From the start of the official Edinburgh Festival 70 years ago, classical music has been at its heart and it has drawn music’s great exponents to perform there.
Perhaps Jim C Wilson, marooned in the gods at the Usher Hall, was too hot to warm to the talk given by the legendary pianist. But did he maybe succumb to the sheer dynamic intensity of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata itself in performance?
MISERERE
A hot blue August afternoon and we're
in the gods at the Usher Hall. The seats
are too tiny (my knees reach my chin): sheer
hell as cramps attack our limbs, while the heat's
increasing each second. Five thousand feet
below (or so it seems), a dot of a man,
who can hardly be heard, reads from a sheet
of paper. I hear F Sharp and A, can
distinguish Appassionata.
Forty minutes still to go, and I feel
my circulation's ceased. The sonata
is being lectured on: an intricate spiel
that's passing me by. Now there's thirty-three
minutes to go. But wait – a change. A tale,
a diversion has been introduced. We
hear how two words were confused (but I fail
to find it funny). Then all through the hall
I hear shifting and creaking, an outbreak
of clattering coughs. There's relief (though small )
at this slight change of tone. I now can make it
through to the end. We wilting, stiffened folk
have been revived by Alfred Brendel's joke.
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