Further
details and specimen page
I’m not known for my
pithiness, am I? Well, just this once
I intend to try, for the sake of those
desperate to get on with their Christmas
shopping. However, just to be on the
safe side, I’m putting my conclusion
up-front. This book is unusual in content,
candid to a fault, thoroughly absorbing,
moving and mirthful, and requires virtually
no prior knowledge of - or even particular
interest in - "symphonic"
music. Moreover, whole swathes of it
read like a novel, and the cost/content
ratio is vanishingly small. So, what’re
you waiting for?
Before we – that is,
I and anyone not already making a beeline
for the bookshop – go any further, I
must make a solemn declaration. I hereby
swear that I have not been swayed -
well, not much, anyway - by the fact
that both the author and I hail from
the West Riding of Yorkshire. Come to
think of it, though, this does raise
a particularly pertinent point: Yorkshire
folk are renowned for not being backward
at calling a spade a spade. The reason
for telling you this will, I hope, be
clear by the time I’m done.
What we have here is
essentially a singularly intriguing
autobiography, whose narrative is interspersed
by a number of "divertimenti".
Basically, instead of sticking strictly
to chronological sequence, certain topics
- which would otherwise pop up piecemeal
– are dealt with more fully as and when
they first arise. I like this approach,
for exactly the same reasons that I
enjoy musical divertimenti. The technique
is elegantly managed: as the tale nears
its end, so the narrative, just like
the proverbial "old soldier",
fades until, just like Tchaikovsky’s
Sleeping Beauty, all that remains
is divertimento.
The subject matter
is potentially controversial, or at
least might be so-regarded in some quarters.
That’s because this is not the tale
of just any Yorkshire lass, but of the
gritty Yorkshire lass who became the
UK’s first female professional orchestral
percussionist (not, you understand,
to be confused with timpanist!). If
this seems fairly hum-drum, then bear
in mind that Maggie was born in 1937,
in an age when sexual "equality"
was limited to women having the right
to vote, and when the job market - and
pretty well anything else you care to
mention – was firmly divided into boxes
labelled "for the boys" and
"for the girls".
In those days, unless
they were truly exceptional players
of acceptably "feminine" instruments,
women were rarely admitted to any
orchestra, never mind overtly masculine
bastions like the Vienna Philharmonic.
The binding thread of her narrative
is her continual battle against what
we would now call "prejudice",
although historically it might more
accurately be called "misperception".
This theme is encapsulated in Maggie’s
title, extracted from something said
to her very early on (see p. 39!). Given
that titular prominence, it doesn’t
take a genius to figure out that, to
a large extent, this must have been
the spur that drove her on.
Maggie, quite properly,
starts at the very beginning, painting
a vivid picture from her rich palette
of childhood memories. I was fair brought
up short to find how much of this matched
my own memories – nothing much had changed
in the ten years that separates our
birth-dates. Incidentally – and this
is as much of the plot as I’m going
to let out of the bag! – it wasn’t only
lasses whose winter wellies gave them
red chap-lines across the backs of their
knees. Back then, as I recall it, not
even lads had the option of long pants.
Slowly but surely, with that same graphic
skill, Maggie paints her growing dream,
embroiling you in her seemingly life-long
battle to achieve, and then consolidate,
her ambition. Even though we already
know the outcome, the fact that the
odds were stacked against her every
bit of the way clearly contributes to
the novel-like impact of the narrative.
Yet, there is far more
here than mere description. There is
something else, which for me sets this
account a notch above many an autobiography,
and a world away from your run-of-the-mill
"kiss and tell" whistle-blower.
That something is an uncommon degree
of empathy with and awareness of the
motivations behind people’s behaviour
- including her own! To my mind, this
is where Maggie really comes up trumps:
even when she is dealing with people
on their very worst behaviour, she does
so with such immense fairness and understanding
– excepting, of course, when that behaviour
is utterly incomprehensible - that even
the most curmudgeonly can have no cause
for complaint. This really comes to
the fore when Maggie is talking about
her career with the CBSO, and even more
so in her account – which is both heart-warming
and hilarious – of her educational adventures,
both with underprivileged and (especially)
deaf children. I am not ashamed – nay,
I’m pleased - to say that on
more than one occasion this last brought
a sizeable lump to my throat.
There is perhaps no
field of human endeavour where more
people are simultaneously working,
in more distinct capacities and with
greater precision, towards achieving
a single goal, than the professional
symphony orchestra. When you think about
it, you do get to wondering how it is
kept from exploding, how it can work
at all - never mind work so consistently
well. The main reason is the military
discipline of the "system"
in which, if a trooper steps out of
line, he will in effect "be taken
out and shot at dawn", and players
speaking their minds are not – shall
we say? - encouraged. That players
– but not, it seems, conductors and
management – are "gagged"
by their contracts is only part of the
complex disciplinary régime that
Maggie dissects, exemplifying and elaborating
on the workings of the internal organs
of the orchestra.
And yes, inevitably
there are explosions, disastrous breakdowns
in human relations, along with the sad
consequences – though she mentions only
one that actually happened in public.
It almost goes without saying that there
is also much merriment – in reading
some of Maggie’s multitudinous anecdotes,
you run the risk of falling out of your
chair laughing. It is evident that Maggie
had something of a love/hate relationship
with Simon Rattle, under whose baton
she spent nearly half of her forty-year
long CBSO career. Sometimes, metaphorically
speaking, they were at each other’s
throats, at other times, quite literally
anything but – just read about Simon’s
involvement with the deaf children!
Experiencing, albeit at Maggie’s evocative
second-hand, the many conflicting forces
– including both political and inter-personal
- at work serves only to strengthen
our admiration for the robustness of
the magnificent organism that is the
professional symphony orchestra.
There is more – far,
far more. Maggie goes into what
seems like a million and one allied
topics, ranging from international crises
right down to general horse-work, social
and family matters, even unto the best
place to catch a quick "kip".
Yet, nothing seems superfluous because,
whatever she’s talking about, Maggie
remains so engaging that the pages just
fly by. Moreover, such is the eloquence
of her style and the sheer quantity
of information, this is a book that
will happily bear repeated readings.
One rule of criticism
that I learnt from the late Adrian Smith,
the sole dedicatee of this book, was
"never finish on an adverse comment".
For once, out of sheer Yorkshire cussedness,
I’m going to break that rule. So far,
I haven’t mentioned any minuses,
not so much as a single one. Yet, there
are some. There are a few little patches
where I got slightly muddled by the
phraseology, a couple of homonymic bloopers,
and I would have liked some parenthetical
dates against events described during
those divertimenti, as just occasionally
I wondered if "X" had happened
before or after "Y". But,
that really is about it, other than
feeling that, even at 364 pages, the
book was too short! I suppose you could
say that this is "praising with
faint condemnation". Well, if so,
then so be it. So, buy it!
Paul Serotsky
Brimming with unique
insights, this is also a wonderful tale,
wonderfully told. I don’t so much recommend
it as insist that you buy it, and the
sooner the better. ... see Full Review
See
also review by Rob Barnett
Further
details and specimen page
