The Year in Review - 2023

I think I can do this already. There are no further concerts lined up and I'm reading old books rather than new ones and so unless I go through the card and break the bank at Sandown on Friday, which would make that the Event of the Year, December isn't going to change anything much. Events of major importance beyond concerts are few and far between otherwise.

There are 44 concerts recorded in my diary even though I declared the innings last week. Mostly in Chichester and Portsmouth Cathedrals but also memorably in Portsmouth's Menuhin Room, two in Holy Trinity, Gosport, two in Wigmore Hall and one or two others in and about Chichester, Havant and Portsmouth. Catherine Lawlor, with others, set the pace in the first half of the year with her Szymanowski and Shostakovich; my long-awaited outdoor summer date with Lauren & the Heatwaves entirely lived up to expectations and probably exceeded them, high though they were. The Renaissance Choir in Wells Cathedral was a memorable day for the building as well as the music and Danny Driver's immense Goldberg Variations in the Menuhin Room was stunning. It must be borne in mind, though, that a shortlist should make some effort to narrow the field down and so with honourable mentions for Errollyn Wallen's upbeat, life-enhancing solo performance in Wigmore Hall and my new best friends, Ivory Duo, with their popular classics, I think that's seven events, which is plenty, in behind Portsmouth Baroque Choir's Messiah in Chichester in July.

Messiah echoed on inside me for a long time after that evening when, due to circumstances, I didn't get to bed until the midsummer sunrise was happening the next morning. One can only decide which events were better than any others by reflecting on the effect they have on you and how vividly they impress themselves on one's memory and, as such, in spite of so many others being great, this was in a class of its own and I didn't really need to wait until now to say it was the choice.

It can be tempting to avoid the issue, like it was last year, and nominate joint winners but, to make up for that, I'll stretch to second and third places. For the sheer joy of the occasion and for doing such good jobs on some of my favourite pop records - like Band of Gold, Stoned Love and Be My Baby - Lauren & the Heatwaves are second and Catherine Lawlor, as part of the Shostakovich with Angela Zanders and Mikhail Lezdkan, with her Syzmanowski with Valentina Seferinova as supplemntary evidence is third.

Not all that many of the discs I bought were new releases and so it involves no such long shortlist to make Yuja Wang's Rachmaninov the Record of the Year which is surely a Rach for the ages and isn't being filed away on the shelf any time soon. 

I did actually read a new novel this year, which was Sebastian Barry's Old God's Time, and was impressive but there were two new books on C17th Dutch Painting, both not to be put down and admirable, in several ways not dissimilar,  but Laura Cumming's Thunderclap, centring on Carel Fabritius was readily my favourite Book of the Year with Katya Hoyer's Beyond the Wall, the history of East Germany told convincingly through people interviewed who were there, as she was, aged 4, also making for memorable testament.

Which leaves Any Other Business, new poetry having receded from my radar too far for it to provide a short list by now. The only other business significant to make a category for is Retro Television and top marks to Talking Pictures for their long runs of Maigret, both in its early 1960's Rupert Davies BBC versions and Bruno Cremer's French 1990's edition. An hour on Saturday night and two on Tuesdays, I've hardly missed any and by now recognize stories I've seen in the other series, or even Rowan Atkinson's, although that doesn't mean I can remember the endings. Long may they continue. 

And, with the rhythm of a year well established by now and thanks to those who make them pass enjoyably, it only really remains to see what the final profit from the turf will be, always saving a bit to carry forward so that we begin next year ahead. It could still be a personal best but it will be healthy enough. Nothing can possibly go wrong now.