FARNHAM TO WRECCLESHAM

As Autumn is not far around the corner I've begun thinking about the symbolic shift for my life soundtrack that often goes with the changing seasons (though many of us in England could be forgiven for thinking our entire Summer has basically been one continuous Autumn anyway or at least felt like it.)

Moving away from my scattered disparate Summer mish-mash of Italian opera, jazz grooves, film soundtracks, occasional hip-hop and endless Radio 3 I find I'm now in need of something more introspective and yet at the same time elemental and so where better place to start than Elgar's Violin Concerto in B Minor?

You really get to know about a piece of music when you're walking about with it playing on the cassette/mini disc player in your coat pocket as the driving rain and howling wind swirls all around you. Testing the fortitude of the music and your own character against the volatility of the elements creates a bond with the composition that you may rarely find at home listening to the same piece of music simply lying on the couch or dicing carrots preparing dinner.

I had such a bond with Elgar's violin concerto a piece I frequently listened to walking home from my film college in Farnham to the student house in Wrecclesham where I was renting a room. Of course, it wasn't always bad weather that accompanied my walks home from college; sometimes there were perfectly still clear evenings where I would find red-orangey skies overhead and breathe in the crisp autumn air that almost took my breath away. At such times as these I found the adagio of Elgar's most beautiful concerto would seem to be as perfect a fit as that decisive glass slipper on Cinderella's foot so beautifully matched was it that I might have been in a fairytale all by myself.

My Elgarian reverie combined with this routine walk home became a magical time of deep reflection and one where I felt I truly absorbed the music into my soul in a way that became fixed and permanent. Now, whenever I smell the distant smoke of a bonfire and gaze upon fiery sunsets (where I can find them) I cannot help but think of the violin concerto in B minor that I so fell in love with as an ingrained memory of that specific time.

Funnily enough, I have never found a similar love for the composer's more famous cello concerto which is one of the few Elgar pieces that leaves me cold. Perhaps it is something to do with its somewhat overwrought nature and the endless association with the DuPre tragedy that makes it too much to bear.

The violin concerto is equally introspective as the cello concerto and contains multitudes just like all great works in the classical canon but it is also fleet of foot and endlessly versatile in the way it darts across its compositional landscape like a restless wood sprite occasionally settling in secret islands to collect its thoughts.  

The Andante is especially sublime and I now think of it as like a great reassuring friend that has been there for me throughout my life, offering consoling comfort and empathetic reassurance. Sidenote - I can remember one time talking to a thuggish brute of a man (John Fury-like) who looked me dead square in the eye one overcast afternoon and said without any remorse whatsoever that he hated music. I felt wounded by the statement and could not even conceive of such a notion. I've also heard it suggested that music is a form of hypnosis and that you should be careful what you listen to for it can set the tone for the psychology of your day in a negative way. Being an obsessive curator of playlists and compilations throughout my life I pride myself on being able to pick the perfect piece for the right time whether it be the deep frosts of winter to the hazy heat of summer, for mourning and for celebration.

Of course, there are times for silence and it's important to be comfortable with the stillness of eternity but as I look at life like a movie, I find I'll always need some form of a soundtrack to play throughout my own story.

And today it's Elgar's glorious concerto in B Minor, steeling me for the darker months of autumn and winter ahead which reminds me of a quote by Jim Rohn where he said: "we must learn to handle the winter, so take advantage during the spring, nourish and defend ourselves during the summers, and accept the fall. There will always be winters, which are followed by springs, and after that summer, and fall, and so the cycle continues on and on through history."