Sweet music for heavenly strings
Nov 6 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post
Sweet music for heavenly strings
“For example, a copy of some Mendelssohn quartets would have been £50. If you go to the libraries, it has often not been maintained and there may be some pages missing. Our conductor (Neill Jackson) has to do lots of photocopying which isn’t ideal.”
To those who don’t know about these things, each piece has copies of the score to be read on the “desks”, meeting the needs of the particular musicians, who usually sit two to a desk. So, if there were 14 violinists, you would need seven copies of the score.
For many years, Isla, a health visitor, attended a summer school for musicians run by Len at Wortley Hall, Sheffield. Here, she discovered that he was looking for a good home for his music library.
“It is a lifeline for many of us here,” says Isla, the orchestra’s leader, who has a son and daughter with her partner Phil Hargreaves, the jazz saxophonist.
“When we are very stressed at work, we can come here and concentrate on the music and join with others in making a good sound.
“We play pieces to enable musicians of all abilities to join in.
“But we definitely need new recruits and old people should not feel in any way that they can’t come. We want them and younger players. It is usually old people who contribute the most to this orchestra because they have had a lifetime of experience. But others started learning the instrument late.
“We don’t do public performances because a lot of us are very shy and retiring. A lot of people feel that they can build their confidence gradually. Others feel that they have a lot to offer the younger players.”
“I have been coming for six or seven years,” says Anne Gleave, 65, a cellist.
“Getting this collection is just fantastic. We are having to go to the library and it was difficult getting parts. Now we have our own and it is has a tremendous range. I have been looking through the composers and the amount we have. It is mind-boggling.
“ We are extremely lucky, we really are. For example, we have an arrangement Franz Liszt did for the Beethoven quartets which is a collector’s item.”
Pauline Millican, 49, is a violist. “I have played in the orchestra on and off for 15 years,” she says. “I think it is very important that the orchestra should appeal to people across the generations. It doesn’t matter how old you are.”
Indeed, it doesn’t.
On November 16, Len, 92, will be visiting their hall to conduct a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Concerto Grosso, which came from his collection.
And now there is even talk of a public performance, perhaps a Christmas concert. But only whisper it.
PEOPLE interested in joining the orchestra should contact its PR, Joan Wilson, on 0151 427 3791.
