The Museum

Back in April, the centennial anniversary of the ill-fated voyage of S.S. Titanic put Southampton, if temporarily, at the centre of the world's attention. Unsurprisingly, myself and other friends and family members were most readily involved in musical contributions to the commemorations, not least the massive performance of A Sea Symphony in the docks on the actual anniversary of the sailing.  A more lasting result of all this was that the much-awaited SeaCity Museum opened its doors to visitors, finally furnishing the city with a maritime museum of suitable dimensions for it's historical significance. And today, I finally got around to making a visit - with the intention of publishing a review here, of course.

As much as anything else, the creation of such an attraction represents the city council finally getting off their backsides and actually making something happen with regards to getting some tourist footfall (and income) into the town, although it's a pity that, as has happened before, the (now defunct) Tory administration were claiming credit for it all when in fact the project was initiated during the years of a hung council.  There was a debacle on a national scale during the planning stage when the council tried to sell paintings and a sculpture from the city art gallery to fund the project, and only backed down when the Tate found some legal clause forbidding them from doing so (massive public opposition is much easier to ignore these days). An added contrivance is that all Southampton addresses are generously being sent a free ticket, except that to use it you have to visit together as a household, can only visit outside school holidays in 2012 and not during the first six days of opening. In other words, if you want to take your whole family, you have to have a free Saturday or Sunday or else an inset day which you take off work, and you won't be the first to get in. Typically for the ID Era, they'll also want proof of residence, so if you have a family of three and were hoping to sneak in Aunty Mabel from Whitstable when she came to visit, sorry, forget it; she'll have to pay.

Still, it's a huge leap forward from the little maritime museum that preceded it, housed in a medieval wool house opposite the ferry terminal.  It was interesting, filled with models of ships and bits of anchors and compasses and other delightful nautical clutter, but hopelessly outdated and greatly under-representing the port. Although the inside of the new museum is bespoke, only a little actual new building needed to take place.  The building housing the galleries was built in the 1930s as part of the Civic Centre, and used to contain the law courts and the police station as well as an elegantly thin tower with a four-face clock at the top.  In a wonderful gesture towards the city's heritage, the clock bells chime the first phrase of Southampton resident Isaac Watts' hymn O God, Our Help In Ages Past on the hour. The coppers moved out into a rather Orwellian monolith overlooking the docks in 2010 and since then the entire East Wing has been refreshed and refitted to contain the exhibition halls. The only bit of construction needed was a rather more angular gallery at the north end, replacing some flowerbeds with a series of triangular sections concertinaed into one another, presumably to suggest waves, sails or the bow of an ocean liner. This also forms the shape of the museum's logo, which looks like an upside-down factory with a chimney. They've at least tried a little to blend it into the existing structure with a nice façade of Portland Stone and some smoked glass.

Let's go inside...

The entrance lobby sets out the tone of the museum.  It's not huge, with today just a single attendant behind the ticket desk and a single staircase and lift to the first floor.  The wing is listed, and a lot of interest is in seeing how they've managed to change the building's function whilst maintaining the heritage features, something which has been done rather well. Other than the contemporary block-colour and sans serif style of inserted walls, the original Portland stone and marble is the main interior texture of the building.  The ceiling vaults of the upstairs atrium have a pleasing decorative pattern to them, and the signs directing entrances to the courtrooms have been retained.  One side of the floor, formerly Court Three, is on the general history of Southampton, and seems like a sensible place to begin. The false roof has been left open in places to show the ornate painted wood panelling of the original court, and one can see the coat of arms at the far end too. Space does not permit a full description of every exhibit in the room, suffice to say there were sections on most periods of history from neolithic to modern, and appropriate artifacts.  Beyond this room was a smaller one containing a huge model of the Queen Mary (from the old museum) and a series of displays on various immigrations to and through the city - more artistic than informative, it has to be said, preferring representative objects over things like statistics.

Unsurprisingly, the other half of the exhibition space is given over to the Titanic.  There was an immediate focus on the actual people on the ship rather than the vessel itself - it wasn't built or registered here, after all - and especially the crew, who were mostly Southamptoners.  This was done through following the situation of five individuals on the ship, from Captain Smith to a fireman, through the various stages of the voyage and sinking.  Notable were the wall listing all the items taken on board the ship at Southampton (did you know they carried horse hair and opium?) and the wireless operator's room.  The main part of local interest was the room dealing with the survivors. The floor was the now-famous map of 1912 Southampton with every residence that lost a crew member marked in red.  I also liked that the other courtroom had been used as a space explaining the Titanic disaster enquiry, still left as a court with jury benches, dock and judge's seat. Downstairs, in the new pointy-roofed bit was a special exhibition (presumably the first of many) on the legacy of the Titanic and the public's lasting fascination with it.  There was an interesting wall comparing five films from the 20th century about the ship, and another with a huge variety of objects essentially cashing in on the name, from beer to dolls.  Other areas dealt with the unanswered questions about the voyage - was the ship going too fast, could the lookouts see enough, and the morality of exploring the wreck. One wonders what future exhibitions might occupy this space.

Things to like:

 

The interactive stuff 

This was all very well-done, chiefly because all the touchscreens and videos were generally used for the most appropriate purpose, showing and explaining things that couldn't be done so well using static displays and information panels.  Some were more child-orientated than others (drive sail the Titanic using a real wheel and telegraph! Rub the screen to 'dig' for buried Saxon treasure!) but all were educational.  There were some other nice touches too, like the 'stained glass window' that was actually a subtly moving projection (watch long enough and you could see the bird dislodge an apple from the tree which fell on the medieval trader's foot) and the Roman video. I personally liked the circular table with an overview map, which cycled round every period of the city's history every ten minutes and allowed several different people at a time to zoom into the relevant areas and read little hotspots of information.

