Yesterday, Jim and I played two concerts at his old prep school, Belmont Hill, the first one in the morning for the students, and the second one at night for alumni and the general public. The programme was:

Danse macabre (arr. by the composer)......................................................................Saint Saens

Variations on a Theme of Haydn......................................................................................Brahms 

The Blue Danube.................................................................................................Strauss/Chasins 

Intermission 

"Jupiter" from The Planets (original version by the composer)........................................Holst 

Rhapsody in Blue (original version by the composer)...................................................Gershwin

We always love to play for young people, but yesterday was one of the nicest experiences we've had in this regard; the students (over 400) were attentive to the music (we played the Saint Saens and the last part of the Gershwin), they were respectful, and most important, they seemed to enjoy the music. We just wish more places would arrange for us to play at local schools, as it is important that students be shown that music is something one enjoys, rather than being primarily something which "improves" you.

The evening concert was a festive affair, as it was in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the school, so like our concert on Denman Island last week, the atmosphere was positively charged from the start. As to our playing, we were happy, but especially with the Gershwin, which Jim and I thought was perhaps our best yet; many people, including some musicians, commented that this was the first time they realized what a great masterpiece the Rhapsody is. This may sound self-aggrandizing, but I don't mean it that way; it's just that we both feel very strongly that the piece is often misrepresented as being a loosely strung together collection of nice tunes, but as a whole, formally weak, a view that Jim and I utterly reject. On the contrary, we see it as an architectural masterpiece very much in the tradition of, if not directly influenced by, the Liszt Rhapsodies, only perhaps tighter formally than is usually the case with Liszt, and with jazz, rather than Hungarian folk music, as its folk base.

The alumni and faculty of Belmont Hill, by the way, have such a wonderful spirit about them that I found myself regretting that I hadn't been a student there! Actually, I've heard so much about the place from Jim over the years, all of it positive, that I had an odd sense of "coming home", a sense strongly reinforced by the hospitality of everyone we met.