Most of you will have caught up with the very sad news that Peter Barber, one of our basses, died last week. The choir has sent condolences to Wendy and his family and our thoughts and prayers are with them. Peter last sang with us in Cheltenham Town Hall and he and Wendy have been members of the choir for twenty plus years.
I shall miss Peter a lot. Although unwell for some time he doggedly attended rehearsals and gave his all, and as his hearing deteriorated, he would cup a hand behind one ear to try and catch my rabbiting in case it was important. This always reminded me to improve my delivery. More recently he asked me to wear a clip on microphone in rehearsal and we enjoyed a unique relationship of direct communication; he only had to wave occasionally to remind me to turn it on!
Peter was a kind man, and between the singing made a quiet contribution to the choir community in many ways. The most significant, and remembered fondly by many members, was as Editor of Leading Notes. This was a termly ‘newsheet’ as he called it, with many contributions from members of the choir. It featured Chairman’s Ramblings from Roger, Chairman’s Chunterings from Toby and Sarah’s Scribblings, concert and festival reviews, programme notes and miscellaneous musings about the next concert, soloists’ biographies, plenty of short reminiscences and reflections by members with heaps of amusing anecdotes, tall stories and puzzles. Occasionally there would be Editorial mumblings from Peter himself, often written on holiday in France or imploring people to contribute to copy! There are two lovely extracts below. Incidentally, all of this came for just £1 a throw – a healthy contribution to choir funds.
The patience and dedication required to pull each edition together and present Leading Notes so well was part of Peter’s commitment to the choir and we were all the richer for it, so a heartfelt posthumous ‘thank you’ from us all Mr Editor.
As a tribute to Peter and in his memory, I will be quoting something from past editions of LN in my forthcoming blogs, and as you read them spare a thought for the contributors (who might still be in the choir!) and the man who kept it all together.
Extracts from Leading Notes. Here Peter reflects on an amateur music experience in France and makes a gentle political point:
Missing a rehearsal, black mark, I was in France last week, and one evening, with glass in hand was talking with the mayor of a small town near Mayenne. We were at a buffet following a concert in which we heard English amateur string groups playing at the close of a week’s course (Wendy was playing, I was hanger-on). Then it was the turn of a large group of local people present, between 20-30 of them, ages from about thirteen upwards. Stands were set up, flutes, clarinets, some brass and percussion, were put in place and careful tuning followed.....They played delightfully and musically....There was a strong local musical tradition the mayor explained and many of the youngsters had lessons at the town’s School of Music. Once upon a time the lessons had been free, but that had changed now and families had to pay. Oh tell me about it, just like home. The Venezuelan youth musicians who, rightly, have been accorded an ecstatic welcome wherever they have performed, are the products of an enlightened system of fostering talent in urban and rural communities regardless of origin or parental financial status.....But did we not have our own sistema, called county peripatetic services and serving the whole population excellently, until poleaxed by political shenanigans? Leading Notes Issue 22, Spring 2009
Peter considers how music soothes and challenges us:
Sops, challenges and barbed wire:
Music as emollient: Classic FM makes much of playing ‘easy listening’ selections as a background wash to persuade us to put up our feet after a busy day. Fine. After all, who needs a challenge when you have end-of-the-month accounts/preparation of tomorrow’s lessons/children’s bedtime on your mind? Indeed recent press articles have reported on the therapeutic value of music played in clinics and hospitals. Mozart’s name seems often to recur in this context too. A very successful enterprise, according to these reports. If music be the food of love..... Baby therapy too – Mention of children’s bedtime reminds me of the popularity of a DVD called Baby Mozart with certain very small people of my acquaintance. Teddy bears cavort, toy trains loop-the-loop to Mozart minuets and marches engagingly played on what sounds like a glockenspiel, and the audience goes quiet.
But music as challenge: As amateur choristers we are conscious of performance challenge, but listeners get challenged too. From the beginning composers have thrown down the ever-evolving ‘sound worlds’. Notes that fall discordantly on the ear of one generation can become sweet music to the next. To lend an engaged ear to as wide a spectrum of sound as possible can be a stimulating antidote to sugar overdose. (Will A Child of our Time prove a double challenge?!
Then how about music as barbed wire?
Mozart (again!), piped to doorways and to open exterior areas of department stores or malls to repel ‘up-to-no-good’ likely lads who gather there after closing time. Music as therapy OK – but oh! – please not the aversion type. Leading Notes Issue 12, Autumn/Winter 2004
Thank you Peter, it was good knowing you. Go well.