The Top Floor Flat

[This has been reposted from the <a herf=”http://blog.spoonfedflavour.com”>Spoonfed Flavour Blog</a> where I originally wrote up my Sunday afternoon]

I’ve made it to this point in the summer without actually attending any of the BBC Proms events, a fact that I felt this weekend I should rectify.  Under the assumption that regardless of the event I would find myself more cultured, musically educated and generally better off, I didn’t bother to look up the composer or musical style before queuing up for my £5 gallery ticket on Sunday afternoon.  Had I found out before entering the Royal Albert Hall that Messiaen was, in fact, known for his relatively modern pipe organ pieces, it is incredibly likely that I would have picked a different concert to kick off my personal Promming season.  Under the misassumption that a Sunday afternoon would be prime Promming time, I jumped into the short queue at 3pm, a full hour before the concert began.  I entered the hall with a group that was clearly full of pipe organ enthusiasts.

“The Royal Albert organ has 999 pipes in the organ,” I was told in a tone that is generally reserved for rare archeological discoveries and stunning feats of physical prowess.  I mentally made a note never to bring any of my slightly OCD friends to the Royal Albert but trapped into the hall.

It’s a stunning venue, and it amazes every time.  The grand ceiling soared above but from my position in the gallery, I was just an arm’s length away from the empty stage.  I gazed longingly at the music-less stands, the harp with its dust cover, the darkened chairs, and was slightly annoyed that I was denied the experience of the full orchestra in favour of a single soloist on the pipe organ situated a few dozen metres above the stage.

The crowds of Prommers I had expected failed to appear (they had probably read the programme) and with only a few minutes to the opening of the programme, there were still only a few hundred patrons in the eight thousand person venue.  The BBC announcer welcomed us all and introduced Jennifer Bate, the organist for the afternoon.  Nearby, some of the other listeners closed their eyes in preparation for the opening notes.  Oh lord.  It would be one of those crowds.

With a (hopefully) intentional clash of major and minor notes, the concert began.  Now, I have to admit, most of my experience with organ music is limited to The Phantom of the Opera’s opening notes but I’ve always found that your range of sounds runs between a whistle that’s generally more suited for a dog’s range of hearing in the smaller pipes and something approximating the gods passing gas in the larger ones.  Add to that the fact that the chords often favour clashing notes and I was already prepared to scamper at the interval.

Then something amazing happened.  As the talented Jennifer Bate continued to pound out thunderous combinations of notes, I began to realise that I was enjoying myself.  I wasn’t admiring a symphony orchestra, there wasn’t anything resembling a melody, and I certainly won’t be adding Apparition de l’église éternelle to my iPod but there was something about the overwhelming power of all 999 pipes in that organ that really did approximate the religious fervor that Messiaen was aiming for with his compositions. I’ll admit it – I even closed my eyes.

I’m glad I attended the afternoon Proms on August 17, 2008.  It wasn’t what I had expected, or what I would have planned for an afternoon of music.  But I found myself overwhelmed by a new music style that I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered.  And really… isn’t that what the Proms is all about?

But now that I’ve actually read the programme, I’ll be attending Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty with the London Symphony Orchestra.  I’ll be the one up front with my eyes closed.