Music on a winter's afternoon

We have just had a lovely weekend in Southampton visiting Kieran and Alice. We spent Saturday in nearby Winchester, which is a lovely cathedral city. I managed to buy a few Xmas presents and bizarrely we bumped into a former neighbour's daughter who used to babysit for us. We were just passing the cathedral and there she was. Small world eh?
Alice is in a couple of orchestras and fortuitously we had chosen to come when one of them was holding a concert. It was in a village outside of Southampton called Chandler's Ford where Peggy was always visiting some relative back in the day. We were a little late as the SatNav chose to take us to the village of Easliegh instead. Just when I trust that technology it lets me down. Trev is like an abused wife over it. He refuses to hear criticism of it and always says he must have programmed it wrongly hmmmm.
Anyway we missed most of the Wasps by Vaughn Williams but luckily the hall was such that we could sneak in the back without making too much noise. The programme included Sibelius but the highlight for me was Pictures at an Exhibition. They had got in extra percussionists and a harpist for it and the sound was great. The percussion section was fascinating as they seemed to have to take it in turns to play the gong so they were all swapping places and instruments so the right person was free to play the gong. I am sure there was method in all this. I was very pleased to see also that one of the clarinetist looked as if he had escaped from Pickwick papers. All sideburns. Of course the best section was the violins and the first violin players were subperb!
It was a really lovely concert and I was very impressed. I recommend them if you are ever in the Southampton ares