This post consists of a very long letter - it was originally sent on two
aerograms.
10.11.68
Dearest of
all dear old souls I know, I received your parcel with the jersey and biscuits and fudge
in it a couple of days ago, (and after I’d spent nearly an hour getting it open
had a marvellous time!) The jersey is perhaps a bit big, but I don’t know
– it’s long, but this doesn’t matter, and there’s plenty of room in the
sleeves, but otherwise it’s fine, and I intend wearing it all the this week and
to run it in so to speak. [I don’t remember this jersey, but plainly
it wasn’t up to my mother’s usual standards of fitting properly!]
I’m writing
this letter on Reg’s typewriter, in order to post it to you this arvo, but it’s
resulting in a bit more mess than usual. Since I last wrote I’ve been, as
usual, rather flat out – even though I stayed home on both Monday and Tuesday
nights. Part of the trouble was that I’d got an idea to write some music,
from Norman Thorn, [
a Dunedin amateur conductor - not the one who's still
conducting in the city, however] before I left home (whether it will
actually come to anything finally I don’t know, but I’d like to try it) and
this has taken up more time than I expected. Also, one of the NZ students
at the school happened to hear that I’d written some music – from me, of
course; got to blow my own trumpet - and it must be of some interest if
Don Mackenzie [
organiser of the Summer Music Schools held in Dunedin]
wasn’t too rude about it, and he said he’d like me to write some songs for him
some time, but though I’m very keen, it’s a matter of time, and also finding
the right sort of words for this particular singer – he’s a bass,
Kurt Gänzl is his name – he was
Brian Gallins [
actually ‘Gallas’] till he came here – he’s adopted his
own family name again! – and to my way of thinking songs for basses aren’t
necessarily the same type of thing as songs for soprano! Norman Thorn had
said on the way to Invercargill that time that it had surprised him that no one
had ever written any music on the theme of the Stations of the Cross – so I
wanted to see if I could and use a brass band into the bargain. This of
course necessitated some research into brass band orchestration. [
I
don’t think anything came of any of this – when I did write some bass songs –
to words by Thomas Hardy – a year or so later, I think I’d by that time lost
touch with Kurt. As for there not being any music on the Stations of the Cross,
a quick search on Google proves how wrong I was. I finally wrote music for
brass band many years later, in the 21st century, and that was
after I’d had considerable experience playing for brass players.]
At the
Centre we’re into work on the two end of term productions:
Albert
Herring, which I’m NOT concerned with (?) and
Dido and Aeneas coupled
with a curious modern French comic opera called
Angelique which
is all about a man whose wife is such a witch that he conspires with a friend
to sell her, and the chaos that ensues – even the Devil won’t have her!
It’s mad, and horribly tricky, but generally I’ve been managing to play
it. [
Angelique, which I don’t remember at all, was by Jacques Ibert. Kiri te Kanawa sang
Dido, and was really very good in it. The question mark after Albert Herring
may indicate that I was surprised not to have been involved with it, since I'd
worked on it with the NZ Opera Co.]
On
Wednesday night we went somewhere, oh, yes to the Wigmore Hall – where one of
the second year students was giving a concert. The Wigmore, as you no
doubt know, is the place where most young musicians make their debut. She
was on with a clarinettist, whom I thought was very much under par, probably
through nervousness, but whom the critics seemed to think was pretty
good? I’m definitely beginning to distrust the critics here. There seems
to be some shifty work going on backstage somehow. [I apparently spent
my time disagreeing with the critics.] The girl who sang wasn’t bad,
although some of her music I didn’t find all that interesting, but she sang a
new song cycle by a London bloke, which though it was scarcely terribly
original was quite pleasant – I’d played a few of them for her one day at a
coaching session, and quite liked them. [Unhelpfully, I don’t tell my mother
who the composer was.] The accompanist was very good but inclined to
overshadow his accompanees, to coin a word, probably because he was so much
more experienced. It was hearing these new songs however that prompted the
conversation with between Kurt and myself.
After this,
I went for a short time to a party being held in the same street, by one of our
stage managers (at her flat, it was, on the fifth floor!) but didn’t stay late,
though it was a nice quiet party, which is what I enjoy. The next day
David Syrus had invited me to accompany him to dinner at a lady friend (of
his)‘s place, and this was equally quiet and enjoyable. There are four
girls actually at this basement flat, but the one David knows, from his
University days, Mary, is an archivist now and at present is working in Lambeth
House, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. She is cataloguing
letters and such belonging to various previous archbishops from the 19th century.
