Given all the craziness of the last few weeks, with both a play being produced and a new novel to get published, you would think the last thing I would need would be an orchestra concert thrown into the mix.  But tonight  (7.30 pm, Chelsea Town Hall, King’s Road London) is the final concert of the season of my orchestra, the Kensington Philharomic — that is, the orchestra I play violin with.  And thank goodness for it.

Words are always, always in my head. Needless words, annoying words, important words.  I wake up with them, I try to fool myself into quieting them down so I can sleep.  I spend my life composing emails that need never be written or having imaginary conversations or creating interactions between characters that may never get used.  I suppose it’s one of the occupational hazards of being a writer.  But it can be exhausting.  And for me, the only time when I am not in an ocean of words is when I am playing music.  Sure, very often, the music is interspersed with words — mostly conversations with myself lamenting my lack of technique or some horrible lapse in intonation.  But when I’m cookin’, when the music is really flowing, then I am literally speechless.  All the words go away and I am taken over by sound.  So I am actually hugely grateful that I have to squeeze two rehearsals and a concert into this weekend.  I may not have the time, but I definitely need it.

The fact that this particular concert is full of such fantastic music makes it even better.  We start with Rossini’s Overture to La Cenerentola, his opera  based on Cinderella.  Not my favourite.  I call it cartoon music.  Everyone’s heard it without knowing it and its lots of fast notes for not a lot of reason.  But every concert needs an overture to start off with, and this one is par for the course.  But then we have one of my favourite pieces of all time — the Beethoven Violin Concerto.  The soloist is, Melina Mandozzi, an amazing violinist with a hugely succesful orchestral and solo career.  She loves us for some reason, and books in to play with us each Spring.  Beethoven’s one and only violin concerto is so moving and so beautiful — it’s an honour to be able to accompany such a wonderful violinist in such an important work.  Then we finish with Vaughan Williams’ 5th Symphony.  This is, for me, the great surprise of the concert.  I didn’t know this piece at all. Actually, I don’t know much of Vaughan Williams’ work.  But I have fallen in love with this piece.  It is gorgeously melodic in a sweeping impressionistic sort of way.  It  completely carries me away out of my head and off into a place where words are not only meaningless but besides the point.  Really, just what I need right now.  Here’s an excerpt to show you what I mean. It’s Andre Previn conducting the En-Aichi-Kay Symphony Orchestra in the beginning of the first movement (sorry it stops in the middle but you can find the rest on You Tube).  Oh — and most importantly, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all you dads out there — especially my own!