Size and content

 

I ended up spending about as much time in there as I wanted to spend (in fact I could have stayed longer but it was closing), which I count as a success bearing in mind I'm the sort of visitor who sets out intending  to read all the information and look at all the objects.  Everything in there was also interesting, relevant and objectively presented (although interestingly, a companion on this visit noted perhaps a slight left-of-centre tone, particularly the focus on ordinary working people and several mentions of trade union involvement, both of which accurately reflect the town's political direction for most of its modern history).  That said, see criticisms below.

Looks 

 

The conversion from law courts to museum has been carried out with great sensitivity to the building and as a result the whole place looks great.  One of the interesting features, which the architects may or may not have been aware of is the feeling, of being in a transient space, as if one is able to observe the different stages of history just by being there, and there is certainly no sense of having hidden or thrown out the previous function of the building - indeed, it is purposely left on show in places.  Full marks to the builders.

And a few things for improvement:

 

A bit perfunctory in places.

 

Although the exhibits manage to cover a fair chunk of Southampton's history, there are some significant omissions. At no point was it actually explained why the area became a port in the first place, nothing on the actual operation of the docks or the liner trade, nothing on other aspects of transport (the railway, the airport and flying boats), and nothing on important periods such as the Georgian spa industry or the Blitz. One appreciates that space was a little limited, and that the conservators had to pick and choose, but with the potential of interactive features physical room need not have been a hindrance in this respect. In particular, the business of the port operations would surely have been a publicity opportunity that an organisation such as ABP would have seized upon, yet there was no mention of the modern container port.  In a similar vein, several things that were featured were inadequately explained. Had I not some knowledge of early modern history I feel I would have been mystified as to who the Huguenots were and why they were fleeing from France - and even then it would have been nice to read more than a single excerpt from the digitised account book belonging to the businesswoman named Judith. Why the Romans and Saxons actually settled in this area was also barely explained.  Some of the Titanic section also felt a bit padded-out - display cases spaced just a bit further apart than they might have been, not quite enough detail. The only exception was the economic background to the era and its crew, which I didn't know about previously.

It's tempting to say that this was solely due to budget constraints: this is all we could afford; is a museum worth it when we have to cut front-line services, that sort of thing; but it is also perhaps symptomatic of a more general modern tendency to assume that people have short attention spans and won't appreciate detailed descriptions or masses of stuff to look at.  I don't think that's a good way of setting out on an entity like this - surely a good museum is one which caters for many people with different levels of interest about different things, each one of whom who will want to see some things in great detail but skip over others?  A museum should also be a starting-point for further private research into areas of particular interest, and as such ought to at least introduce as much as possible to the visitor.

English only

 

Given the international nature of the city - and the fact that this is a key feature of all the bits about immigration - it seems surprising that there was not a single sign, map, or other piece of information in anything other than English.  The city council publish documents in nearly every tongue under the sun, and rightly so when there are so many languages being spoken here, but not at the museum. One would at least have expected French and Polish. 

Would I recommend a visit? I would say yes, but not to expect the experience to be on same scale as the maritime museums in Liverpool or Belfast. It is more of an afternoon visit than a whole day's attraction. One thing I can't really judge is how interesting a non-Southampton visitor would find it  - I was not particularly impressed by Bristol's municipal museum recently due to finding it too 'localist' - and in fact also thought many of the same other criticisms about that as I have with SeaCity. The general impression of the place was that it was more concerned with people than systems or physical things, which might be less appealing to the outside visitor. However, the widespread appeal of the Titanic should at least provide a good level of familiarity.

To the ends of the earth

Yesterday I was able to travel to London and go to the Science Museum. Whilst such an undertaking may seem ill-advised on a Saturday in school holidays, I needed to visit now because it was my only chance to see Universe of Sound: The Planets, an exhibition featuring Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia performing Holst's eponymous suite, as well as a new commission from Joby Talbot entitled Stars, Systems, Worlds, Infinity.  All this was intended to demonstrate the workings of the symphony orchestra and its constituent instruments, and as such each section of the orchestra has its own curtained 'chamber' with the surround sound and video matched to give the impression of sitting amongst the players at that location.

I'd initially been alerted to its existence by a friend who is working as a guide at the exhibition, and who was very pleased to see me there. It turned out I'd fortuitously arrived during a lull in visitors (apparently it can become quite busy with families, and indeed the installation was extended by a month to cope with visitor numbers) and was able to try my hand at percussion in Mars and Venus, playing along to the suite.  This is harder than it might seem even for a seasoned performer, not least counting tens of bars in rests or held rolls and then coming off at the right moment (snare drum technique is also not nearly as intuitive as it looks). Anticipating that many visitors will not necessarily read music, there are helpful video screens in which players from the orchestra explain what you need to do and guide you in with the help of some Guitar Hero-style graphics.  I gave the tam-tam a resounding whack and then played some gentle glockenspiel notes before my guide showed me over to the conducting pods. 'These are really cool' he explained, demonstrating how the motion sensors would detect my hand movements as I followed the beats on the 'conductors-eye' screen. The simulator is limited to controlling volume and showing accuracy of beating; the music will continue even if you stop and there is no way to control tempo or interpretation.  (I suspect no current technology is sophisticated enough to interpret the nuances of a conductor's direction in the way human players do, and indeed the facial and non-beating gestures I made were pointless). But it is a good way of demonstrating what the conductor must do.

