Given my great passion for Mozart it may surprise you dear reader that in my years of music I have only performed Mozart on 3 occasions. We sang the Vespers on tour in Belgium in 1981. Sadly we never did record it. In the years of my retirement-which are in the main ongoing-I sang the Requiem very badly. The performance was not that bad but I was bad.
Yet the performance I recall most is of playing 2nd violin in the Clarinet Quintet in what I think must have been 1986. I'm pretty certain it was my O Level year-yes I am that old. Perhaps not coincidentally I studied the piece for O Level music. My violin playing days were marred by laziness, a lack of practice, no confidence and teachers who spent so much time dwelling on my many technical faults that I forgot that music is about playing music not bashing out notes with no emotion.
We all recall great teachers from school or university. I had a lot of bad music teachers and a great one. Neil Cox who ran the choir at Lancing occasionally delved into other realms of music too. It was him who asked me to play in the Quintet along with an upper 6th cellist and 3 professionals. And it was Neil that bollocked me when I didn't do enough work and ended up wasting the time of others. So I went away and worked hard. In the end the performance was a triumph and I recall it as very much the only public performance of me playing the violin that I enjoyed. 2 years later on the eve of my long delayed grade 8 exam he told me "forget about the notes, for fuck's sake play music". I headed the advice and breezed the exam with a mark I could never have dreamed of.
This week Mozart has featured on Composer of the Week on Radio 3. The final part of the final programme played the sublime Quintet in its entirety. It was a joy.
I have not had the easiest of weeks but had a good chat with my ever supportive friend and colleague Kym, finally got to eat my Spanish beef stew, I have a beer open and Mozart plays. That is the way to end a tough week.
I Heard a Voice.
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