When music is not the food of love

Talk about perfect timing. All morning, walking to and fro, I’d been bathed in sun and some light clouds. I sat down on a bus heading into Stockholm and the rain started belting down. It was like a vengeful downpour that just missed. Unless it was meant for someone else, of course.

Anyway, I’m not going to write about rain or buses. Or trains or the T-bana for that matter. Even though I caught a few today. No, it’s far more important that I report on a concert I attended in Stockholm today.

It was a number of pieces by Swedish composer, Lisa Streich and one by Gustav Mahler which she chose especially.

I had been asked to accompany Nicoline’s friend, Lena who we met on New Years Eve. I was, really, third choice given Nicoline was busy and Mårten preferred to be seated at the bar in their favourite watering hole. Not that I minded being third choice. No, I was more concerned with recognising someone I’d met only once.

And there was almost a massive calamity.

The plan had been to meet in the foyer of the Konserthuset, opposite Haymarket. Obviously, me being me, I was early so felt that a brief libation in O’Leary’s was an excellent idea.

It was very, very busy. I managed to score one of the few stools at the bar and watched the hordes arrive and disperse, mostly to the bar upstairs.

I guess the weather may have had something to do with the drinking frenzy. It was quite warm, and the sun was blazing outside, from the midst of a blue sky. Okay, it wasn’t Portugal, but it was very pleasant drinking weather, nonetheless.

Eventually, though, I finished my beer and headed across the square to take my place, along with a number of other people awaiting friends, in the gorgeous foyer of the art deco Konserthuset.

The plan was to meet in the foyer at 2:15. At 2:30 my phone rang. It was Nicoline. Lena was waiting for me outside the Haymarket Hotel. This was an odd interpretation of her own plan. Also, I figured, it was going to make it harder to recognise her given the thousands outside. Still, outside I headed.

And I recognised her straight away. She also recognised me but, she admitted, it made it easier me having a beard. I guess if she’d had a big white beard, I’d have had no difficulty recognising her either.

So, finally, we took our seats right in the middle of the sixth row. An excellent spot to hear the, and I hesitate to use the term, music.

Okay, call me a musically illiterate fool; call me uneducated in the way of noise; call me anything you like because I won’t hear you. It’s enough to say I didn’t enjoy it very much. Lena agreed with me. It was fortunate that the tickets were freebies from one of her friends who couldn’t attend. Though, later, I did tell Mårten that it was still too expensive.

Let me take this opportunity to describe the first half of the programme.

The first piece, called Segel (Sail), started with a number of very loud slaps, provided by lumps of wood banged together at the back of the orchestra. Lena described these later as sounding like gunshots and, given the amazing acoustics in the main hall, it was as if they were picking off audience members behind us.

The slaps gave way to an incredibly discordant mess of noise, mostly from the thousands of violins in the orchestra. (It’s important to remember that this is my opinion. For all I know, it was brilliant.) And while that may be an exaggeration, there were a huge number of violins.

The orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, was excellent, by the way. I would love to hear them play something memorable; something that an ordinary audience member could leave whistling, for instance. Actually, I did wonder what the orchestra thought of the music. In the meanwhilst, next to me, Lena wanted to know what the musical notation looked like for the wood slapping.

The second piece was by Gustav Mahler. From the beginning, it sounded like the opening phrase from New York, New York. You know the bit that goes “Start spreading the news…” These five notes were repeated through the piece. It should be called Variations of NY NY rather than Blumine.

Except, of course, it was written first. Maybe, like Whiter Shade of Pale was the retrospective inspiration for JS Bach to compose Air on the G String.

Interestingly, when it was first performed (in the late 19th century) it was roundly criticised and dropped by Mahler as a movement of his, unfinished, 10th symphony. At a mere eight minutes, it was over pretty quickly. Though, if I’m being completely honest, it felt a lot longer.

Not as long as the third piece, though. This featured a ticking clock sound – I think it was created by someone hitting piano strings with a small metal mallet. The piece was called Flügel. This means Wing. It was about as aerodynamic as a Vogon ship.

On the whole, Wing was very bang and clashy. This is a Gaz technical term for something he didn’t really like because it spent far too much time in the realm of The Hard to Listen to.

I have no idea what the second half was like, as we both felt it was time to leave. Of course, it could have improved and become something lyrical and pleasant. Though, I feel certain that the photo below depicts the best part of the concert.

Instead, we took the t-bana across to Söder where we met Mårten. He was sat happily drinking a beer with a few other friends in an amazing little bar.

You couldn’t really tell it was a bar from the outside but, walking through the door, was like walking into the bar in Cheers. In fact, a signed photo of Norm adorns the wall behind the pumps. And while not everyone knew my name, it was as if they did.

There was a lot of chat, laughs and good times as we drank and exchanged stories. One of those stories was me telling Mårten how Nicoline had taught us how to eat crayfish. This went to talking about shellfish in general. Mårten mentioned a shellfish party at one stage, and a chap sitting close by responded by saying he thought we were talking about a selfish party.

He expanded this by suggesting it could be a social media thing where people load a table with food and wine and beer with a single person posed behind it all with the hashtags #AllMine and #SelfishParty.

Needless to say, I thought this was a brilliant idea. It sustained me for the long trip home.

It was an excellent day, despite all the discordance.