Even as somebody who regularly plays in several orchestras there was a great deal of interest in walking round to a different section to my own, and hearing the sound of the orchestra from another point - wind, brass, organ.  The curators had helpfully put out the instrumental parts in their respective chambers for those who could read them, so I would spend each Planet following what I though was most interesting - harps in Saturn, upper strings in Uranus, horns in the Talbot piece.  Possibly the most interesting part was a split-screen showing variously the horn, bassoon, trumpet, violin and timpanist.  Below them was a continuous commentary of their thoughts as they were playing the piece (presumably transcribed from listening through afterwards).  This included a little banter over virtuosic passages, but also fascinating insights into the actual business of performing the music - the trumpeter explaining how the repeated notes in Mars became uncomfortable to play by the end, the violinist explaining how he watches both the conductor and the leader at once, the timpanist counting rests and the conductor watching his stick. The most touching was the principal horn trying to articulate what it was like to play the solo that opens Venus, how she just let herself play it and trusted she had judged the acoustic of the room and the other players that followed her.  It was a wonderfully intimate moment to see the other players responding appreciatively and her satisfaction at performing what was essentially just four notes, but notes of such significance which had been entrusted to her.  Next to this screen was another showing Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and, in a similar vein, his thoughts on the music and its merits.  'In two minutes he has changed the character utterly' he mused, a little after the aforementioned horn solos in The Bringer of Peace.  Also insights into the business of conducting: 'Muti used to watch for the brass players' embouchure to place the downbeat - sometimes the conductor is led by the orchestra'; 'what makes the rhythm avoid becoming repetitive is that he is always changing what is happening around it...sometimes it's 3+2 and sometimes 2+3...you have to be very controlled and not get carried away by the excitement of the music'. Best of all; 'the sound of the symphony orchestra...something you cannot get from anything else' and 'People who don't really listen to classical music, don't know much about the orchestra - they still know The Planets'.

I must have spent nearly two hours - two complete performances of all the music - in the gallery and eventually left back through the clocks and hourglasses to eat lunch. I was very pleased to discover that although a little out of the way on the first floor, the installation is right above the main ground floor gallery which is open to the roof, and so Holst was being broadcast right over all the cars and steam locomotives and rockets where most of the museum's visitors were.  Whilst one might, being critical, wonder what a piece of music based on astrology is doing in a science museum, I am tempted to include this brief summary of the exhibition in my 'myth of elitism' series, as it is yet another laudable method of opening up to the public the joy and wonder of classical music and the amazing worlds of sound created by the orchestra.  The Planets, although overplayed in parts (I'm thinking especially Mars and Jupiter), deserves the fame it has achieved, and has always been a favourite piece of mine, particularly Neptune with its glittering textures, chilling dissonances and that extraordinary use of voices (something I pay homage to in A Child of the Snows, and which also featured in the Talbot piece). I hope Holst's music, for all his later misgivings about its popularity, will continue to bring many more souls under the spell of the orchestra.

Having picked up some reduced-price chamber music from Chappells (I wanted a score of Holst, but they only had big ones which were overpriced) I then raced home and got back in enough time to see the Olympic Torch being carried through my city. Yes, it was historic. Yes, we all briefly felt part of something big, proud that our largely unremarkable town was a small part of a huge event. But I have to say I will remember the exhibition with more affection than the minutes spent on a street corner, with all the vapid sponsors' stooges faking a party in the drizzle and finally a man with a surprisingly small gold stick running past in few seconds. For all its ceremony, the Olympic relay felt ordinary and mundane; Holst, by contrast, seemed otherworldly and transcendental, filled with wonder and fascination. Better still, it is more accessible. One does not have to wait in the rain or fight through a crowd to experience the music, it is available to anyone as long as there are ears to hear it. That, surely, is the more lasting and generous legacy?

The concert

A week ago I had the chance to take part in one of the many Titanic commemorative events taking place around the country. We've already covered how closely linked Southampton is to the ship, so it was quite appropriate that the City of Southampton Orchestra were doing a special concert in the docks.  It was a good one.

We all, orchestra and choir, dutifully arrived at Dock Gate Four on Monday evening for the rehearsal. I'd long wanted to drive past the barriers at the entrance and go inside, so was very pleased to be let through and allowed to drive along the access road to the cruise terminal.  It was a pretty rough night, strong winds and heavy rain heightening the machined, industrial character of the place with everything either floodlit or picked out by small points of light.  This whole area is artificial, concrete deposited into the Solent at the end of the nineteenth century to expand the port, and is imposing rather than picturesque; conceptually united, if we can be generous enough to suggest an artistic element in discussing it, by the fact that most objects are very big.  On the left is the smaller Ocean cruise terminal, whilst ahead to the right rows and rows of Hondas and, in a car park MINIs. After crossing a single track of railway line, a huge diesel locomotive looms up alongside the road, sitting somewhat ominously with its lights on and coupled to a rake of auto-carriers. Cars are a major import here, but there are also giant rolls of cable, dumper trucks and, at the end of the promontory, two huge grain silos.

After driving a good half-mile, I find the venue. The concert to be held in the grand arena of the Queen Elizabeth II cruise terminal, next to which is the exact spot Titanic sailed from and where Cunard liners still depart from to this day.  The building is a bland modern block, which is a particular shame as what preceded it was the wonderful 1950 Ocean Terminal, built in Art Deco style with modern innovations such as power gangways to the ship and conveyor belts for luggage. In an exceptional act of cultural vandalism, Associated British Ports bulldozed the entire structure on inheriting it via privatisation of the docks in 1983. Had it survived, it would actually have made a fantastic venue for the museum if it weren't for the commercial interests of the port keeping the public out. A few rare pictures of it are here.

