – testing? tracing? supporting? - until it is too late.
 
Anger at the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey, based on a malicious conflation of legitimate concerns about the actions of the Israeli government with anti-semitism. It allows Netanyahu free rein to continue with his annexation. It diminishes the cause it claims to espouse.
 
Anger at the media – not solely for what it is telling us, but what it is not.
 
 
Words
 
Other people’s words. As ever, I have been reading and re-reading a great deal of crime novels and thrillers, notably Don Winslow’s The Force, a morally nuanced policier which I commend to everyone. But I have also managed to force my brain into gear in order to understand Carolyn Steedman’s History and The Law: A Love Story. What I relished in these essays on the minutiae of interactions between the two disciplines is the focus on the lives and works of ordinary people. It is what Carolyn does best, and never better.
 
I have also been listening to words. Podcasts and audio books are the soundtrack to my daily route marches around the parks of Leamington. Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I read as a chore as a young man, illuminated a couple of cloudy days along the river. Joyce promised that his life and writing would be based on “exile, silence, and cunning”.
 
I wish those words had registered with me 50 years ago.
 
​
Music
 
The lethargy-inducing impact of the lockdown has been mitigated significantly by Bob. First, he gave us three pre-releases from the new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways. And then, the new album itself. If we thought the plethora of allusions in Murder Most Foul or the exquisiteness of I Contain Multitudes was sufficient raw material for exegesis, it’s because we hadn’t then heard Key West. I am still playing this album a couple of times a day, still learning and enjoying as it reveals more on each listening.
 
(By the way, was anyone else confused by Bob’s reference to playing the Moonlight Sonata in F# rather than C# minor? I have since discovered that F# is urban slang for ‘fuck off’! Not many people know that. Or perhaps you did.)
 
 
Family, Friends and Other Bubbles
 
The family are fine – thanks for asking. I have now managed to see my Mum, now in her 94th year, three times face-to-face or mask-to-mask. She lives alone and has no wifi or internet skills. It’s been tough.
 
Most friends, of course, have the means to communicate virtually. And we have relished the apéros, the conversations, the debates on policy, the projections of the 60 game baseball season, the test-and-trace initiatives, the concerns over diminishing cellars, the celebrations of Coventry City’s return to the Championship, and a million other things.
 
Only once have I consciously broken the quarantine advice. Black Lives Matter is a cause which cannot wait and Jill and I were proud to be part of the demonstration in our town. It was, most of the time, physically distanced but emotionally and politically close.
 
The pubs can open on Saturday. Chances are I will call in to one or more during the day, even though my instincts and “the science” say we are re-opening too early.
 
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

​“The last quartets of Beethoven are mistakes, absurdities, the reveries of a sick genius. I would burn everything I have composed if someday I wrote anything resembling such chaos.”
 
Being an aficionado of sick genius and musical chaos, I confess I first read these words of George Onslow, the “French Beethoven”, as a compliment. I thought it an honest recognition that everything written before would pale into embarrassing insignificance.
 
Having now heard a piece by Onslow, his string quartet in C minor, Opus 8 No.1, I acknowledge that the world of musicography would not be diminished in any way had Onslow burned everything he had composed.
 
It was a clever juxtaposition by the Consone String Quartet at the Pump Rooms last Friday, as the familiarity of Haydn (Opus 9 No 4) and the banality of the Onslow provided a marked contrast with the sublime complexity of Beethoven’s Opus 131.
 
I first heard the C# minor half a century ago, in a recording by the Amadeus. Since then, I have heard it performed many times – notably by the Petersen, the Emerson and the Lindsays – but the Amadeus has remained my go-to version. Until now.
 
The Consone play instruments with gut strings using early 19th century bows and extracted new (to me at least) sounds without losing the warmth and complexity of the score with its long emotional sweep from opening fugue (beautifully articulated by the Consone) to its charging, dashing, careering finale.
 
Of course, although there are seven movements, the quartet is played without pause. It is seamless, fluid and, ultimately, cathartic. And last Friday, the Consone owned it.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: The Consone has not yet recorded the 131. But on Friday, in the break between the Onslow and the Beethoven, I managed to acquire a CD of Shostakovich’s 4th Symphony by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia. I used to have this on vinyl, and although I’m a Kyril Kondrashin kinda guy when it comes to Dmitri, I have been playing this “essential” re-release and can confirm that it is exactly that: essential.