The final day of the 2013 Spring North Wales Tour dawned surprisingly bright and breezy. Well, it wasn’t raining, and it was very windy.
In a salute to spring fever and the approaching Easter break (after today, only two recording sessions and one mammoth concert left), Katie Littlemore (violin) and Claire Dibble (bass) had organised an Easter egg hunt round our rented accommodation.
Childish yes, but also massive amounts of fun, and something that I feel should now be a Spring NWT tradition.
Today we were back to the spring programme.
At rehearsal, as it had been a few days since we last saw it, we took time to revisit the major points of the Stravinsky Symphony in C. The most important aspect of the Llandudno rehearsal was to adjust to the dryness of the acoustic.
It was great to have such a good audience in Llandudno, and what I found most encouraging was how many young children were in the audience. Youngsters have no preconceived notion about what style of music they like, so they will either simply love it and be super enthused by it, or hate it and let you know about it - normally, very vocally.
Many thanks to the open minded parents who brought their little ones to the concert. I really hope they enjoyed it, and that you will bring them again.
We play so much contemporary music that it can be really refreshing to play melodic music of the like of the Horneman, Sibelius and Glazunov works in the Spring programme. It's so lovely just to be able to sink into a melody, to make a rich sound, to present something that is uncomplicated and simple, something that an audience can enjoy simply because it is beautiful.
A massive congratulations must go to our soloist for the week, Rob Plane. Two concertos, two performances of each, one a much loved favourite for many, the other a behemoth of the 20th century repertoire. As I was off rota for the concertos I was able to listen to some of them, and it was a real treat. And I never say that about clarinet concertos.
Surprisingly, the dry acoustic of Llandudno, in some ways, made the Stravinsky easier to play. While you had to work very hard to achieve warm legato and to blend, the dryness afforded the music a real clarity that made it possible to hear all the separate layers of the music.
Stravinsky's Symphony in C may not be as popular as his jazzier Symphony in Three Movements, but over the course of this week it has really grown on me. It puts me very much in mind of Stravinsky's earlier work for string orchestra, Apollon Musagete (though this was, of course, revised in 1947), and the Symphony in C may be seen as the epoch of the composer's neo-classical style.
Indeed there is something rather Pulcinella like about some of the music, but it is Apollon that I hear most clearly, in particular the Calliope and Apollo variations.
The audience reception was exceptionally enthusiastic and warm, and brought to a close what was a very successful first North Wales Tour for our new principal conductor.
On my return to Cardiff, I was delighted to find my bag in my flat and to be reunited with my bank cards as I have spotted concert shoes that I really, really want.