In fact commercial interest has struck again, as our previously arranged parking spaces inside the terminal had now been grabbed as storage by [German luxury automobile manufacturer*] meaning we have to fight over the space outside. I'm lucky and get Meg about as close as possible to the door outside in the inclement weather. Inside the long shed the first 100 yards is a parking and drop-off area, bedecked with Union flags and about 100 new saloons and coupés, still without registrations and with protective plastic and factory tracking numbers attached.  There must have been close to a million pounds' worth of middle-management tailgating equipment in there.  No time to gawp, as we now have to locate a means of getting up to the departure lounge on the second floor. After fruitlessly trying to find stairs I eventually opt for walking up a static escalator.  My first impression of the concert room is that it's not particularly inspiring. It's basically an airport lounge but with comfier chairs and a lack of marked-up shops. There's a marginal attempt to acknowledge the heritage of the site with reproduction posters of the White Star and Cunard liners, and models of the QE2 and Queen Mary, but this is very much a place that exists for waiting in to go somewhere better. Unlike at the time of the Titanic, or even fifty years later, there's little attempt to dazzle the passengers with luxury from the moment they arrive. It's symbolic of the fact that nowadays, as with flight, cruising and ship travel is a practical rather than a prestige-minded industry.  Expense definitely gets spared in the current climate.

Still, there's a semicircle of chairs for the orchestra and risers for the choir, and the lounge seats have been arranged in quite a lot of rows for an audience of considerable number (we sold out a month ago) so it at least looks like a concert venue. There are some windows on the far side overlooking the water but not much of a view apart from some cranes and the Hythe pier, and the rain hammering away outside and the white of the waves breaking. Incredibly there are more cars parked outside on the quayside, so if you're thinking of buying one bear in mind that it might have been left exposed to the elements on a Southampton dockside for an indefinite period of time. Presently the majority of the orchestra and choir arrive and we begin the rehearsal with Depart...to depart, a new piece which has been specially written for the occasion and will receive its première tomorrow night. The first issue was to turn off the noisy heating system, which took some minutes, in the process of which the fire alarm was set off, quickly being joined in rhythm by the percussion section. About half the choir started to get out quick and had to be called back whilst the rest and the orchestra just laughed and waited for it to be silenced - we were clearly not 'slightly on fire'. 'This is all part of the general 'danger' theme of the concert...' remarked the composer of the first item.  I can't really comment much on what went on for the rest of the evening, suffice to say that we rehearsed the new piece (which I like) for a bit and then moved on the the Sea Symphony (which I liked even more). We had the soloists here tonight, so the plan was basically to run the whole thing and only stop if necessary. The additional noises of the rain, seagulls and particularly the wind whistling through the roof made for a rather atmospheric performance. Out in the gloom ships would roll past the windows, constellations of lights rising and falling together.  I have to say I got more than a flavour of what it must have been like to sail on the Titanic through the dark of the North Atlantic.

Tuesday night was completely different - sunny, a little damp from previous precipitation but bright and the sea calm.  I parked up at about 5.30 at the foot of the grain silos with the rest of the orchestra, and got a few pictures in before anybody security-looking might have seen me and made a fuss.  There was a truly enormous car carrier moored at the other side of the dock, ramp up and ready to depart.

Rehearsal was necessarily brief, as the audience were starting to queue up outside. A female reporter and her cameraman burdened with equipment stayed for a bit to film the orchestra and choir for the evening news.  They got two takes of the opening of A Sea Symphony, which not only gave a flavour of the concert but provided an excellent of shattering the idea that classical music is all quiet.  We top and tail a few bits before there's a tea break. Quick, the punters are coming in.

Practice over, I wolfed down the sandwiches we'd been supplied with for tea and took the cello downstairs, taking great delight in romping the wrong way through the security room unhindered with it. It was time to entertain the crowds with some jolly numbers from the White Star Line Song Book (and Nearer, My God, to Thee).  The 'palm court' was a corner of the room with some trees that almost resembled palms, but not quite well enough.  In fact this hardly mattered as there were plenty of other distractions for the waiting audience; chiefly the bar, but also four giant ship's funnels that had made an appearance at a previous Titanic-related concert; costumed actors and actresses and us palm court musicians ourselves - when the trombonist arrived and we could start, that is.  The conductor gave my arrangements of I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside and The Glow-Worm (no, I didn't think many of you would remember that one) several outings, interspersed with other bits and bobs he'd arranged from the WSLSB, which made the now-arrived trombonist jolly pleased as he could have multiple goes at the duuur-uuur-ur! glissando I'd written.

Thirty minutes later we all run back upstairs to do the rest of the concert.  It's a full house: we sold out a month in advance.  Our conductor, John, enters the podium and allows Ian to introduce his piece Depart...to depart, with an explanation of all the different songs from the different classes of the ship he's based the piece around, as well as the sounds of the Titanic's whistle and machinery and other parts of the ship depicted in the music.  I rather like it actually, and we give a good account of the dots for ten minutes or so.  After the applause there's some faff time whilst the choir come on, which a chunk of the audience take as a cue to re-visit the bar.  We also put some jobsworth carrying buckets past the stage in his place so he doesn't disturb the rest of proceedings.  One settled down again, there's a dedication-cum-prayer by the Dean of Southampton remembering those on the ship and all who work in the port (this goes on a bit).  Then Mark Oldfield and Jane Streeton, who are our vocal soloists, enter to more applause.  Now for the main event - once the seagulls on the roof have shut up.

John is on the podium.  The brass and horn sections all have instruments poised ready for the downbeat...

BAAAAAAAAA!!! BA-BA-BA BAAAAAAAAA! BAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
'BE-HOLLLLLD.......the...SEAAAAA!!!!' CRASH!!!!

