Soulful notes

Long hours of rehearsing every night now until Saturday night when we are having another concert.

This one is our Young Musicians Concerto Concert and each night we are accompanying some very talented young players. My favourite is a young man .......Harry who is playing the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto No.5, he looks about 12 yrs old, but is perhaps 13 or 14, I shall have to ask him tonight. He loves this concerto with a passion and plays it beautifully even though he is driving our conductor mad with his unexpected change of tempo throughout. I think what I like about him the most is his absolute ownership of the music and his confidence.

Henri Vieuxtemps is a Belgian composer, his parents were a weaver and an amateur violinist and his music gets to your very soul.

We once visited Belgium very briefly, and I had to hunt very carefully through lots of old photos to find this one taken in Antwerp ( I think.......umm I am now wondering if it is in Holland ? We were in both countries on the same day !)

Our orchestral leader told us the sad tale of Vieuxtemp's demise. After his stroke in 1879, he went to visit his daughter and son-in -law in Algeria and was walking down the street when he was knocked down by a brick-wielding drunkard in 1881, and died.

Anyway I thought you might like to hear a very old recording of the concerto. A young Leila Josefowicz playing in 1990.