Another girl joined us for tea, Frances, who works in the Tate Gallery (an art
gallery) as a secretary. We spent so much of the meal talking, that the
three courses took from about 7.45 till 10.15! (at least, Mary did most of the
talking, not in a brash overbearing way, but just quietly and
interestingly. We other three probably said less together than
she!) They live in Pimlico, very near the Thames, in St George’s Square,
where, presumably, most of the four or 5 storeyed houses have been converted
into flats.
On Friday
at our lunch-time lecture we had
Ronald Dowd, an Aussie tenor, whose
been over here for some years now, and he was interesting in a waffly sort of
way. I don’t think I told you that we’d had Professor
Thurston Dart the week before,
lecturing on
Dido and Aeneas, and bringing the whole tragedy to the
level of ordinary people in a very funny way. At the lecture he seemed like a
very friendly if rather cynical man – and yet, in the afternoon when he took
those concerned through the music of
Dido, he was frequently very
rude to the singers without appearing to try and understand their reason for
not having done a thing the way Purcell wanted it – this last was his most
heard comment throughout the afternoon, and we were a bit taken aback by his
rather surly tongue.
On Friday
night I came out to the Crowls, and listened to The Magic Flute on
the radio with Reg, trying to explain what it was all about as we went
along. I’ll see if it’s possible to get some free seats for them for a
performance, which will make up a little for all their generosity. I’d come out
the day earlier so that we could leave early in the morning to go to Coventry
to see the Cathedral that’s there. That’s the one built adjoining the ruins of
the old, where The War Requiem was first performed. It’s
really unbelievable in a modern architectural way, and some of it is beyond
description, I think. Here goes. We went there via the M1 (just Reg and
I; Mavis has been feeling a bit crook, and the other two had been fairly
recently) and this road alone is worth comment. We couldn’t see anything
on the way, and not much more on the way back because the fog was too thick. In
some places, unpleasantly so, and it’s a bit worrying to not be able to see far
ahead of you on such a fast road. Reg is a good driver, I think, although
sometimes he goes a little too fast for my liking. 70, for instance! In
spite of its six lanes, I dare say the M1 is very safe, but the traffic weaves
in and out a lot (there are three speeds, so to speak, according to the three
lanes) and though I didn’t see anything troublesome on the trip I didn’t always
feel too happy. Coventry is not a very large city – I should think smaller
than Dunedin, although I couldn’t always see it all for the fog, which did
clear in the town at least, - but it’s very new, particularly in the
centre, and well-designed for a modern city. The Cathedral isn’t the only
decent piece of architecture. The very centre of the town has a huge
shopping mall (this part is called Broadgate) which the traffic goes around, or
parks inside a large parking building, and it’s very busy as far as the
pedestrians are concerned. We didn’t stop to look at that – it was too
cold to stop and look at anything... [handwritten] to be
continued. Love Mike
Part II
because the
weather for the last week has been very bitter indeed, and though I haven’t been
wearing a coat yet, I have made considerable use of that scarf you gave me, and
my gloves. (And also, to digress even further, on Tuesday last, Mrs
Marshall got us some coal – on our behalf – and we’ve been using that for the
time since. It’s cheaper than the electricity – and possibly more
economical altogether, because the coal burns SO slowly that we hardly use any
in a night).
The sun was shining
and the day was beautiful to look at in a sort of frostbitten way, but not the
best to stand around in. So we headed across this Broadgate – me leading
Reg – he says he can never remember more than the first of a set of
instructions on how to get to a place – we’d acquired these from a lady, who
instantly knew we were strangers – not only because we were asking the way to
the church, but because we said ‘where is St Michael’s Cathedral,
and she only knew it as the Cathedral! Anyway, as you go into the
Cathedral two things hit you. The massive window on your right made of
about fifty or more stained-glass windows ranging from yellow and gold at the
base to green and reds and blue and purples. This is all over the top of the
baptismal font area. The font is a huge rock from Bethlehem with just a
niche carved into the top. The other thing is the Graham Sutherland
Tapestry, which frankly I find even less impressive in life than in the
photos. It has Christ in majesty seated with the four evangelists in
their usual guises of lion, ass – or horse, perhaps – man, is it, and eagle,
surrounding him. But it’s all done in a sort of off-white and green, and
to my way of thinking isn’t particularly attractive in any sense of the word.