And so begins surely one of the best openings to any symphony ever written, let alone somebody's First. The general aim of this is to knock people clean out of their seats with the volume and splendour of it all, in much the same way as the Verdi we did on tour. After all the luscious strings and blowing brass the piece moves on to a faster bit, then the baritone enters, then...well, space does not permit a blow-by-blow account of the whole piece, you'll just have to listen to it all.  There are two - three, in fact - very good reasons for choosing to perform this other than the above; first, it's British and sea-related; second it was composed at around the same time as the Titanic was built; and thirdly, the Walt Whitman poem Vaughan Williams sets in the first movement includes the most apt lines for this week of commemorative events:

'Token of all brave captains
And of all intrepid sailors and mates
And of all who went down doing their duty'

The last movement the symphony is Mahler-length, nearly half an hour, and deals with the ongoing quest of geographical and metaphysical exploration. Its opening is vast and cosmic, the first bit of sustained reflective calm in the whole symphony, later more exotic and questing as the text demands.  In places it's almost like high-quality epic film music, at others one can hear clearly how much of a French influence the composer picked up (one achingly lovely passage accompanying the solo baritone is scored for muted horns, solo flute, oboe, cor, clarinet and solo violin and viola). The coda is a stroke of genius, with a false ending suddenly restarting as a gradual fade-out on two, then a single chord which is lost in the heights of the choir and the depths of the celli and basses.  Trust a seagull to nearly ruin it...

It was a triumph. The orchestra played superbly; the choir were perfectly tuned and by turns gloriously powerful and magically subtle. Best of all, we have had mountains of messages and emails praising the performance.  I'd like to think that somewhere, far away, the Titanic's band were listening, cheering us on...

* Hint: It's not Mercedes-Benz, Audi, VW or Porsche.

What Happened in Hungary: Day Seven

In a nutshell, it's nearly over.

If we include the shell of the nut, the nutcracker and the rest of Tchaikovsky's output, however, there's a bit more of this adventure to go. Not least with the morning's news that we will have at least half a day more in the city of Budapest.  I pack my precious bottles in the centre of my bag and attempt to pack clothes round them in the most protective fashion I can conceive. Having made a quick check of the room (historically I always leave something behind in hotels) I then struggle with two bags and the cello in a patently unsuitable lift and ensure both are carefully stowed on the bus.  It hardly needs to be added that we didn't leave the hotel on time due to every other member of the orchestra having to endure a similar effort taking their things from the top of the building to the bottom. This is, of course, forgivable.  Then we left Békesmégyer for the last time, back along the leafy highway and the green toy trains of the HEV, the riverside and Germanic church, and into the long car park next to Heroes' Square. Cue a textbook reverse park of our mega-length bus under the trees.  And now three hours of freedom.

Ferenciak tere and the Erszebet Bridge

Having no particular plan, I act decidedly out of character and follow a group who are going to some kind of underground market in the city centre of Pest.  This did involve a journey on the M1 which, as you may have inferred from previous posts, I am reluctant to forgo.  Last time, I bought my ticket in all of 45 seconds but today isn't going to be so simple for two reasons: 1. There are forty of us and 2. According to an American tourist the machine is out of action, so we will have to buy from the BKV vendor in the attractive wooden hut on the platform.  Trying to get forty people onto a train together is hard enough at home, let alone with a language barrier and unfamiliar geography in the mix.  The following paragraph can be filed with little hesitation under the category 'shamelessly blowing my own trumpet':

The vast majority of our party had at least some inkling that they would need to purchase two tickets as, like on our own metro system, one can only buy singles. However the aforementioned vast majority also did not possess a vast quantity of literature on the Magyar language and so did that classic Brits-abroad thing of shuffling a little nervously up to the window and asking in a very syllabic tone 'Could - I - have - two -tick-ets - please...?' or better still 'um..what the guy in front said'.  In a priceless demonstration of the value of doing one's homework properly I patiently awaited my turn and then politely asked 'Jo reggelt. Szeretnék kettő vonaljegyek kérem'. Doubtless this would have been more impressive if I'd not been looking up the word for a single ticket on the tariff list a few moments earlier, and remembered that kettő (two) can be abbreviated to ket in this instance, but the icing on the cake was not only that this was understood but that I could add 'tessek' as I handed over 640 forints and 'Kus' as I took the change. Frankly, I don't think this kind of bragging is unjustified, as what I have just described was accomplished with nothing more than a phrasebook and a short period of study, and is certainly not beyond the range of anyone else with a moderate level of education and nouse.  (I subsequently had to jump in and explain to several people the importance of actually validating the purchased tickets before boarding a train).

After letting four trains go by due to the length of time it takes to get everybody a ticket and going the right way (yes, there were people who had to be dissuaded from crossing to the opposite platform and ending up at Mexikói út...) everyone piles onto the boxy yellow carriages and rumble down the line.  We finally extract ourselves from the Földalatti at Deák tér, and form a shape-shifting mass as we stroll - in fact, slower than that - through the streets. I don't like following in large groups for several reasons: the pace tends to be literally pedestrian; inevitably people get distracted by shiny things and we have to wait whilst they somehow re-attach themselves to the group; I can't stop to take pictures for not wanting to commit the above offence; and we're also a massively obvious target for pickpockets.  The underground market is on Váci utca, the main shopping street in Pest.  I have an idea I have been near here on my last trip, as in a memorable bout of YouTubery a more hyperactive member of the strings then urged on with gusto a busker who was playing his favourite Metallica song.  Ah well, we were all about sixteen back then.

