Wilma goes to England

On the eve of departure for Christmas in Christchurch with the Watt clan, I thought it might be now or never for finishing off 2009 so here goes.

This year, Rosie's love of cooking has revved up another notch with many experiments and inventions at school and home. Here are a couple of successes, her own Maltesers ice-cream cake and the pasta invention which started out as an assignment for school and has become a regular favourite.

Last NZ Arts Festival I was lucky enough to collaborate with fabulous cellist, Steven Isserlis, Michael Houstoun and others for a few chamber music concerts. After that Steven commanded that I should go to Prussia Cove, his chamber music "seminar" in Cornwall, England in September. I knew about Prussia Cove because I had been to a related master class session there about 25 years ago with the Lydian Quartet when I was living in Boston. I couldn't go last September because I was already committed but I told Steven I'd keep a week free in Sept 2009 which I did. I flew to London, spent the night with one of my best friends from Epsom Girls' Grammar days, Julia Clark, and caught the train to Penzance the next day. Coincidentally, I plonked myself down next to Amy Norrington, a lovely cellist I didn't know from a bar of soap whom I had been assigned to play Brahms C minor piano quartet with at Prussia Cove. The scenery was beautifully English.

 

From Penzance the 8 or so of us who had been on the train from London (none of whom I knew) were picked up by the Prussia Cove minibus driven by John who normally drives trains in the London Underground for his day job. Every September he goes to Prussia Cove for 3 weeks in paradise driving musicians around and doing the shopping for the cooks etc. We were taken to our various houses and I checked out the amazing surroundings. My house was called "Cliff" for reasons which became quite obvious. It was the house perched right on the edge of the cliff overlooking Prussia Cove and my top floor window had a glorious view out over the Cove and the Atlantic Ocean. The main house where meals, some rehearsals and concerts, the office and late-night reading sessions were located, was a beautiful stone edifice built almost 100 years ago but the cottages where most of the 60 or so musicians lived were much older. The cutest little one next-door to Cliff, called Willy's Cottage, is where Steven Isserlis resides when he's there. The seminar runs for 3 weeks and most people choose to go for 1 or 2 weeks.

 

The cosy but functional dining room was the social hub for the week. The cooks and kitchen staff are all volunteers, many of them with very interesting professional profiles themselves and at least one of them was a 2nd generation Prussia Cove devotee, the son of 2 musicians who had attended 20 years earlier. In the dining room photo the young lady studying the notice board is the concertmaster of one of the orchestras in Vienna, the big guy in the centre with the checked shirt is the leader of the London Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, seated to the rear left is one of the semi-finalists from the latest Michael Hill violin competition and the young man carrying the baby is a Canberra lad who was just appointed Principal Bass of the Berlin Philharmonic - illustrious company indeed! The stairs in one photo are notable because they were directly outside my bedroom door and it was on them or rather crashing down them that I came to a sticky end one morning. Luckily it was only my toe that was fractured but that was debilitating enough and rather cramped my style during my couple of days in London before going home. It took at least 6 weeks to get back to normal walking.

One morning before breakfast and before toe fracture I went for a walk on the coastal path in the direction of Penzance. When I got to the point where Penzance was visible in the distance, also visible was the old castle on top of St Michael's Mount, a short distance out to sea from Penzance. At low tide you can walk to the castle.

Then there was the music. We were all put into 2 groups which rehearsed together every day and in addition there was much informal playing in other combinations..... this trio (violinist Danny Phillips - Lincoln Centre Chamber Players, cellist Rafael Rosenfeld - Principal Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and pianist Simon Crawford Phillips - Kungsbacher Trio) were reading through Dvorak Dumky Trio one night after dinner and several glasses of wine. It was one of the most beautiful "performances" I heard all week including the actual concerts. Reading the Schumann Quintet with the same Danny and "Raffy" another night after dinner was one of the musical highlights of the week for me.

These 2 gorgeous girls were from Lithuania and France and were in one of my groups along with an English cellist, quite a good mix with a Fijian Australian New Zealander.

The house was made for chamber music and the perfect setting for relaxed socialising too. One of my favourite new friends is the gentleman in the yellow shirt and brown jumper in the 3rd pic. His name is William Bennett (Wib to all), formerly Principal Flute with the LSO and teacher of flute for many years at the Royal College along with a busy solo career.

The tall, curly-haired guy hanging out with the cooks is Adrian Brendel, son of Alfred and a terrific cellist with a beautiful Strad - we read a Mozart viola quintet one night with gorgeous violist, Louise Williams. The lady in the blue coat, Ursula Smith, cellist with the Zehetmair Quartet, was my best new friend almost immediately even though we didn't ever actually play together.

On the last 3 days of the week there were concerts in various small churches in nearby towns. The last one was in the tiny chapel in the castle on top of St Michael's Mount. We walked out to the Mount (actually, I hobbled slowly) because the tide was out but after the concert the causeway was completely submerged and we had to take little boats back to Penzance. Then it was back on the train to London after a fish and chip dinner on the platform. This time I knew everybody and said a fond farewell to Amy, my Brahms buddy who was the first person I'd met on the train just a week before.

I had a couple of days in London staying with Julia and her family (she showed off her gerbil) during which we had lots of great catching up time despite her busy life as a barrister with 2 teenage daughters (hubby's a barrister too). It's always great to spend time with them even if it's not for long and it's been 6 years since the last time - old friendships are just like that. Speaking of which, I also had great catching up time with old boyfriend, Mark Thomas, who used to play the horn in youth orchestras with Peter and me in the old days. Mark patiently walked at snail's pace around London with me - it cheered him up no end to find that even with a bad hip, he was positively sprightly next to my crippled gait.

After the usual gruelling long-haul flight, through Dubai on Emirates this time, I arrived home sometime after midnight to find that Rosie and Sophie had prepared a lavish afternoon tea of which I partook - after all it could have been afternoon for all I knew.