My life has undergone a revolution. For 20 years I've struggled with flight-induced deafness - a hazard for a conductor who travels. Usually I ask for 24 hours'grace between landing and taking a rehearsal to give my ears a chance to recover, but it' not always possible. I went to Athens recently and had to pick up the baton within hours of touching down. I couldn't understand why the orchestra were playing so limply. I harried them to hell trying to get a decent sound out of them. Next morning (hearing normalised) they nearly blew my ears off! "Why are you guys playing so hard?"I asked them. "Because you told us to, maestro!…"
I was bemoaning my problem to an old friend, Patrick Grossmann, a specialist orthodontist. He lit up and said: "I can fix it, no problem.” He made me a brace to wear on flights that works by keeping the airways to the ears open so the pressure equalises. It’s worked a miracle — I’ve just skipped off a flight, ears clear.
This is a big week for me: I’m hosting two outdoor concerts at my farm in Somerset next weekend and there’s a mountain of things to do. The week started with a very long drive back from a camping holiday in France with the kids. We got home near midnight. As I was heaving sleeping children into the house I spotted the gleam of white canvas in the moonlight. A huge stage had landed like a UFO in my fields. It had been put up while we were away and I felt lifted by a wave of elation. These concerts fulfil a dream for me. It’s not that playing at Carnegie Hall or the South Bank isn’t thrilling — it is — but a lot of people wouldn’t dream of going to a concert hall. That is tragic because so many are missing out on so much amazing music. What blows my head off with excitement is having a world-class symphony orchestra blazing across my fields.
Saturday night’s programme features Holst’s
The Planetswith improvised ambient responses to each planet. Sunday night is Vivaldi’s
Four Seasonswith the young Russian-born virtuoso Alexander Sitkovetsky.
The Planetsis one of the most fantasy-rich pieces yet written, and so we came up with the idea of having contemporary musicians “respond” to each one; ambient improvisations from across the parkland that will feature material sampled from the orchestral planet just performed, giving the audience a chance to re-engage with Holst’s material through a refracted lens.
The Four Seasonsis the mainstay of a programme all about painting with sound, alongside Haydn’s
Morning,
Noonand
Nightsymphonies. Sitkovetsky has not played in a field before. But with true Russian insight he’s already said he’s not bringing his wellies — because it’s going to be a perfect evening.
On Tuesday I bump into Angela, who cleans for us. She’s never been to a concert hall in her life and she’s coming both nights with her family. We have a “pay what you can” scheme for the locals and the village really seems to have adopted the festival. To keep the budget down villagers are “hosting” musicians. But we’ve run out of hosts and need a room for Will Gregory, from Goldfrapp, who’s performing with us on Saturday. We wonder if the caravan my wife did up will do...