The underground market is plainly a tourist trap, evidenced by the escalator down to it.  There are no Hungarians inside other than the proprietors of the various alcoves that serve as trading outlets. All kinds of slightly needless wares are piled high; in no particular order: fridge magnets snow globes football scarves stickers folk costumes postcards laser glass engraved things painted ceramics pictures beer mats dolls t shirts - little that interested me, in other words.  Always alert to the presence of souvenirs with a practical purpose, I purchase a moderately-sized carton of ground paprika which would probably have been half the price in any nearby supermarket but has a gloriously exotic dollop of Hungarian writing on it and does seem to taste quite good.  I also get something I try to collect with varying degrees of success from anywhere I visit - the nation's car sticker, which in Budapest is simply 'H', to add to my cello case.  This a long and often prolific tradition amongst musicians with larger cases, although it's becoming increasingly difficult since the introduction of Euro-style license plates (the ones with a blue strip and the circle of yellow stars to the left). Older Hungarian and more so, Slovak, cars look much better with the national coat of arms instead of the bland EU insignia that UK vehicles still seem to shun.  By the time I've done so, many other people seem to have scattered with the general intention of having lunch in a nearby restaurant. Companion tells me she is going off to explore the vicinity on foot and heads off, so after a little deliberation I decide to do the same in a slightly different direction. I pick the nearest interesting-looking street and discreetly get my camera out.

By pure chance I take a less direct route to the main road, and suddenly happen upon a truly extraordinary structure.  It is some form of arcade, huge and dark and, as I begin to see more, lavish in the extreme. There are two other people with cameras looking equally awestruck so I venture in, assuming I'm not about to be apprehended by some terrifying Hungarian guard with a big stick.  The only light is via some sort of opening in the roof, but even in the gloom I can see the fantastic level of detail in an Art Nouveau-Moorish style of decoration; stained glass, tiled floor, marble, tracery and pinnacles in shades of black, brown and gold. The place seems largely abandoned - there are certainly few businesses open in here and little but blank glass to the sides of the central passage - but in a good state of repair. I later read that the place was called the Pariszi Udvar (Paris Court).  There's one of my beloved 'bubble' panoramas of the place here, in a better light than I had but one that seems to de-mystify it a little. A wizened old woman shuffles around the far end with her stick mumbling things in Hungarian.  This might on another day be a major tourist attraction, but here I've had almost it to myself, my private discovery.

Returning to the street I cross under the busy Kossuth Lajos utca via the subway entrance to Ferenciak tere (confusingly one stop down the line from Deák Ferenc tér). I've still got the other, unspent, metro ticket in my wallet and see that if I walk (roughly north-east) up the road I can either get a bus across back to the Városliget or else go down and up via the metro, on which I can make a change without having to pay twice.  Kossuth Lajos u. is busier than Andrassy u. but features equally memorable buildings. Opposite from the arcade is the Hungarian National Library which has a gold dome (looking like a cross between a mosque and the towers of the 'people's palaces' on Karl Marx Allee in Berlin. There are nice side streets with very little traffic and various academically-occupied addresses dotted about them.

Astoria crossroads and hotel

 
Returning to the main street further up, the next landmark is the Astoria hotel, an unashamedly pink pile that probably ranks amongst the costliest beds in the city. I'm puzzled as to what became of it under Soviet rule, whether it was reserved for visiting foreigners or Party bigwigs, for it must have been active in order to give its name to the adjacent station on Line Two, constructed in the Sixties.  There are a scattering of other wonderfully ornate buildings on this long avenue if one has the eyes to spot them, but I missed the central synagogue I'd caught a glimpse of on a bus ride two days ago. Finally, after a forgettable road junction with a flyover, came the magnificent Italianate block of the Keleti pályaudvar - the Eastern Station.  A large clock occupied the point where you'd stick compasses in to draw the huge glazed crescent taking up most of the façade, whilst a flight of steps led up to the three large entrances and a steady supply of persons with bags of all descriptions swarmed in and out. In front of the station is a lot of wooden panelling, and through a convenient gap I can see why - the square is mostly a large hole. This is not just any hole, but variously - and largely depending on your political viewpoint - an exciting infrastructure project, a massive waste of public money, a political embarrassment, the biggest cause of corruption in the country or simply a quicker way to work. Remaining neutral, it can be described in a few words: Metro 4, or the Green Line.  Except you can't ride on it yet. You should be able to, in fact you were supposed to back in 2005, then 2008, but, erm, it's not ready yet and the city authorities reluctantly admit they're not sure when it will be. Probably 2014 - but maybe 2015. Anyway do take a look at some rather arty pictures of the tunnels pre-track.

The trainshed of the Eastern Station

I nip inside Keleti for a quick photo (I'm a sucker for massive nineteenth-century arched roofs, and this station is no disappointment) holding onto my camera carefully as I've read that the railway stations are hotspots of petty crime. Square-lined locomotives in various colour schemes are lined up behind a large timetable board with all sorts of destinations on it, many of them beyond the borders of Hungary. There's one in from Prague - and another from Eger - whilst in ten minutes the express to Vienna and Munich will leave, followed by another intercity in the opposite direction, to Bucherest.  The spider's-web of catenary and signals look strangely odd indoors until you see that the trainshed has a wall missing, a fifty-foot square gaping hole half an train's length away. Then I descend the steps down to the existing metro, plonk my ticket in the orange machine and get on another wide Russian-built train back to Deák.  The old stock somehow subverts the refurbished-ness of the metro, forcing it to cling onto some remnant of the era in which it was built. Then a last reminder of the previous period of Hungarian history as I transfer to the Földalatti and leave at Hősök tere.  Yes, I could have stayed on the the next stop but there are surely few finer sights as one exits any tube station in the world - Westminster, Tsim Sha Tsui or Colosseo possibly being the only contenders I can vouch for.

Vajdahunyad Castle in the Városliget, the city park

I walk between the great marble colonnades and into the park, looking for food. It's a very pleasant day and I've not been at all over-warm walking around.  Time is running out so I settle for a large bread-and cheese construction from one of the stalls outside the Széchenyi Baths.  This, and what remains of the banana chips will, I hope be sufficiently sustaining until we reach Vienna.  I gobble it down and taking a last look around return to the coach via the shade of a thin strip of trees on the edge of the park. My usual seat awaits, with fifteen minutes until scheduled departure. Companion is already installed opposite me with (yet more) Russian homework.

