Rain, Cascades, Swirls, and Rivers, Outside and In
TOM BLASS is moved by the sounds of summer, Schumann, and Scarlatti
Raindrops, speckling the canvas of the great umbrellas intended to shield the precious audience from the elements, made for prelude and accompaniment to the opening salvo of Thomas Kelly’s Summer Picnic Concert at Fairlight Hall last Sunday. And they were welcome not least because, as a mere, if insistent, patter, they fell short, as it were, of the torrent threatened by the glowering nimbus of the morning, but also, on account of their aural resemblance to the faintest crackle of well-worn vinyl.
But this was playing that was fresh, considered, controlled and emotive. First, four Scarlatti sonatas – meditative, sanguine, a kind of push-me, pull-you conversation between the baroque and the romantic.
He (Kelly) began with K.531 – tender cascades of crystalline notes – and ended with K.96, by which time, we were nicely settled into our garden seats, hearing aids adjusted, and precipitation almost entirely eased.
Thus, an easy target for the battery of pathos from Schumann’s Kinderszenen Opus.15 (Scenes from Childhood) sounded familiar, evocative, nostalgic, and was played with great warmth by Kelly, who himself performed a Mozart Concerto at the age of 9. Being born in 1998, he has only recently parted from that stage of his life, if any of us ever do.
THE INTIMACY OF THE OPEN AIR
The set up at Fairlight is a curious one, but it works: Kelly and the Bluthner on a covered stage with some of the audience seated at the sides and the back, and the rest of us seated facing him, beneath the aforementioned brollies. This, inside/outside approach has a pronounced effect on the sound, carried in the warm, damp Sussex air, peppered with birdsong (which was a lovely effect), further colour provided by the occasional grinding of fidgety heels in the gravel, and even a brief burst of cricket commentary from Headingley, courtesy of a dropped mobile phone. It all made for an intimacy different to that of the salon or concert hall, but stirring nevertheless.
The interval was all queues for the loo, for coffee and for cream teas. Those that had paid for picnics in the rain-soaked grounds were, one hopes for their own sakes, sufficiently unaffected by the cost-of-living crisis to take the hit without a grumble, and no doubt, by the time they’d returned to their seats to hear Busoni’s riffing Fantasia da Camera super Carmen had laughed it off (for, after all, if you’re going to pay £75 for al fresco munching in this country, you’ve got be game for a gamble.)
I’d never heard the Busoni before. It was clever, fun, and multi-hued – always exciting to hear new takes on classic tunes. But to my ear, the last piece was the big gun of the programme. Pure, lush, signature Rachmaninov, a long and enveloping, sound swirl of broad rivers, rolling landscapes and drama – a serious sign-off from Kelly (and of course, Sergei) – before a jaunty encore in the form of a dose of Paganini, girding our loins for the return journey to the carpark and beyond.
FINALLY …
As a rule, the notion of paying money to admire the living quarters of the super-rich is a rather topsy-turvy one. It seems to send the wrong messages to all concerned. But I know when deference is due, and if a concert of such quality is included with a stroll around the grounds, the terraces with their vistas across to Winchelsea and France, the walled garden bursting with sweet peas and other horticultural lovelies, then due it is.
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