My debut as leader at Mazer

Last night I performed a quartet by R. Vaughan Williams called Household Music at the regular Mazer Monday evening soiree. This is a very nice three movement work based on three well known (in GB but not here) Welsh hymn tunes. With me were John, Kathy and Solbritt. The man standing in the picture above is Krister Persson who was host for the evening which included three other works. He pointed out that unusually for a Mazer evening all the works were in fact quartets, although only one a string quartet (ours!). He played in a piano quartet (violin, viola, cello & piano), then it was us, then after the interval a flute quartet by Bach (two flutes, a viol and harpsichord). The last group was a saxophone quartet! (very nice, but dynamic range from loud to deafening!) They ended up with "When I'm 64", but I wasn't alone in thinking that "When I was 64" suited a rather high proportion of the audience!

The historical importance which was missed by most spectators was the fact that it was my first appearance as leader of a quartet in public. Some have said that I lead from the viola position of course, but that's not quite the same as playing the first violin part.

I was very glad that Margaret could come because she was supposed to have worked that evening, but someone wanted to swap shifts with her. Kathy's husband Gary had come with her from England, and was also there. Margaret was complementary about our performance, and she usually says what she thinks, so I take that as a great compliment! I think we played well. I made new and different mistakes of course, but that's normal in any performance. John put his mute on too early at one point, and so had to take it off again! But no-one except him commented on that!

So that was the end of a very nice weekend for me. Kathy & Garry arrived on Saturday, when we had a nice meal together, and a bit too much nice wine. Sunday John & Solbritt arrived while Margaret was working, so we could play all day. On Monday we drove to Stockholm, and while Margaret and Garry went to the Vasa Museum (well worth a visit) we played some more, ending the evening at the Konstnärsklubben.

So now I'm back at work where in addition to all the usual problems that have built up there is building work going on next door, with machinery designed to drill a whole in your brain! Evacuation isn't completely ruled out.