George Fu opened with some Debussy Etudes. We know that Debussy wasn't an impressionist by now and that any dreamy palette of light-soaked meditation has something ominous suggested beneath it before long. If he is even thought of as a bridge between C19th Romanticism and C20th Modernism, he is surely more than halfway across that bridge. Number VI, Pour les huit doigts was a spell-binding, quicksilver romp to end the set, underlining, if it really needed to be, how lucky Chichester is to attract such a procession of fine talent to its lunchtime gigs. George Fu was as impressive here as any of the very impressive musicians they get and, having felt very much at home there and more than an occasional visitor, I will look forward to becoming almost a fixture when retirement allows.
But the performance four years ago had resulted in me adding a recording of the Brahms/Handel to the record shelves, great piece that it is. Early-ish for Brahms, at op.24, the baroque Handelian theme soon becomes C19th as Brahms uses the fine excuse of variations for showmanship on the composer's part, never mind the pianist's. George made good use of the bell-like sonorities of Chichester's Yamaha that lent itself particularly well to such music.
Although very much 1860-ish and as ravishing as it feels like being, Brahms also knows his Bach, who is conjured from time to time rather than Handel in the exploration of so many possibilities and the variations flower like some extraordinary floribunda before leaving us on a big flourish, having been so many places on the way from Handel to the very acceptable face of Romantic expression.
It was a tremendous exhibition of musicianship from a number of angles and Chichester shouldn't take these things for granted, which I'm sure they don't, but I have any amount of time for these people, the talent they bring, the time they put in and the end result.
Years and years ago I heard a chess grandmaster describing how he had walked round the middle European spa town one morning where he was playing a tournament, before his game in the afternoon, the cafe he sat in and the chess set he bought (perhaps he thought he'd give the game a try). Sometimes I am reminded of that charming little vignette on such a day as today, grateful for the cool September weather after the summer we suffered, in genteel Chichester.
Although Portsmouth has its share of charity shops- and good on them- it would be unexpected to find the Penguin Book of French Poetry 1820-1950 or the DVD of Depardieu's Jean de Florette in any of them. The St. Wilfrid's Hospice shop is one I'll try again, having added my modest Christmas card requirements and their 2019 diary to my shopping. And all for under ten pounds, you know.
But genteel Chichester. Then somebody spoils it all by doing something stupid.
As the train arrived to take me back to where I live in shabbier gentility, like a character from Maupassant, some juvenile delinquent wreck ran across the track. Much too far ahead of the train to constitute a danger but poor form nonetheless. Except he then ran back with the train only a few yards away. Very much the sort of behaviour which, from the safety of late middle age, makes one advocate bringing back National Service to squarebash some discipline into such errant, malformed nuisances.
Once the train was at the platform, I waited and saw what happened next, which was the miscreant essaying a third crossing, this time pursued by a uniformed officer who I dare say caught him and I hope administered the battering the train was only a moment too late to deliver.
It's a shame the little prat hadn't panicked and tried to escape via the platform where I might have upended him and begun the officer's work for him, having enquired of him how he thought the Brahms variations compared with the Beethoven Diabelli. But I hadn't noticed him in the cathedral.