I Have Had Such an Interesting Evening . . .

It all started yesterday when I received a note through the letterbox of my quaint eighteenth-century East London dwelling. From the scrolled decoration on the edges of the envelope, and from the gilded crest on the back, I immediately knew that this missive hailed from none other than our great friend Nobilissime The Count Paulo Pauloni, the greatest organ virtuoso of our age, at present (as you know) resident in West London where he has been studying for many years at the Abbey of the Mauve Thought in the Goldhawk Road.

I snatched the intriguing post from the doormat ('GO AWAY' written in large letters thereon), laughingly tossed aside a handful of bills and letters from gentlemen in chambers, and took the important remaining mail into the conservatory to devour it under a good light. Oh joy! Hastily written, but from the great man himself: 'Come! I play, tomorrow, it will be SUPERBO!' - and an address.

Aha! I thought. The maestro is indeed to make one of his rare appearances!

I immediately rang my publishers and cancelled lunch the following day (these things do drag on so), put aside the hundred-and-one little tasks that occupy the day, and reached for the A-Z map of London; for, as you may already have guessed, I was not going to turn down an opportunity to hear Pauloni on an occasion of his own recommending - indeed I would have been an idiot to do so. Close examination of the pages with a strong glass revealed that St. Frideswide's Notting Hill was at the end of a grand crescent on the smart side of Ladbrooke Grove. I immediately set about making preparations for the journey.

Thus it was that early this evening I found myself in what Count Pauloni engagingly describes as my 'barouche' - a car of considerable age and beauty left to me by my Auntie Ellen and used as my main conveyance when I am in town. Bowling along the Western Avenue Extension at 75 miles per hour (I do not exaggerate; M. Citroen could do a fine job even in 1955; had it not been for the howling of the LH front wheel-bearing I would have been encouraged to try for 76 mph) - I eagerly anticipated the concert. Paulo Pauloni, as you know, is the only man on this planet who can hold a candle at the organ to ..... to the organ at .... no, let me start again (not least on account of the uneasy juxtaposition of metaphor that marred that last attempt) .... well, how DOES one describe the great Pauloni? Appointed as organist at Sienna Cathedral at the age of five, kissed by His Holiness at six, engaged to Princess Adelie of Andorra at seven (how tragic that her untimely death has led him to a life of devotion and celibacy....) .... the list of his triumphs is beyond recall and in any case the Pauloni phenomenon has been reported widely in the press. And to find him playing, on a warm breezy evening in late summer, in, of all places, W11! - well this was a great event, not on any account to be missed! And to be advised of it in person by the artist - what an honour!

There was naturally a considerable hubbub round the building when I got there, but I found that I was able to park right in front of the porch, after moving a few plastic cones that someone had foolishly left in the road. A gloomy little church from the end of the first wave of the ecclesiastical boom in the nineteenth century - about 1845, and ordered from a catalogue. I went in, waved aside the requests for alms from impoverished local residents, and looked around. Ah yes - those prefabricated triangular roof trusses - I have seen them a dozen times before: in those days you could order them from Wipple's along with the cassocks and surplices and the 'Empire' brand communion wine. And, on the west gallery, stood an equally gloomy little organ. I racked my brains to see if I could recognise the builder. Thanks to the work I have recently done on the subject (cf. Bicknell S. - 'Certain Patterns of Stenciled Decoration on Organs by Provincial Builders', BIOS Journal Vol. 26 pp76-144), I at once realised that I was standing in front of an early work of James Jepson Binns of Leeds. My surprised exclamation of his name may have surprised one or two standing near, who fell awkwardly onto a card-table stacked with programmes, but all was soon put to rights and I took my seat at a vantage point where I could see both the audience and the performer, several other people kindly moving back a row so that I could do so.

I had just enough time to scan the notes before the appointed time for the start, and was able at last to understand why we were all assembled. The church, standing slap bang in the middle of Holland Park (Absolutely Fabulous territory, to those of you who are up to date with British TV), was a miracle of modern fundraising effort. The organ had just emerged with all its Yorkshire bluff restored at the hands of Messrs. Arbuthnot & Pew, the well known builders established at Tottenham Court in 1794 and now in premises off the Addison Road. The organist of the church was a wealthy local resident, philanthropist and connoisseur, Mr. Josiah Greatorex, who had had the good fortune to study with Pauloni at Sienna. All the links were explained - the great Pauloni was leaving the Hammersmith Hermitage to play informally before friends. He would come, he would play for pleasure and for the art, he would mingle with the people. Mr. Greatorex, his former pupil, would graciously stand aside for the evening, allowing the bench at which he presided to be sat on by ......

My reverie was interrupted by a few words of welcome from the Rector (a double barreled name - something like Sharpe-Hatchett or Sanders-Porcelain), who made us feel quite at home, pointed out the deputy Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (I had noticed him, in fact, on account of the fact that he was wearing a heavy chain of office which tinkled when he laughed), and encouraged us to enjoy hospitality offered by the church during the interval and afterwards, but to pay for any second or subsequent glass of wine and not to leave canapés in our pew on leaving. After this humdrum interlude we began.

I need not describe to you something which you all know so well - the astonishing experience of being in the same auditorium as a master of the art. They once spoke of Sarasate, of the reclusive Alkan, of Busoni; but today - you need only glance at 'Hello' magazine - they talk of Pauloni. And of course there are those who are outraged - there was the famous occasion when the entire Academie Francaise walked out of his concert at Notre Dame, and of course Pauloni's crippling lawsuit against the German Society of Musicologists is famous, and there are many more similar incidents. However, the Count's calling is to a much wider audience - that Latin blood! - his is a culture where every street-urchin whistles Aida and every laundry-woman is in love with Caruso! This is classical music as it is enjoyed by the greatest number of people; serious art open to all comers, for their delight and wonder, and it is also the most noble gesture imaginable by a man of such talent.

The music unfolded like a double damask napkin. The first half was no mere warming-up exercise, indeed it was already apparent in the Bach fugue that the organ was not quite able to match the maestro in health and efficiency - though in truth it could hardly be expected that an instrument built in 1890 could have been made to accommodate such a devastating technique. I listened entranced, scarcely believing that an instrument of such an ordinary (though sturdy) kind could be made to utter such bewitching sounds. I cannot begin to recall the myriad details of his renderings, but I can tell you that I saw Elgar afresh, I met Antonin Dvorak as a close friend (and wondered whether he really did write that unresolved final chord so long ago), discovered yet another aspect of the mastery of Bach, delighted in the gentle whimsy of John Stanley (accompanied by a nightingale which happened to be singing in the crescent outside), and reminded myself again NEVER to go to an opera by Wagner (I know I may have enemies in this respect but I really do think Tannhauser is the most dreadful rubbish). I hasten to add - in respect of this last item - that whatever the calibre of the music it is of course notoriously difficult in arrangement for the organ, and Pauloni's breathtaking despatch of his own arrangement of the Overture left the audience roaring for more and dealt some serious damage to my sustained prejudice against German Romantic Art.

After a most intense and exhausting first half we were more than grateful for the wine offered by the church (not 'Empire' brand, I was pleased to note). I overheard many enthusiastic remarks, one gentleman saying to a friend: 'Well, it certainly beats *my* manual dexterity at the cottage upright!'. Twenty minutes later it was a somewhat more talkative and excitable audience that pressed back into the pews and occasional seating.

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