I go the flu over Christmas and got out of habit of blogging - the personal tax return deadline also had an impact.
This memory is not of a live performance but of a radio broadcast.
I can't remember how long ago this was - probably 30 or so years. I had fallen asleep during the afternoon and as I awoke I gradually realised that the radio was on in another room - I suspect that it was a radio alarm that had gone off randomly. The music was the Bach Chaconne and the performance was about a third of the way through when I woke up enough to realise what was happening.
I remember listening to this quite distant sound from absolutely mesmerised. Even today I am not a great Bach enthusiast, and 30 years ago Bach was very low down on my list of musical priorities, but there was something compelling about this completely accidental encounter. I distinctly remember hoping against hope that, firstly, the radio wouldn't switch itself off and secondly that the performer would not break a string!
Neither of those happened and the performance continued to the end. It was then I learned that it was Menuhin concert - I think that it must have been an anniversary of some sort. This must have been towards the end of his career, by which time the general view was that his playing had become very unreliable, but to me the performance was mesmerising. I have never forgotten it.
I have no means of knowing whether it really was a great performance or it was my imagination, fuelled by the random way I came to hear it. I certainly have no desire to try to track down a recording. I don't want to risk destroying an enduring memory.
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