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concerts

Opening of the 1970 extension and the inaugural concert


Elisabeth Swan
Transcript
And then of course the opening of the extension was a great occasion when Jim managed to get all these people to come. So what with the Prince of Wales and Jacqueline du Pre and Daniel Barenboim and it was a marvellous party. I certainly enjoyed it very much and wore my diamond earrings, about the only time ever and met a lot of people. When they were leaving, we always remember, we looked out of a window and Daniel Barenboim and Jacqui were doing a sort of dance on that green in front of the cottages [Harold Swan: Daniel surely was swinging her around] Yes, yes, that's right. They were on their way home but of course it was very memorable because it wasn't awfully long after that that she was known to have multiple sclerosis. The thought of her dancing, I'm afraid, wasn't possible after that.

Helen hurrying Prince Charles along at the inaugural concert


Mary Adams
Transcript
She loved the music, the concerts, she really got going on that. Marvellous occasion with Prince Charles, because, you know, they came for the opening of the extension and Jacqueline [du Pre] and Danny Barenboim were playing, and after the concert she was very busy getting drinks ready for the musicians and the little lobby where you come in by the door was absolutely full of Prince Charles, aged about 18 or something, completely surrounded by young admirers, all touching his sleeve and asking about cello - she said he thought cello was a rather squeaky instrument, that she didn't think he was going to go on playing it - and anyway, in comes my mother from the kitchen door, laden with a tray, elbowing everyone out of the way. Well she was very anxious always to behave properly in the right circumstances and had no idea that it was Prince Charles she was elbowing out of the way so we managed to pull her leg about that one a great deal.

Changes to concert programming after the Edes left in 1973


Paul Clough
Transcript
Jim initially went on programming the concerts from Edinburgh so the first year he booked up who the musicians were and then, I think, found that that was too difficult and I found it pretty difficult because I had no... really, all that I knew was that someone would turn up. I hadn't been involved in the pre-arrangements and so... it never happened that anyone let us down but I probably didn't even have a contact phone number to follow up if there was a problem. Diana [Gordon] was a wonderful find. Diana had retired very recently as a producer for Radio 3 and she had a wonderful network with impresarios and agents and she knew who was interesting and some of the people who played in the house, Lindsay Quartet comes to mind, were definitely on her personal network and Diana and I worked together very well, very amicably. She had her domain and really I only encroached on that domain in two ways: one, I put out the chairs and put them away again still and stood up at the beginning and, you know, got hush and then went to the green room to get the performers out but; two, I provided the evening meal for them and so I have had at my table and eating my food the most... funnily enough a far wider and more stellar selection of musicians than of visual artists, considering that Kettle's Yard is primarily a visual place. That was a very beautiful part of the job and nothing ever took away the enjoyment of the music for me.

Jim's musical tastes and recording concerts in 1973-74


Paul Clough
Transcript
You could identify Jim's taste. It was pretty conventional and... Ravel and perhaps Benjamin Britten's earlier works, easier works, were about as far as he would go in terms of departing from the canon that starts with Bach. But there was a hideous part of this which, after about 18 months I managed to discontinue, which was that Jim made the University buy two, for their time, quite good cassette recorders and I was supposed to record each evening's music and post the tape to Edinburgh which was of course an idea of him being able to be in touch. It had a slightly creepy element to it, of Jim being there in spirit if not in flesh but far, far more of a problem for me was that various of the musicians had copyright ab-dabs when hearing about it and although the understanding was that when booking them, Jim would clear this, perhaps he didn't always remember to or perhaps they didn't notice what they were saying yes to.

Viewing art from chairs and the long white sofa


David Owers
Transcript
One or two paintings would be at a very low level. For instance, the Wallis' have always been at a level, and you can often sit to absorb the paintings and dwell, to enjoy the paintings, not from standing eye level, but from sitting eye level, which encourages contemplation. The great majority of displays of this sort, if you like, lack places to sit and it is very nice. In our extension, the piece of furniture I enjoy most, almost, is the long white sofa on the north wall downstairs and usually has only one painting behind it so there is a lot of wall space which is relatively empty. It works wonderfully for concerts when the piano, or there is a quartet playing and particularly the younger members of the audience, well the students I've seen, and they gravitate to this sofa and sort of bunch up and recline, they are practically horizontal. Part of the enjoyment of Kettle's Yard is to do with the fact that you're encouraged to linger and you are seeing it in a different way, I think, and the way that even a painting sitting on the floor can look extremely successful and can be observed in a different way.