All very flat
.....that's Holland, not our playing. All relentlessly flat; though I did spot a woody hillock somewhere near Maastricht. Ben, one of our resident Dutchmen, commented that if they turned the pumps off Holland would fill up with sea in a day. David's blogs cover most of what you might want to know about the tour .......though I can't resist chucking in my own hap'orth. Logistically, it was easy going; not that I would want to belittle the admin burden of any tour. Our management even arranged fantastic weather for our time off. To be honest, as we now have to be at the Beeb, a few of us were a bit down half way through; the audiences were notably sparse, whatever their quality, and I for one was wondering what the hell I was doing there when I would rather have been back at home – time is very precious for those of us with a family and a working partner back home and we need to feel that there is a strong purpose behind our antisocial schedules. There's so much hanging around and time killing to do on tour – imagine life with no daily chores to do, everything laid on for you, and only a few hours (very important hours) of playing each day. Anyway, all the halls were good to play in and the audiences improved hugely for the second half of the trip. The Rotterdam Phil repeats their show four times in the week, each time to an audience that would nearly fill our GRCH; and we cashed in on that turn out. Playing to a small audience in a duff hall is the pits, as most visiting orchestras to our GRCH experience; in a good acoustic you can at least enjoy the playing and 'get the benefit'.
What about that coughing, mentioned by David? Unbelievable! On one night only, the first in Eindhoven, the soloist, with a little help from our good selves, managed to get them to just about shut up, or stifle up, and listen. This was all a bit strange because, as a lot of us noticed, we never saw obese or unhealthy looking people. What a contrast to the human scenery on our streets. If you've been to Holland you'll know why. Thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, millions actually, cycle. Every road is bordered with seamless hedgerows of parked bikes; every road has clearly marked cycle tracks. They all ride: the oldies, the mums on bikes that carry three kids, the cool professionals in their trendy clothes, no poseur lycra to be seen, most of them on the comfy sitty-up bikes, every block has a cycle hire and repair shop – and don't tell me it doesn't rain in Holland, we saw lots of it. You'll have detected a note of excitement from me – I'm a committed bike commuter, and it gladdens the heart to see all this two-wheeled action; and I'm not the only nerd in the band who gets excited about such things. How far have we got to go in this country, what huge culture change is needed, how much less it would cost than the new M74 link, how important can it be for our health and the planet's? I enjoy the car for what it can do when needed, but looking out of our hotel in Utrecht, where we spent six nights, we were greeted by a vision of four-carriage trams, bendy buses, fast punctual trains, dense networks of dedicated cycle tracks, and the absence of congestion. Ironically, their motorways clog up worse than ours. Our coach company had allowed what seemed excessively generous journey times, but as it was a holiday week that 'extra' time wasn't needed, so we had 'extra' hanging around. When I bike up to work on a really dire Glasgow day I get comments of surprise and sympathy. But, no. The best part of the day is getting on the bike, getting down to the river cycle paths, the sky overhead, greeting the herons (!?), hearing the distant roar of the traffic beyond the blackbird's song, no problem if it's pouring with rain. If it's been particularly gruelling at work, cycling clears the head in moments; there is a feeling of freedom and connectedness. Driving in the city is horrible, especially during bad weather in a winter rush-hour. So you've guessed what I did for my time off. A few of us did, actually. I hired one of those sitty-up district nurse type one-geared squishy seated bikes and went out and about. Braking on these bikes requires a back pedalling action that needs a definite knack to stop with the pedals and the lower foot in the correct place – I garnered some polite expletives (the 'oop-la, tut tut' kind, not the Glaswegian version) from the natives as I got this wrong and wobbled all over the place in front of herds of grannies, these same grannies that were always overtaking me. Anyway, I weaved my way around the beautiful lanes and canals of Utrecht and then went for a trek out of town along canal paths and through parkland. And after that, to seek out the highlight of the trip – a real ale (real Belgian ale) pub – I wasn't going to squander my drouth on anything less. Success. You have to look for an unprepossessing establishment, dishevelled long-haired blokes, women drinking fruity Belgian ales from bottles with lurid art work on the label. This bar had 150 bottled ales and 15 guest ales on tap to choose from, needing far more than a single lunchtime to check out. A few visionary thoughts arose for me to muse over, according to my wont. We've got this horrendous binge culture. Reservoir quantities of junk industrial beer get sloshed away every weekend, lots of it then getting pissed and puked over the streets. If folk were taught (at school?) to enjoy good quality ale they wouldn't do this. If they drunk the very strong Belgian ales they'd just fall asleep after two glasses before they even got to one of those revolting 'eat what you can stack on your plate for a fixed price' buffets......And after that, 100 yard's cycling and your head is clear. What do you think?
Back to the playing. We so rarely get a chance to hear ourselves perform the same piece several times in a row. A 'best' performance will always emerge from this process, and by comparing we can all hear and feel just what made it the best. This is one of the main benefits of touring. We left Glasgow having just done a brilliant concert with Ilan, equally acclaimed by all the critics. It couldn't have been better timing, our playing and rapport with Ilan was on a flow. David mentioned the conductor master class that we did in Eindhoven. (There's a documentary about it on Radio Scotland.) Fascinating. I rabbit on about what makes a good performance, how or not how it all seems to work, and how we magically (sometimes) do it all together. This master class was an enriching insight into how Ilan goes about it. There are some elements in conducting that can be taught, but a lot of it is to do with innate inner qualities. The Cuban girl, who we all want to see again, communicated with wonderful smiles and eye contact. Ilan correctly pointed out that this was to the detriment of her baton technique, which was unfocussed and confused by too much body movement (nice body movement though!). But, guess what, at the concert that evening Ilan smiled more than he has ever done, and we played just about as well as ever for him. Something here to chat about over a long slow glass (one only) of good quality ale?
Anthony Sayer
