pumpkinstrokemarrow

Splendid piece with a huge cast. 1 soprano, 1 contralto and 2 choirs. 2 harps, 1 gong, 2 large bells, 8 timpanis with 2 timpanists, half a dozen or so each of trombones and French horns. 1 tuba. Three pairs of cymbals on the go at one point. A dozen or so double basses. Enough other winds and strings to make up a balanced sound. The running time of nearly 2 unbroken hours was proportionate to the size of cast. Most sections got a decent outing at one point or another, a very democratic piece in that sense, but one did feel a bit sorry for the choirs. They got to do a lot of sitting for their relatively small outings.

We were sitting quite near the back which I had thought would be OK with such a large cast. But as it turned out, with my ears anyway, some of the very quiet passages were a bit lost. When, for example, you had twenty violins playing very softly in unison after some bravura bit of brass. With hindsight, I would have preferred to have been maybe twenty rows further forward - which would, presumably, have at least doubled the very reasonable - £15 each - price of our tickets. Plus, when one is down to returns, one can't be too fussy. Not on a gala occasion of this sort anyway. Sufficiently gala that there was a serious standing ovation at the end.

There were some truly wonderful passages - the sort of thing you might get in a 'highlights from' CD - and the thing does hold together. But it is very large: it did cross my mind to wonder whether the whole thing was not an elaborate leg-pull by Mahler. Or perhaps comparable to one of those paint charts you get from Dulux advertising their full range of colours and textures. The man was clearly a master of orchestration.

In the course of getting home, I wound up patrolling the secluded night smoker platform at Raynes Park for 10 minutes or so. First sighting was a decapitated telegraph pole. Chopped off at about 12 feet with a nice little metal hat to keep the rain off, but with no function that I could see. What was the thing doing there? At its base was a rat trap. And running south along the margins of the platform were hundreds of vigorous plants coming through. The first showing was a flat rosette of leaves; sessile is the botanical term I think, which made one think of foxgloves, which they were not. But they looked as if they would be shooting up some time fairly soon, so not really sessile at all. Gathered one, the one illustrated in the previous post, for identification later. No one on the train found it necessary to comment on my carrying a plant in the middle of the night.

Consultation with Collins' Pocket Guide and FIL this morning suggested first that the thing might be a member of either the mullein or the woundwort families. But after further delving thought that perhaps it was the more mundane sounding borage. Of which, as FIL pointed out, there is quite a lot growing in the inner verge of the house at the end of the road. Observant of him to notice, before the event, as it were. And on my morning constitutional I came across quite a few clumps. Not rare at all. But I shall have to keep an eye on Raynes Park so that I can get formal identification from the flowers.