Sound, memory and the spaces between, observed from the periphery
The Royal Albert Hall’s vast, cavernous interior plays a crucial role in the audience experience. It’s a visual treat, from the acoustic mushrooms that hang from the ceiling to the organ that commands the stage.
For the BBC Proms season, the bust of Henry Wood looks down on proceedings—the only explicit reference to the founder’s critical role that remains.
Rows of swivel chairs line the oval-shaped space, with balconies spanning most of the building’s exterior above. Further up, where even corrected vision struggles to focus, there are still more seats, reserved for those with strong knees and no fear of vertigo. Above them, resolute arches stretch to the ceiling hinting at far away never-ending spaces.
On stage are the Ulster Orchestra with whom I have a connection with every week (or so) for a variety of digital related conversations. This afternoon the orchestra rehearses for its evening Prom concert. On the podium, conductor Daniele Rustioni bounces up and down excitedly, all wide smiles and floppy hair.
Rehearsals are a tantalising backstory for concert performances, bringing humanity to a performance space that is sometimes taken for a granted by audience members, some of whom don’t always see the human beings behind the mechanics.
Aside from the obvious industry demanded in Dvorak’s seventh symphony, there is a palpable buzz on stage, despite the musicians’ 5am start in a Belfast car park. Here in central London, they have three hours rehearsal with an hour or so break before their 7.30 concert to a near-capacity audience.
This time is the players’ opportunity to get accustomed to the Royal Albert Hall acoustic, something I’m reminded of as I head up to towards the choir seats and back around the entire auditorium in shoes that click with every footstep on the wooden floor beneath.
My seemingly pointless journey is one embarked upon, ostensibly, to capture footage with my gimble-mounted camera. It’s also an opportunity to traverse the auditorium in a way I wouldn’t normally get a chance to.
Devoid of an audience this space is a playground. Yet, as the sound of the orchestra rehearsing rings all around so, the ‘play’ is done gingerly and guiltily. If I can hear the detail from the other side of the auditorium, won’t they hear my every step too?
This simple act exposes one of the mildly unsettling acoustic sensitivities of the building (little wonder a cough in the silence of a performance can make it seem as though a whole section of the population has suddenly gone down with consumption). It’s also a personal reminder of how this building is both a familiar space – one I’ve stepped inside on an annual basis for 35 years – and one that still yields surprises.
Acoustic insights aren’t the only surprises on offer this afternoon. Down in the empty arena I sit at the side initially reluctant to draw attention to myself. (You can be so much more anonymous when it’s a 50% house.) Smart clothes donned for the concert later in the evening haven’t kept me as cool as I’d hoped in the heat of the day. Consequently, the vast expanse of floor (and the opportunity to recreate student promming days and lay flat staring at the ceiling) looks momentarily appealing and maybe even tempting. I approach the middle of the arena – surveying what feels like my very own Royal Albert Hall and chicken out, making instead for the front as close to the orchestra as I can get.
Here, in the middle of the front row of the arena – ‘the rail’ – is somewhere I’ve never been able to be in the years I prommed. Now, twenty years since I last prommed I get prime position. The stereoscopic detail from the first violins and cellos is a delicious treat.
This feast for the ears comes with a costly reflection. The vibrations of the sound on the floor around me carry memories from the past when I played in student orchestras myself. Back at university, a place on the undergraduate music degree felt like quite the achievement. ‘Grown-up’ music study beckoned laying to rest any doubts about ability or suitability I might have had when I had been studying my A-Levels the year before.
But the reality was quite different. Here I was one of a great many other equally pitched clarinettists, all of us collectively in awe overhearing the brilliance of two friends in the year above us whose technique left us all breathless, jealous and discouraged. Neil and Alastair were phenomenal musicians with an armful of technical ability not to mention musical expression. I remember distinctly assuming that they were the top of the mountain that needed to be climbed and that to do so was futile – it would be too difficult and there would be no space at the top if I got there. I completed my studies (others tell me I was quite good though my perception is entirely different from theirs) but it was always on the assumption that this wasn’t going anywhere.
Yet some in the year below me framed Neil and Alastair’s accomplishment as evidence of the quality of their studies they could expect, and a source of motivation. Those people persevered in a way that I consistently didn’t, opting to pursue a longer path beyond their higher education, freelancing as both administrators and musicians, drawing on their promise, dedication and patience to carve out a niche in the performing world.
I’m leaning over the rail at the Royal Albert Hall pining for a world I abandoned 33 years before, whilst those individuals in the year below me are playing to tens of thousands of people in festivals up and down the country. Some of that same cohort are programming seasons and running concert halls. They like the musicians on stage are the crucial people in this process – they are the ones who stage the events and bring the music to life. The rest of us are the consumers. I didn’t anticipate being reminded of needing to accept a state of resignation about one’s own place in the concert ecosystem nor to feel it quite so heavily.
I’ve always felt on the periphery, pursuing a career of reward rather than vocation—an outcome shaped by upbringing, assumptions, and unchecked impulses. I am of the generation who was told that working hard was the key to a happy life full of rewards. Yet, if there was any promise it wasn’t identified early enough – there was never enough time available for any promised to be focussed on.
Perfectionism and impatience led me from one discipline to another, always striving for more money, belonging, and status. The BBC was the ultimate pursuit of legitimacy. But as I moved from one ambition to the next, I realised perhaps too late that what was needed was not status, but purpose. The thread woven through the majority of my career has been the pleasure from writing, something I’ve been working on for over twenty years. Maybe I have stuck at something after all.
Yet the skill can only take you so far. The world bestows exposure on those who are noteworthy, either for their talent or for their mistakes. It’s no good being able to do something, you’ve got to be known for doing something. Writing in and of itself isn’t sufficient. You’re always destined for the periphery.
When these thoughts start manifesting, I suddenly feel self-conscious stood so close to professionals doing their work in their temporary workplace. I might as well be looking at animals in a zoo. The sense I’m intruding dominates.
As I leave the Hall, I pass pictures of artists, sportspeople and events that contribute to the venue’s rich and varied history. One of them is of my father-in-law performing to a crowd I was a part of, the same picture I have up on my wall at home. Given what’s gone before, I notice my heart getting heavier.
I’m reminded of something I’ve known for years. Decisions made in my youth—many of them impulsive and unexamined–were driven by impatience, the pursuit of status and a fear of failure. The path followed took me away from that world I’d secured a place in at university. Some of the people I went to university with who now appear on the stage both for the BBC and quite a few in other ensembles. Some now run organisations up and down the country. All of us pursued divergent paths. Some of the other committed very early on, securing their place in the classical ecosystem.
Thirty-five years later, I can see I’m not a peer nor a colleague. I’m simply an observer, or commentator–never fully participating. Their early promise was transformed thanks to their dedicated pursuit. I was panicked. Too flighty. Spooked. As a result, my aspirations came relatively late, and I need to accept that with a quiet dignity.
I can’t deny the sadness that comes with the reminder: the reality is stark and it lingers. Writing about music isn’t, by any definition, crucial to the success of music—its the performers who are responsible for that. I’m simply a member of the audience.