Whilst I'm prepared to bet that the alternator will hold out, and probably the rest of the vehicle's mechanical and electrical components too, I can't say I'm especially relaxed about this journey.  I know by the end I will be sleep-deprived, uncomfortable, smelling awful and fed up with travelling.  Thanks to our extended stay in Germany on the way out, I now have a very limited supply of Euros compared to what I had originally set aside, meaning I'll have to pay God knows how much to withdraw more from an ATM if I want to eat.  And most of all, I'm anxious to get back for a reason I've so far not mentioned: my sister was due to give birth three days ago. I've not had any messages from her or the rest of my family, so am assuming nothing has happened for the time being. We have two guests for the journey back: our fixer and his niece who was at dinner last night. He's over in the UK on business with the Karl Jenkins piece whilst she is simply coming as a tourist - her first visit in fact. At one point or another the (frankly rather good) question of what to eat elicits a long deliberation over responses. 'Fish and chips!' '...oh yes, you must eat that, but also get a curry; we call it Indian food but actually it's totally British' 'make sure you have hot puddings, stuff like spotted dick and custard, crumble, Bakewell tart. But Yorkshire puddings aren't the same, they go with the roast meat...'

I digress. With weary inevitability, the door closes and we pull away into the traffic. I seem to remember a detour down some distinctly unsuitable cobbled streets due to a turning restriction but before long we were out of the city and on to the motorway heading inexorably west. Budapest doesn't stick up from the surrounding roads much like some cities do - you can't see the domes and spires and towers like Oxford or New York - and we are soon long away from everywhere we have been in the pat four days.  My last steps on Hungarian soil come at a generic service station outside Győr, where I buy water to use up some of my change in forints. Half an hour later we are over the border back into Austria, which is not very interesting in the far eastern bit shoved to the side of Vienna.

Vienna itself can be seen a little from the ring road in daylight - is that the famous wheel of the Prater in the distance? - but it's mostly the high-rises that stand out and anyway we are soon in several tunnels that skirt the south of the city limits.  As we've been on the road for at least four hours and it is getting near the evening we make a stop for dinner at a service area to the west . I have a faint recollection of stopping here on the way out for somebody to be unwell and that the place has a huge green-and yellow petrol station, so the grassy surroundings are more welcome that expected. Inside is a substantial amount of food for purchase and some toilets you have to pay for. Standard drill of hanging around the fluent German speakers is observed.  First I need some more money, and locate an ATM in the shop. 

I take a deep breath and find that the minimum amount I can withdraw is €50 (actually I probably could have got less by punching buttons and understanding German financial terminology) but as I owe a relative for a borrowed 20 this is not actually a waste.  Austrian service station food turns out to be remarkably good if not particularly cheap. For around ten Euros I get a nice spicy beef soup and bread, followed by something involving, essentially, a pile of potato - I'm afraid once again the passing of time has obscured my memory somewhat.  As we're still relatively unaffected by travelling, good conversation is possible and a few of us even find ourselves wondering if it would be wise to play in the play area at the back.

Before we leave, there is an essential but spectacular task that must be performed - filling up.  I wince at the thought of spending £70-odd (half of which is tax, it should be added - petrol actually costs around 70p per litre) brimming Meg every 500 miles or so, but like most mid-size cars the Renault's tank holds around 12 gallons or 60 litres. A bus is naturally possessed of a much poorer fuel consumption and intended to have much greater endurance, but even the vague acknowledgement of these principles little prepared us for what happened next. In went the nozzle and the pump shuddered into action a moment later. The numbers on the display began to fly round at an astonishing rate. €100 went by in about fifteen seconds, below it the litres were up to triple figures soon afterwards...and it just kept coming. Three hundred euros came and went, a hundred and fifty litres, two hundred, two fifty... In a minute and a half our vehicle had siphoned three hundred and forty-six litres of diesel out of the underground tanks and racked up a bill of €519.45 on the company's fuel card.

Apparently this was only half a tank full.

Next time: It really is over, but there's a few loose ends to tie up yet...

The end of history

Today saw the very last broadcast programme in Radio Four's A History of the World in 100 Objects. If you have no idea what this is, the title speaks for itself really; the curator of the British Museum has chosen 100 artefacts and narrated a radio series examining the significance of each one. Yes, there are 100 episodes. No, I've not yet heard them all. Yes, it is brilliant

I can't praise this series highly enough - where to start? An elegantly simple concept, although a massive project overall, with a knowledgeable and unobtrusive presenter (a rarity), equally appropriate and knowledgeable contributors, patient and engaging. It was intellectual without being monotonous or high-minded, and perfectly combined education and entertainment, to use Reithian terms. If the necessity of Radio Four, indeed radio in general, were ever called into doubt, this series alone would be evidence to the contrary.

One of the most enlightening things the series did was to choose a significant percentage of the objects from pre-AD periods. The first two million years of the human species tend to get dealt with fairly briskly in most histories - not ignoring the fact that we have vastly less in the way of information and surviving artefacts from these times - but also to get lumped into a few distinct periods based on the famous bits. So there's basically cavemen for, ooh, ages; then eventually there's some Egyptians building pyramids and Babylonian hanging gardens and some Jews in roughly the same region for a bit - oh, and the Chinese are doing some stuff - and then a while later the Greeks and Romans show up and history properly kicks off. What was great about AHOTWIOHO was that we got a full 35% of the objects, and thus the programming, on the pre-Christian world, which would otherwise remain monumentally under-exposed. I had no idea that anybody was even on Papua New Guinea in 2000 BC, let alone that they were producing novelty bird-shaped cookware. Yet a defaced penny from 1903 was similarly interesting.

