I was ridiculously excited in anticipation of the crash of cymbals which begins the fourth movement. I had very much enjoyed the first half of the concert performed by our local orchestra, but the opportunity to hear Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no 4 was one I could not pass up, even if it did mean going by myself. It brings back so many memories for me, you see.
This symphony was performed at one of the first concerts I ever went to as a child. I was quite young – definitely primary school age – when my Dad took me to the concert at the then Civic Hall in Guildford. We sat quite near the front, as I remember. But imprinted on my memory is the moment when we turned to each other at the end of the third movement only to almost leap out of our seats the next moment as that great crash of cymbals began the fourth movement!
But how, I wondered to Mum earlier today, did Dad’s love of classical music start? I couldn’t imagine his parents listening to anything other than what was called ‘light’ music, or maybe the Big Band music of the 1950s. Mum says that initially it was through going to concerts with her. She had been used to going with friends to concerts at the local technical college or the Odeon, so introduced Dad to this too. Sometimes they went with the couple who went on to become my godparents. She also remembers going to see the Hallé Orchestra perform at Dorking Halls, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. Later in life Dad introduced her to pieces he had heard on the car radio while driving to work.
Going back to my grandparents, though, I do remember my Nan singing and playing the spoons! She was of London stock, born in Hammersmith in 1900, one of seven siblings and another four half siblings from her father’s first marriage. Their mother, Lily Wheatley, and her mother before her, were Londoners. But Nan’s grandfather, who died when she was just a baby, had come down to London from Ashbourne in Derbyshire. His is a branch of my family tree which I would definitely like to return to at some point, as what I did discover was that John Wheatley’s father (also John, born around 1785 in Yeaveley, Derbyshire, was a Professor of Music, as was his father William before him! I am imagining them teaching the piano or perhaps giving singing lessons to genteel young ladies, but I may be wrong of course! I think there will be more to discover and Derbyshire is not an area I know at all.
I am not aware of any other musically-related professions in my family, but who knows what musical talent there may have been? If an ancestor played the piano/fiddle/serpent for home entertainment or even an instrument in the west gallery in church (as portrayed in Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy), how would we know that except through oral history? Perhaps a diary? I suppose a newspaper obituary may give a clue if we’re lucky. My maternal grandfather had a fife, possibly from WW1 days, which I remember seeing around twenty years ago but unfortunately it was nowhere to be found when my aunt and uncle’s house was cleared. I would love to have heard him play it.
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no 4 was in fact the first LP I ever bought, in the days when you could take your Christmas voucher along to Boots’ record department! No fifes to be seen at the recent concert, but plenty of other wind instruments. I do enjoy watching music being played – it brings it so much more alive somehow. I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and it brought back happy memories of going to that concert with my Dad all those years ago.
The Music Lesson – WikiGallery.org
familyhistorymusingsbymarian 