oh crumbs

The other day, got a call from Andrew (as in Haveron) saying that he (bbcso) was doing some work with George Crumb and when he mentioned having played Black Angels with us many times George said that he'd love to meet us. So, Jacky and I tootled off to the Barbican on Fri eve to see him and catch a bit of the dress reh. it was lovely seeing A again and all our pals in the orch; Martin Brabbins (an old friend ) was conducting, so that was nice but what a treat to finally meet the man himself. Black Angels is a piece that we've spent a lot of time on over the last 30years. He very kindly enthused to us that when our cd suddenly appeared on his doorstep, out of the blue back in '94, he was rather worried in that he had not been involved in the recording or learning process but that he had been blown away by it and that it remains his favourite recording of that work. As we talked we remembered and regaled him with some stories to do with performing BAs. Here are four.

Once in Dartington while Maxwell-Davies was still running it we gave a performance where the sound-man (provided by them not us) had a little power surge of his own and as we began to play (it's marked 'as loud as poss') he turned the volume up to max (forgive the pun!).... the ensuing noise was absolutely unbearable..... the hall pretty-much cleared of people and rumour has it that poor old Max was physically sick.

BAs is a bit of a nightmare to perform principally because the promoters always have trouble getting it right and finding all the things required. One of the worst was an outing at the Berlin Festival in the Philharmonie. We arrived to find no tam-tams, dble-bass bow, etc.... we were still in the public bar finding and tuning glasses at 7.15 with a first half of Smetana's 'from my life' starting at 7.30 !!!! Not ideal I can assure you.

In the early '80s while we were still resident quartet at Sutton Place we did the exact same prog on Fri 13th July (the anniversary of it's completion). At this performance the first half was done as usual but when the audience retired for their customary glass in the interval they were greeted by the butlers dressed in capes with vampire teeth and serving Bull's blood. Upon their return they found the four of us in position, stony-faced; the lads had tailcoats etc but no shirts, just white bowties; Jacky had a very full black dress with white bowtie.

As soon as the somewhat perplexed audience had taken their seats we hit a foot pedal which sent the room into complete darkness; then another, which turned on these tiny fluorescent lights whereupon we hit it pretty hard (as loud as is bearable.....). Thanks to the lighting, the audience only saw four white bowties and four bows (the hair). At the end we returned to our motionless, stoney-faced pose and put the main lights back on. The poor audience tried applauding for a while but got no reaction from us so they just gradually got up and left....

Last but not least was the night of 28th June 1998. We finished a performance of the piece in the Barbican at 10pm; went to Upper St where we found a nice table outside; Had a bowl of pasta and a glass of red while watching a World-Cup match, then on to the Whittington Hospital where Celia (our youngest) was born at 3am !!!