Appreciation by Alan Herringshaw

It was clear from the outset, if not from the first recorded example, that John's talk would be more than a choice of musical items! The first recording of Sir Arthur Sullivan was a remarkable indication of the human predisposition for invention without a clear idea of what it would eventually lead to and despite its lack of clarity and audio quality it was a clear statement of where John’s talk would lead us!

In his talk John managed to interweave the history of recording technology with a wide ranging selection of John's favourite pieces gleaned from over 40 years serving the city of Leicester with a choice of classical music firstly in Brees Record Store in Churchgate and eventually in Classic Tracks in Bond Street.

As might be inferred from such an immersion in the classical music genre, the choices of music were very well chosen. We were treated to Winifred Atwell playing Grieg’s piano concerto, whose pianistic style was such that the answer to the question posed by John (who do you think is playing here?) was obvious once you knew the answer! This was followed by one of Janáček's typically melodramatic operas…

I remarked in my vote of thanks that there were a number of musical juxtapositions that made the play list wonderfully diverse and eclectic and at the same time extremely entertaining, of which, Winifred Atwell and Káťa Kabanová was the first.

We were treated to the Mikado, the eponymous character from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado trying to make himself heard above a noisy crowd, followed by an excerpt from Britten's War Requiem conducted by the composer himself.

After a brief light classical interlude (Robert Mandell and the Melachrino Strings) and a short interval, the second half of the talk set off on another interesting meander including John’s memories of the great European orchestras of the time playing to packed concert halls both in Leicester and abroad in their home cities. The Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert von Karajan and the Wienerphilharmoniker (Wagner’s Ring Cycle conducted by Sir Georg Solti) neatly bookended three examples of soloists of similar stature. The world famous soloists, Nigel Kennedy (Spring from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons), James Galway with a beautifully lyrical flute and piano duet (Francesco Morlacchi, Il Pastore Svizzero) and, of course, somewhere in there were The Three Tenors singing Nessun Dorma from Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot.

All in all an evening of exceptional musical variety and experiences and a reminder of how the retail business will never be the same again—I have to stop now, my Amazon delivery is at the door…