I received a letter from Cleon on July 24th. When it comes to “gadding-about”, he appears to be right in there pitching. Good deal! I haven’t been doing too badly myself, having gone to Liverpool five of the last seven evenings. I’ve been a lone wolf these nights because I don’t know anyone at Burtonwood who will put up with long-hair music. I went to Liverpool solely to attend some symphony concerts, you understand!?!
Cleon is about to finish up at Treasure Island. If the Navy doesn’t put him in the Amphibs, I’m sure that will suit him. Whatever he goes into, I hope he’ll get leave first (and I have an intuitive feeling that he will). Cleon mentioned that his friend, “a nice quiet kid”, had a masters degree. I wonder how old is he is. A masters ordinarily requires years of university post-graduate work.
Since I’ve been in England the weather has been excellent – too warm, if anything. Very little rain, lots of sunshine, cool nights, beyond criticism all in all.
Well, in all probability this will be my last post from England and the entire United Kingdom. In regard to Jayne, she is getting along okay. We write one another a couple of times each week. I have called her long distance twice and will make one more last call later tonight.
I have recently attended five concerts out of the current series of eight. Tonight’s will likely be the best of the lot, but a combination of circumstances prevents me from going.
The five concerts I went to included about 25 selections and featured five soloists and three different conductors. Quite a variety of stuff for one week only!
I liked last Saturday’s best of all – it was a very popular program. Karl Rankl, an Austrian refugee, conducted – he’s excellent! He really put those 70 musicians through their paces – had them in the palm of his hand so to speak. (Germans and Austrians have a style of conducting that I go for). I had a good, if somewhat unconventional seat on Saturday. All regular seats were sold days previous; I sat behind the orchestra, almost in it! I could have kicked any one of three double-bass players in the seat of the pants from where I sat! Surprisingly enough, my sitting there did not interfere with my hearing the orchestra in its proper balance – it was perfect. I didn’t miss a thing; was facing both the conductor and the soloist.
Sunday was Rankl again and a heavier program (Beethoven & Dvorak). That New World Symphony is darn good. So was the Beethoven, although the Emperor Concerto was quite long.
Counting the 15-minute intermission, all five concerts were of two-hours length.
Wednesday and Thursday brought music that is largely unknown to one. Some of it I didn’t think much of. Of course, the overtures were nice, as was the music of Tchaikovsky and Lizst. Louis Cohen is the local conductor for the Liverpool Philharmonic and cannot compare with Rankl.
Last night’s concert was a fine one. Except for the concerto, the music suited me fine. The soloist was a girl this time (in her twenties! — does that make her a woman?) I especially wanted to see Albert Coates conduct in person. He was in that movie where he and Jose Iturbi were arguing who was going to conduct the orchestra for Gracie Allen and her Concerto for Index Finger? Neither one wanted to do it, but Coates lost out. He is a large, portly, distinguished-looking man – a combination of Sydney Greenstreet of the movies and Mexico’s President Avila Camacho! He is a first-rate conductor, anyway.
[letterstohome copyright 2008]