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St Mike and the Devil - photo taken by me in 2007
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The
building is of a pink-gray stone outside (with an immense statue of St Mike
with a long spear, standing over the Devil in chains – both of them obviously
attached to the wall but somehow appearing to not be attached) and the inside
is a white stone with a great deal of wood panelling, carving, ceiling,
planking, seating, you name it, etc. On the left, inside, is the Chapel
of Unity, with the Star of Bethlehem set in the floor in sort of a marble type
of mosaic, but not as small as mosaic is. In the prongs of the star are,
again, representations of the evangelists, considerably modern in style, and
designs representing the five continents. Further into the centre are typical
Christian symbols. The points of the star go into the walls which are not
just flat, but (in an already circular room) are separated by both ordinary
glass in extremely narrow windows, and also by stained glass in a variety of
hues, which are always darker at the base than the top.
Outside in
the main church, as one goes towards the altar, you realise that there are
other windows besides the huge one over the font. But these are all
so designed that you can’t see them unless you look from the altar end.
Those on one side are connected with God or the spiritual side of man, and the
others with his human side. There are five windows on each side, perhaps
three yards across, each, and they represent man’s journey through life, the
green ones at the far end of the Church being his childhood, the red ones next
showing his passion in youth, etc, the next are multi-coloured showing middle
life, with all the trials and tribulations belonging – these aren’t shown in so
many pictures, but are all sort of abstract! – the next with deep purples and
blues and golds show wisdom, etc, and the next, which my guide book doesn’t
mention, are curious. On one side there is a very pale window, off whites
and pale yellow, and on the other a different thing again. Anyway,
presumably it means you reached your goal!
As you come
down both sides of the church there are five panels (on each side) with
Christian texts, sort of roughly carved in nearly foot high letters. If
one turns round and looks at the back of the church you can see the completely
glass-covered back wall with figures of saints and angels set into them.
These are modern too, naturally, but interesting, and like so much else in the
church, intricately designed. There are sets of organ pipes on both sides
of the principal altar (but I couldn’t see the organ). There is a little
archway beneath these pipes on each side leading round behind the main area to
the altar beneath the Tapestry. On the way on the left side is a little
collection of the various opening ceremony implements, and yet another set of
stained glass windows. crossing over to the right we come to another
chapel, Christ in Gethsemane, with a frame of the crown of thorns through which
the, I think, bronze angel set with coloured glass holding the cup can be seen.
This is lit by three narrow unseen windows.
There is
yet another altar (like the Chapel, sort of outside the main structure of the
church) the Chapel of Christ the Servant. It is fairly simple in design
and has windows looking over the surrounding town area. Other features of
the church are the Iron Bird ?? with the three nails taken from the old
Cathedral embedded between its body and the pedestal, the canopy made up of
dozens of three-pointed wooden things over the Bishop’s seat, and each of the
accompanying seats has one too. I see now that my description of the
Baptismal window is inaccurate. The centre is of yellow and gold, the
surrounds vary from blue to green to red. There is a new addition to the
Church. A crucifix, about ten foot high, hanging near the font. It
is a gift from Czechoslovakia. The whole building is very angular, and
yet doesn’t make it uncomfortable to be inside.
We went
outside after and had a look at the shell of the old church, with the cross
made from the wreckage, and the altar made from the stone. The entire
bell-tower is still standing and most of the walls. Crazy, isn’t
it. We also had a look (after lunch in the Cathedral Refectory
Restaurant) (!) at the church next door, which except for the loss of its
original stained glass was scarcely touched (it now has a new and very detailed
window facing the altar, with a very athletic Christ, and a host of well-known
saints) – and it dates from 1200 or something. It’s much cosier than the other
church, although its spire must be equally as big, and there are some very old
things remaining in it. The lectern dates from the origin of the church,
but looks like new!, and there is a lovely carved fresco of Christ and the 12
apostles all standing about 8 inches high. Over the altar is another
carving, this one in stone (the other is wood) with the usual Christian scenes
on it. Each of the pew-ends has a different type of leaf shown on it, although
at first glance it appears there are only two patterns.
That’s
about it. Last night Reg and I played firstly Scrabble with Mavis, and
then played through a couple of chess games from a book by Gerald
Abrahams. The second game was that played by two computers! I’m
leaving here early today, to meet Kevin in town about five, since this is his
only afternoon off! He has Thursday off, all day off, but of course
that’s no use to me. I’ve got most of Monday off. Might be able to
catch up a little. [handwritten] This term seems to have gone
terribly quickly – finish on the 21st Dec. We start about
6th Jan again. Thanks again for parcel. Mike
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Another photo taken at Coventry in 2007
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Tomorrow night I go to NZ House near Piccadilly to a
reception being held by the High Commissioner for NZ for James Robertson and
Kiri [te Kanawa] before they go to NZ
for Carmen. [A recording of this production is available on You Tube, though for video there are only still shots.]
