While Students’ Union events, gigs and discos were my staple during my sabbatical year, I found myself increasingly listening to classical music on my rare evenings off in my micro-apartment in Horwood K Block.
The place was described as a resident tutor’s flat and I was very lucky to be allowed such space and comfort for my sabbatical year. In truth, the “flat” was two study bedrooms at the end of a corridor cobbled together with a small galley kitchen and a tiny en suite bathroom and toilet utilising the would-be corridor space and some of the would-be study bedrooms.
Still, I had a sitting room in which to eat, relax with friends and (surprisingly frequently) to act as a dossing floor at night for people who lacked the energy or ability to stagger home. John White, who lived off campus, was quite often such a guest.
Returning to the classical music, my tiny personal collection of classical recordings had not moved on since the early to mid 1970s. I have pretty much documented it all in one Ogblog posting – click here or below.
I had no record player at Keele; hence the couple of hundred cassettes I had accumulated during my Keele years.
I consolidated the fancied bits of that tiny classical record collection on to eight cassettes, which I have replicated through the following two YouTube playlists, which you can access despite even if you see off-putting strikethroughs:
Wherever possible I have found the exact same 1960s/1970s recordings for those playlists. I have rather enjoyed listening to them again after so many years. Of course I can hear more modern and technically much better recordings at the press of a button these days, but these are the performances and recordings I remember from back then.
I played bits of those eight cassettes quite a lot in 84/85.
While John White and I tended to trawl my far more copious collection of modern music, partly with a view to planning discos and the like…I’ll be writing more on that topic in a future piece…
… Kate (now Susan) Fricker used to like to hear classical music when she visited, while Petra also quite often requested a classical music backdrop on the increasingly frequent occasions that she was at the flat.
Indeed, it was through Petra, or more accurately one of Petra’s friends, I think probably Ruth, that a record player found its way into my flat. Petra’s friend had discovered, like many Keele students before her, that there was not much room for a turntable and stereo system in a study-bedroom.
The record player was lent to us for an unspecified period (I think it ended up at mine for the rest of the academic year), taking pride of place in my so-called living room. It looked rather grand in that setting, but for the inconvenient truth that I had no records at Keele. Not one.
Occasionally someone would come round with a record, and we could play it, but this seemed like underutilisation to me.
All this is a preamble to the one big thing I remember about visiting my old (as in long-term, not elderly) friend Jilly Black in Cardiff that first weekend of March 1985. Here’s all I wrote in the diary about it.
Friday 1 March 1985.– Very busy morning to get all out of way – left Keele early. Went to Cardiff – supper and drink – earlyish night.
Saturday 2 March 1985 – rose quite late – did some work – went to Cardiff Union -> shops -> back – went drink -> Chinese -> back for more drink – pleasant day.
Sunday, 3 March 1985 – got up quite late – had lunch – left Cardiff – long journey – went union – went Petra’s – [she] came over later.
Jilly was studying music at Cardiff. It was Jilly who had introduced me to Claudio Abbado at The Proms some 18 months earlier…
…and I recall that my visit to see her in Cardiff was long overdue.
My enduring memory of that particular visit was purchasing 10 classical records under Jilly’s “tutelage” on the Saturday. The only other things I remember about that visit were:
- being reminded that everything in Wales, at that time, shut down ridiculously early on a Friday evening – hence the otherwise out of character “supper drink and early night”;
- that Jilly’s “then but soon to be ex” boyfriend did something of a no show, so I didn’t get to meet him and this was a bit of a cloud over an otherwise very enjoyable weekend
- an excellent Chinese meal in a restaurant on the Cardiff Riverside which I think might even have been named, suitably, Riverside Cantonese or some such.
But let us examine the 10 classical albums that I bought on the Saturday with Jilly’s help. Where I can identify the album I have added a Discogs link, which, for some obscure reason, tend to look struck through even though you can click them happily:
- Vivaldi The Four Seasons
- Respighi Pines Of Rome Berlioz Carnival Overture & Liszt Les Preludes
- Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony
- Tchaikovsky Symphony No 5 & String Quartet Andante Cantabile
- Rachmaninov Piano Concerto & Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
- Vivaldi Concertos and Sonatas
- Karajan Beethoven Symphony No 7
- Dvorak Symphony No 3 & Symphonic Variations
- Berlioz Harold in Italy
- Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
- Liszt 6 Hungarian Rhapsodies
- Berlioz Overtures
If you are reading this article, pining for that fine mini collection of ancient recordings of classics, brilliantly curated by Jilly, pine no more. This YouTube playlist has all but one of them (I have so far failed to trace the particular Vivaldi sonatas and concerti on the album so-named). Here is a link to the YouTube playlist that includes those classic albums. The usual “don’t worry if you see a strike through, you can click happily” rule applies.
I’ll be returning to the topic of Keele discos and playlists for those soon enough.