heard a chair squeak

Music If you were listening to the lunch time concert on BBC Radio Three this afternoon (and you can again in the iPlayer) and heard a chair squeak during Shai Wosner’s solo rendition of Mozart’s Fantasia in C minor (K475) then you momentarily irritated by me readjusting myself in situ because I was at that concert whilst it was prerecorded yesterday afternoon in studio 7 of BBC Manchester on Oxford Road.

A free event as part of their Genius of Mozart season it was a chance to sit in close proximity with an orchestra and allowing a wall of live musical sound blow me over. Despite visiting BBC Manchester before for other events, I hadn't realised that they could accommodate this kind of recording or, as the photographic portraits on the walls of previous conductors and supporters and a giant banner above the entrance to the venue indicated that this was the "home of the BBC Philharmonic".

Studio 7 is a giant square auditorium with the audience in stadium seating on one side and the orchestra across a small stage opposite and somehow despite the large number of players and even greater number of listeners a very intimate atmosphere was created. The concert was presented by Catherine Bott, who stood at some microphones just to the side and read her announcements as live from an A4 print out which was an impressive feat in itself.  The audience sat in complete silence throughout.  This was clearly a group of passionate music fans.  Who also knew the rules.

There are two things you need to know about my experience. Firstly that I was a bit distracted because the other reason I was in Manchester was for some replacement fillings at my dentist on Oxford Road. He’d just finished work within half an hour of me sitting down so I spent most of the concert regaining the feeling in my mouth, my tongue fringed with pins and needles and prodding around my teeth getting used to the work which had been done. He’s suggested I give up sweet things. He’s probably right.

Secondly that I wasn't distracted enough from the virtuosity of the playing and the emotional embrace of the music.  Only The Magic Flute overture was familiar to me, with its impactful chords and pauses which seem designed to catch out an early clapper. During his solo, Wosner sat hunched over his piano and once again I was impressed with a musicians ability to remember a whole piece without need to refer to a sheet. The Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat (K482) is unusually because it’s topped and tailed by a slow movement which somehow makes it feel more melancholic something that might have been reflected in the determination of the players.

At the end we applauded as though at a real concert (Was this a real concert? What are the rules?) and then an engineer appeared from the back and asked us to remain seated. There were to be retakes.  Wosner reappeared with conductor Antonello Manacorda and we heard a few bars here and there again. Presumably for technical reasons because their playing sound fine the first time. As I pondered what would have happened during the live broadcast which filled the slot the day before from the same vanue, and considered whether an hour was the perfect length for any concert, it was time to go.