I’m spending this Sunday afternoon in my room, taking time to wander into the forest of my imagination. I find myself getting caught up in the business of grown-up life and losing my interiority — paying bills, making plans, working hard, and not using my imagination at all. Yet I consider that imagination the best part of me.
It’s time to get this next novel underway. Thank God I’ve done this three times before, so if nothing else, the law of averages says that I’ll be able to do it again. Thank you, Past-Me for doing your work.
~
Thursday night, the newest addition to my cadre of friends, Stephen Duffy, invited me through to Glasgow to see a concert by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The weather was dreich and I had a lot of work to do that could have taken me into the evening, but I knew that going was more interesting than not-going.
The Glasgow City Halls were renovated specifically for the orchestra, and they did a wonderful job of it. The performance space is a big, bright, open hall, all light-coloured wood and whitewashed walls (where before it was apparently dark, brooding, and, as Stephen says, “The nicest word I can think of for it is… municipal.”). Surprisingly, for such a large, rectangular space, the sound was beautiful. It’s always so pleasing when planners, designers, and builders get things right. (Where the default expectation is that large groups of people will always foul a thing up.)
But as they said to Mrs Lincoln, “Yes, but how was the show?”
Great.
Now, my dad is a huge fan of classical music, and on the weekend we were usually woken up by some blaring chorus or a woman screaming in Italian. As a rule, he tends to hate modern compositions, and I get where he’s coming from: most of them are the aural equivalent of getting stabbed repeatedly with knitting needles.
This evening’s program began with a concerto called Sangsters: Concerto for Orchestra by a modern composer named Sally Beamish. There was no mistaking its modernity: no pleasant melodies, no easy-to-follow themes — altogether difficult for an unschooled listener like me. (Why respected art needs to be difficult and accessible art is considered lesser is another conversation.)
What I did appreciate, though, was that there were images, scenes, and ideas folded into the music that rose like steam from the orchestra, as if their black concert clothes had been soaked by the waves and rain of the sea-scape the concerto described, and they were being warmed dry by describing the shore to the audience with their efforts.
The second piece was Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.2. That was easy. The guest pianist, Robert Levin, was a marvel. The sheer ease and precision with which he could play such a fast-flowing stream of notes made my jaw drop. Better still, though, was that he was truly playing. His sense of fun was irresistible, as he took the vertebrae of the piano-keys and tickled them, dove into them like a Swedish masseur, then hovered his hands over them, teasing out single notes. Sheer joy.
The third piece of the evening was Mendelssohn’s “Scottish Symphony” (Symphony No. 3 in a Minor). I’ve wanted to hear this in full ever since I toured the Palace at Holyrood House at the foot of the Royal Mile here in Edinburgh. Its abbey is an enormous stone ruin, a dark grey, orderly cavern overgrown with lush foliage. The commentary on the audio tour recording said that this place was Mendelssohn’s inspiration for writing the piece.
Throughout it, the conductor, a compact man with just a cirrus cloud of brown hair on top of his head, danced back and forth, gesturing at the orchestra, daring them on one moment, pushing them back like King Canute another, flicking them away casually, then lifting them up to a triumphant, blaring finale.
After the main program was a recital of two more pieces by Sally Beamish with two cellists, one a shambling Stephen King figure (Robert Irvine), the other an intense young woman with a sweep of brown hair across her face (Sian Bell).
The man played the first piece, Gala Water, which had been commissioned by a small town; the composer wrote a piece that hinted at a local folk-tune, not really fully disclosing the tune until the end. I’m not sure how the town felt about it, though, because the place it described in my mind was a bombed-out town covered in dust and rubble, with a boy walking through it, kicking at rocks, passing the fountain in the centre of town, which was filled with petrol and on fire, then finding a small piece of mirror which reflected — just for a second — a piece of blue sky that clouded over as he looked up.
“Thanks, Miss, here’s your cheque. We’ll, um, explain to the city council later how we’re going to use this piece of music.” Still, I did enjoy it, and the cellist, Robert Irvine, was pure genius.
The second piece, a duet, was commissioned for a workshop, in which craftspeople made instruments after the Stradivarius school of violin-making. At the end, one of the parts in this piece was played by an original Stradivarius, and the other was played on a raw, white, unlaquered violin that had been produced during the workshop. (The composer said that there was no appreciable difference in the quality of sound between the two instruments.) For this performance, though, the two cellos played. Irvine’s sounded deeper, experienced and thoughtful, whereas Bell’s sounded bright and energetic.
So, a good evening, to say the least. I’m grateful for the opportunities I get through my friends to go to so many different interesting events.
Of course, my head is constantly turning toward the novel like a ship to the wind. Everywhere I see discussion of climate change (which, I suppose is not just due to my attention, but because it’s the latest media obsession and does also seem to be the biggest issue facing us). I’m doing lots of reading and research, and I’m starting to bother myself by constantly bringing the topic up in conversation. (This is the biggest danger with the issue, I fear, growing numb to it from over-exposure; that’s why I want to write something funny about it — which is no small challenge.) The plot is constantly flipping this way and that in my head, too, arranging and rearranging itself.
This is the always the scariest part, when the story could be anything, and it’s easiest to think of outcome, of effect, the “what will people think?” factor — which is, not properly handled, the domain of writer’s block. Which brings me back to interiority: the story already exists inside me in its truthful, honest form. I just need to cultivate the attention and courage to go deep enough to find it, then carry it out.
