Open Writing

On Friday night it was the Choral Society Christmas concert, three friends and I were there, sitting in not quite such a good seat, but one has to take what one gets at the Choral concerts. The concert as usual was a huge success, this year back to having a Brass Band – the Brighouse and Rastrick, and Brian Kay. Christmas concerts without Brian are not the same; he brings his own sense of fun and wit to these occasions, with many little ‘asides’ and poems. The B&R resplendent in their brown and gold did not clash at all with the deep blue of the Choral ladies, and their playing of their own speciality piece ‘The Floral Dance’ brought back floods of memories for me…

Two of us the small group of four listeners enjoyed our very first concert in the Town Hall in 1946 at the ripe old age of 16, when we and another friend had tickets for a concert by the internationally famous piano players Rawitch and Landau, along with Peter Dawson as bass soloist. The three of them were well known to us as ‘Auntie BBC’ featured them regularly on the wireless. Our seats for this concert were classed as ‘orchestra’ which meant they were the cheapest, as we were on the platform behind the performers, so sitting about 5 rows back where the sopranos sit now, we had a splendid view of the pianists, and could see every note played. The two pianists did not face each other or sit back to back as I remember it, they sat behind each other, having no eye contact with each other, but their performance was riveting.

Peter Dawson – an Australian, had a wide repertoire, the Road to Mandalay, Waltzing Matilda, but not on this occasion The Floral Dance. He was well known for singing this, but as our little group requested him to do so he declined, instead he sang The Green Hills of Somerset – I at 16 had never heard it, little did I know that about 10 years later I would be singing it myself as a solo, and that 27 years later I would sit on those ‘orchestra’ steps again, this time at the other side in the Alto section of the Huddersfield Choral Society itself. I enjoyed 19 ½ very happy years with that society, ten of them under the baton of Brian Kay – another bass singer – I don’t know whether he ever sang the Floral Dance. After the Choral days, the Huddersfield Methodist Choir gave me almost 10 happy years, and I still have a seat on that platform, singing there only last week with the U3A choir, though this time I’m usually not visible as we sit on the stage level immediately behind the trombones or drums, but the buzz is still there.

So now at 77 – the Sunset strip year- I have already been at two concerts in the Town Hall, the Choral Messiah on Wednesday next, followed by the HMC Christmas concert on the Saturday before Christmas and a'Vienese Whirl’ with the Opera North orchestra just after Christmas.