every smith
  • MS: Max Smith's blog
  • History to the Defeated
  • every smith: independent creative consultants
  • Words: Max - a brief bio
  • Sites to see

Leamington Letters #125: Vitae lampada tradunt

7/4/2017

7 Comments

 
Picture
Yes, I know I promised to talk baseball this time, and I will very soon; but the season is only a couple of games in (Sox 2 for 2)  and right now I have to tell you about a couple of wonderful Sunday performances that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness in the last couple of weeks: first, Bach's St Matthew Passion and, a week later, Coventry City’s first appearance at Wembley since 1987.
 
For many years, in a different lifetime, Good Friday was the day on which Jill and I would schlep to Birmingham's magnificent Symphony Hall to see and hear this combination of religious mass and secular opera performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with Willard White (now Sir Willlard White) as Christus. The sheer brilliance of the CBSO, rigorously rehearsed by Simon Rattle (now Sir Simon Rattle), the superb acoustics of the hall itself, and the power of the Symphony Hall organ (featuring a couple of pipes donated by everysmith – a different lifetime indeed!) made these afternoons among the highlights of my extensive experience of live music: right up there with Dylan in 1966, Kyril Kondrashin and the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1971 and the the Dead in 1972.
 
So when it was announced that the Armonico Consort & Baroque Orchestra directed by Christopher Monks was to perform the Passion on period instruments and that Ian Bostridge was to sing the role of evangelist, there was no doubt where we would be between 3pm and 6pm. We were not disappointed. Fortified with a glass of indifferent Chilean Merlot, we were transfixed - is that the right word for a performance of the Passion? – by an extraordinary performance, closer to what one suspects was the original sound than the power and magnificence of those Symphony Hall concerts.
 
Not necessarily better, but different in kind, in style, in its religiosity.

Picture
And there was a similar sense of religious fervour the following week, when I was one of more than 43,000 Coventry City supporters travelling to London on a pilgrimage in search of salvation from a season, indeed a decade, of disappointment.
 
It was a wonderful experience, although stressful in the extreme. Only the goals and the final whistle provided exhilaration. But we did it. And the joy in the City half of the ground – rather more than half actually – was palpable.
 
Owners SISU have destroyed the club, in the search for mammon, but Sunday showed that there is still a Coventry City Football Club and it exists in the hearts and minds of those players and those 43,000 fans.
 
It’s a broad church and its breadth and depth will not be diminished nor destroyed by a hedge fund.

​My special commemorative scarf has been passed to my grandson, who wears it with pride. He’s only 6. But quasi cursores vitae lampada tradunt.


Today from the everysmith vaults: A show from last year, at Asbury Park NJ, featuring members of the Dead and Airplane families, including children of the original bands. Another wonderful example of the torch being passed. 
7 Comments
SimonF
7/4/2017 11:30:50

What you doing this Sunday? Can I come?

Reply
John
7/4/2017 11:40:51

Wembley was special. A celebration of what was. Hope you're right that there is a future. Georgie's goal will live in my memory as vividly as Houchin's.

Reply
Ellie
7/4/2017 14:56:52

Sunday bloody Sundays. Apart from yours. Grew up with the St Matthew Passion and envy you this gig. O sacred head sore wounded. Just don't seem to get out as much. Should do. You and Jill know what it's about.

Reply
Allan
7/4/2017 14:58:49

Thought you were an atheist. What you doing at St Matthew Passion? Although no-one who believed in God could also believe what has happened to your football team!

Reply
Max
7/4/2017 15:21:13

An Anglican atheist. Sat next to a couple of Catholic friends attending a what is essentially a Lutheran service. But who cares? The music is why we are there.

Reply
PaulD
7/4/2017 21:25:00

We want SISU out. We want SISU OUT. WE WANT SISU OUT!

Reply
PatC
11/4/2017 11:39:02

Saw the City beat the Posh on Saturday. There is still hope so long as the maths say it's possible. Remember Tottenham? One game at a time. Won't be the first or last time it goes to the wire. PUSB.
PS First time on your blog. Love it.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Baseball
    Books
    Film
    Food + Drink
    French Letters
    Leamington Letters
    Media
    Music
    People
    Personal
    Politics
    Sport