Yesterday in Dunblane Cathedral we heard the story from Matthew’s Gospel of the wedding feast that nobody bothered to attend. The groom’s father sent out his servants to enquire why the guests weren’t coming. They had all gone out to attend to their fields, or gone into the office. The story takes rather a dark turn because when the servants persist in their enquiries, they are all murdered. So mein Host gives up on the guest list and opens the wedding up to every Tom, Dick and Harry out on the streets. They all come in, and have a fine time.
Except for one guy, who happens to be dressed inappropriately. He is summarily ejected from the feast, and subjected to much weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What can it possibly mean? The Reader did attempt a sort of interpretation, but I can’t remember what it was, except that it seemed to me to be rather lame. The story reminded me of that notorious encounter between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. It was almost a re-enactment. President Zelenskyy’s garb was essentially a military uniform, as it has been now for the duration of the war between Russia and Ukraine, nearly five years. For a while the conversation between the presidents seemed to proceed quite normally, then somebody – I think from the press corps, although the question had the tenor of a plant – asked Zelenskyy, “Why aren’t you wearing a suit?” And at that precise point the entire nature of the encounter changed, and the representatives of the administration suddenly became hostile. Trump told Zelenskyy to sue for peace. “You don’t have the cards.” People say that Zelenskyy was humiliated, but this is far from the case. He said, “This is not a game of cards.” He stood up to the verbal assault remarkably well, particularly as he was speaking in his third language. Since then, his English has become remarkably fluent. But, just like the parable, I believe after the discussion closed, he was summarily ejected from the White House. I will never forget the footage of that encounter.
Female journalists on the telly often complain that they are criticised, not for what they say, but for what they wear. I remember when the BBC used to report the activities of her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the report invariably contained a sentence beginning “And the Queen was wearing…” followed by a brief segment on haute couture. You can dress up, or dress down, inappropriately. I once turned up at my German class looking a bit posh, as I was going on to a formal occasion. I was teased. But as I pointed out, clothes maketh the man. Kleidung macht den Mann.
Oddly enough, at Dunblane I had paid particular attention to my dress code, because I was going on from there to Linlithgow, to play my viola in a concert. The dress code was to be black, so I’d donned a black shirt, a charcoal suit, and black shoes. And a black cardigan to protect against draughty churches. I know a professional musician who has a recurring dream, of turning up to gigs in the wrong clobber. This is the atmosphere of the parable in St Matthew. It is like an anxiety dream. These must start quite early in life. There is an archetypal nightmare, suffered by children, of turning up to school dressed in one’s pyjamas. Then one’s mother turns up at the classroom door, with fresh laundry. It is the ultimate humiliation, before one’s peers.
But I was quite safe in my charcoal suit. We assembled at 3.00 pm in St Michael’s Linlithgow, beside the Palace, to rehearse. We rehearsed until 5.00, and essentially played the whole programme through. By this time I was exhausted and whining, “Why do we have to rehearse on the same day as the concert?” I daresay it’s a feature of growing old, irritability. On Saturday night I’d gone to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to attend an RSNO concert. I met my friends on the steps of the hall’s Buchanan Street entrance, at 6.00 pm, but the bouncers wouldn’t let us in. “But the restaurant is open!” I remonstrated. “How are we supposed to have a meal and attend the pre-concert talk at 6.45 pm?” But it was no good. We repaired to a nearby Café Nero, where we were treated with true hospitality.
I will concede that the more or less permanent Glasgow city centre traffic jam has eased, with the removal of a one-way system, and all the bollards, but coming in for a concert on Saturday night is still pretty dismal. Buchanan Galleries Car Park closes at 9.30. What earthly use is that? Concert Square Car Park smells of stale urine and marijuana. Actually I quite like the smell of marijuana, but the ammoniac background is very off-putting.
Then, once you gain entry to the hall, you can’t hang your coat up because the cloakroom is unattended. Now that there’s an autumnal nip in the air, everybody takes their seat dressed in a coat. It gives the occasion the atmosphere of one of these concerts taking place in a bombed out hall, lacking a roof, in Berlin after May 1945.
Despite all this, the concert was magnificent. It had an American theme, and we heard Copland’s Appalachian Spring, William Grant Still’s Symphony No 1, Afro-American, and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. We were meant to hear Jeneba Kanneh-Mason play Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, but alas Ms Kanneh-Mason was indisposed, and in the event the RSNO’s leader, Maya Iwabuchi, played John Williams’ Three Pieces from Schindler’s List, most beautifully. One of our party is American, and she was very apologetic about the current state of her country. She wanted to listen to all this wonderful music and remember the USA of her childhood. The beacon of light, the city on the hill.
And on Sunday evening our concert in Linlithgow was well attended, and went well. Vivaldi, Mozart, Elgar, Britten, and Respighi. It was a commemorative concert for our erstwhile conductor who about a year ago took ill and passed away quite unexpectedly. She was a delightful person, herself a viola player, whom I first met, sharing a desk in the viola section, accompanying the extraordinarily gifted accordionist Ryan Corbett. She is no longer with us, but I think the Antonine Ensemble will continue. I think it was Bernard Levin who said that he could not get used to this disappearing act, becoming habitual amongst his friends.
I keep thinking the last concert I have just done will be my Schwanengesang. But it went okay. Maybe I’ll do another, like Frank Sinatra. The concert was a poignant occasion. At the end, I was completely exhausted. I drove home, and crashed. Strictly in that order. I mean, I drove home, and went to bed.
