Hope

Lord, make me the person my dog thought I was.
- Refrigerator Magnet

Spring sounds

Party pieces

As 80th birthdays go, an afternoon concert given by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, pianist Murray Perahia and conductor Bernard Haitink must be one of the more memorable ways of celebrating. Of course, when the person who's reached the big eight-zero is Haitink himself, the concert becomes something of a landmark. Schumann's only concerto, completed in 1854, was first up. Perahia brought his usual consummate musicianship to the music; his Schumann glowed, with the Concertgebouw's warm string sound absorbed by the piano. For all its virtuosity, mischevous glee and dancing rythms, this concerto is filled with moments of reflection and introspection; in Perahia's hands hearing it became like listening to someone reading you a favourite poem.
On to Bruckner's Ninth, at three movements technically an unfinished work, but somehow, after a solemn first movement, wrought out of Beethovenian material; an unsettling middle movement which juxtaposes the incisive - almost obsessive - jabbing strings in the scherzo with a trio of -unatural? - sweetness and light, the third movement Adagio, culminating in a huge dissonant chord and a pause that takes the listener to the edge of a void, and ends in acceptance rather than jubilation, seems to be the only ending.

Picture Window

I write this sitting in the kitchen, perched on a high stool that’s just the right height for looking out the window. The window is one of those Georgian sash ones, with small glass panels that turn the view into nine wood-framed pictures. The sky occupies six of them – today it’s a faded blue, the colour of an old bed sheet washed once too often. In the bottom left panel, there’s a whisper of tree and a flat roof that finishes off a block of flats. Move along to the right and there’s a tall building in bright stone – a paler, twentieth-century version of the local Bath stone perhaps. Behind this unprepossessing construction begins a row of houses, marked by chimney pots. The row of russet and sand-coloured pots curves away, leading the eye across to the edge of the window and the start of the mint-green kitchen wall.

Chilly thoughts

At a talk by the Polar adventurer Ben Saunders I gleaned the following fact. Polar bears don't drink water. Instead these wooly white masterpieces have an enzyme that allows them to use the water produced when the fat from the animals they eat is broken down. A sort of internal water fountain. Cool. File this fact under 'miscellaneous', 'useless', or 'wonderful'.

March flowers

In my kitchen, in a chunky vase made of glass that glows a soft blue, the daffodils have bloomed. Fresh from the shop on Saturday – the one that’s not much more than a doorway from which spills a multi-coloured cascade of flowers – the slim stalks of green were then promises of daffodils. Soon a scrap of yellow could be seen as a single flower began to open. Stem by stem, the pale green leaves swelled, slowly revealing the rich yellow previously hidden. Layers of petals followed, opening outwards until the daffodil heads took recognisable shape, trumpets set in rings of petals. Like the sun, this bursting bouquet lit up the room.

Smile in the morning

Les hallalis

Sur l'onde calme et noire ou dorment les etoiles
La blonde Ophelia flotte comme un grand lys,
Flotte tres lentement, couchee en ses longues voiles...
On entend dans les bois lointains des hallalis.

On the tranquil dark water, where the stars drown,
Ophelia floats white as a lily
Floats gently, slowly, in her long gown...
From the distant woods you hear the sound of 'les hallalis'.

Rimbaud, translated by Melvyn Bragg - it seems - in his latest, incredibly moving novel Remember Me.