Some of the objects were familiar, of course, even famous - the Rosetta Stone, the head of Ramesses II, the Lewis chessmen - possibly because of the requirement that all 100 objects came from the British Museum. But of course a collection that contains ancient stone sculptures or hand-made coins should not exclude credit cards and such like. They have as much historical significance, as the programme clearly set forth - I'd never read so much into Hokusai's The Great Wave before, for example.

I'm glad that AHOTWIOHO wasn't made as a television series, because it didn't need to be. The obvious weakness of having a radio series based around visual artefacts was offset by the narration, making the events and ideas signified by the object more important, and by the equally excellent website which allows high-resolution viewing of all the objects from several angles. More importantly, there was no need for the distractions that so often blight 'cultural' programming - overbearing and loud presenters, needless graphics and silly camerawork - based on the assumption that modern attention spans are inadequate for things quite interesting enough to stand on their own. In any case, who would commission a television series lasting a hundred episodes, yet with each only fifteen minutes in length? This is where radio honestly has the upper hand as a medium.

All 100 objects are on display in an exhibition at the British Museum. Best of all, all 100 radio programmes will remain available to listen to or download, hopefully in perpetuity. You can find them here.

Haydn seek

One of the things I often pick up from other musicians is an implicit consensus that any piece of music from, let's say, before the time of Beethoven, will essentially be pretty similar to any other piece written around the same time. On a superficial level, this seems like a reasonably forgiveable assumption: to give an example, eighteenth-century music in the galante style is invariably lightweight, in major keys and based on minuets and gavottes and things; thus few non-specialists, on a first hearing, would perceive much difference between a sonata by Stamitz and one by JC Bach. I readily confess to being unable to match any unfamiliar pieces by Schutz, Pachelbel and Buxtehude to their respective composers because my knowledge of the German Baroque does not extend particularly far beyond Bach. In the twentieth century (particularly the latter half), compositional practice suddenly seems to have exploded without warning into dozens of different 'schools' and even lone individuals, all writing very different-sounding music, yet alive at the same time. This is a rather interesting reversal of the rest of history, because everywhere else, the overall trend of the twentieth century has been homogenisation and rationalisation - communication advances meaning that everyone speaks English, every country adopts capitalism as a political philosophy and value system, so there's a McDonalds in every town and everyone drives a Ford, etc. One would think that this would cause art to follow suit as public tastes become equally homogenised and cultural values less varied. Quite the opposite - in fact as everything else starts to get more globalised and technologised, so more and more artistic niches seem to open up, increasing the diversity of artistic expression.

Anyway, whether this is actually true or whether artistic output is actually as homogenised as the rest of the world (that's if it even is, after all that preamble) and we don't realise it, is another blog post/PhD thesis/epic-length academic conference speech for another day. What I'd actually like to talk about is Joseph Haydn, he of the practical jokery and curly-locked wig.

Returning to my opening gambit, quite a few of us think Haydn is basically the same as Mozart - symphonies, operas, perfect cadences, curly wigs. Recently, however, I've had two things occur that have led me to the conclusion that nothing could be further from the truth. The first is Nimbus' brilliant two-volume set of all 104 symphonies (plus the Sinfonia Concertante; the symphonies 'A' and 'B', supposedly numbers 107 and 108; some violin concerti and some overtures to fill the last MP3 disk) by Adam Fischer and a band calling themselves the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, which turns out to be most of his mates from the top orchestras in Central Europe. It is, I understand, the first complete set under a single conductor, all done over about 8 years when everyone had some spare days to meet up and make the recording. What's more, the entire set are recorded in the Haydnsaal in Esterházy Palace, no less, and although it's not done on period instruments the performances have an air of authenticity as a result. But what's really exciting about these disks (there are sixteen - and no, despite extensive listening time I have not yet got through all 37 hours of music) is the playing style that the musicians instinctively bring - little inflections in rhythm, a particular way of phrasing and articulation, agogic accents in the minuets - a style which is natural to the orchestra, with its mix of Germanic, Austrian, Hungarian and Slavic musical cultures. It's absolutely perfect for Haydn, and for a very simple reason: this was the music Haydn was surrounded by during his 'exile' at Esterházy. 'I was cut off from the world and forced to develop my own style' he later remarked, a style which was entirely immersed in the folk music of the region. Never mind the refined, cosmopolitan, elegant style of the Viennese Mozart; Haydn is a country Hungarian: rougher, more rhythmic, less urbane - although no less dazzling, intelligent and compositionally fluent either.

Further proof of this comes as I practice the C major Cello Concerto for a gig next week. I learnt the first movement as a teenager (not that I had particularly distinguished level of technique back then) and followed the Rostropovich /Sadlo editorial bowings without question, adding liberal dollops of Romantic vibrato to hide to dodgy bits. But recently I've become more and more convinced that the 'folk music' approach, coupled with a judicious application of points gleaned from learning about period performance (don't worry, I'm not one of those people who is obsessed with 'authenticity' (another ranty blog post for the future methinks)), is the way to bring the best out of Haydn. It doesn't matter if fast runs and figurations are rough and even scratchy; that's how Haydn probably heard stuff done out in the street. Pulling the rhythms around, double-dotting things, the very Hungarian technique of playing fast using an entire bow length with almost no pressure, all bring the music to life without ever compromising the wit or sparkle of it. What would be horribly crude in Mozart or Boccherini works marvellously here, even to the point where it helps with technical issues. In fact my only difficulty may be getting the orchestra to adopt this style as well, on just two rehearsals.

As an afterword, it's not hard to see how one of Haydn's pupils picked up on such features as the 'misplaced' accents, pounding rhythms and general bucolic impetus of this style either. His name? Ludwig van Beethoven.

(Wikipedia happens to have a page on 'Haydn and folk music' which elaborates several points not touched upon here).