End of season of Thursday lunchtime concerts in Leicester

Those who think that first-rate high culture stops at the M25 or, worse, is confined to single digit London post codes zone one on the Tube, it must come as a terrible shock to learn that for under a tenner the very best of chamber music is available in Leicester. Leicester is just over an hour from St Pancras with four trains an hour. The Queen came visiting last week to start her Jubilee tour and saying yes to this multi racial reasonably harmonious city, by going to Church for a multi faith service, by visiting the increasingly impressive De Montfort University and by meeting the (elected) major, Sir Peter Soulsby, with the citizens and denizens gathered in the streets to greet her.

To return to music. The Leicester International Music Festival provides us with the Thursday lunchtime concerts, summer celeb recitals and every September a long weekend of non-stop chamber music. Nicholas Daniels, recently honoured by the Queen, directs the whole and brings the best of the rising generation up here.

One of the special treats of the concerts are the intelligent programme notes (Mr Wheeler, step forward and thanks for the extended internet version) and the pithy intros by Mr Mike Baker.

Many concerts now sell out and the queues are to behold. Hint: get the value season tickets. The season ended today with the triumphant return of the Sitkovetsky trio playing Haydn's piano trio in C major Hob. XV: 27 and Beethoven's Archduke trio Op.97. I thought the speed of the last movement of the Haydn was possibly reckless but all worked out well in the end. The Archduke was, er, er, archducal. Very moving and authoritatively played. I thought I knew both trios well but this so gifted group of musicians brought altogether new insights to me.

One suggestion for improvement: in a city with such a rich cultural heritage as Leicester it really is a pity that some efforts are not made by the organisers to include at least some of Indian classical music. All it needs is the same bravery shown by them in including contemporary western classical music. The other sad lack is jazz. Yet when one recent performer shifted from the classical canon into jazz the audience seem to love it. This audience is up for stretching I think. As Alex Ross shows in his ground breaking book 'The rest is noise' the categories (of classical, jazz, folk, popular) that used to separate increasingly fall to bits in one's hands when examined carefully. Pragmatically, although I do not know if the Festival gets City Council funding, but if it does, it really does need to think about the wisdom of not including some classical music from the non western traditions. This is not just to appease those who check the demographics of any publicly funded event (old, bourgeois and white mainly) but a wish to widen the audience for nonwestern classical music. I realise we are someway from having a Leicester Gamelan but if we can have a Fazioli piano up at the DMH, why not think big.

Gripes apart this is written by a punter who is deeply grateful for what we get. Special thanks to Catherine and Tim Watt for the care they provide for the disabled. Much appreciated.

The man in the red hoodie with a yellow chaise roulant says thanks.

Quite the best so far

Robert Shrimsley in last weekend's FT on how the Catholic is ruining his marriage:

My marriage is under threat; its very existence is being undermined. I know this because the Catholic Church says so. I’m not Catholic myself, you understand, but if there’s one thing those priests know about, it’s marriage. Similar warnings are coming from other faith-leaders and the rightwing commentators.

And it’s all because of those pesky gays.

It turns out that the very foundations of our union will be irrevocably eroded if gays are allowed to marry. No less an authority than Rick Santorum, currently running second for the Republican presidential nomination, says redefining wedlock to include gays could “cheapen marriage… make it something less valuable, special”. Scotland’s leading Catholic bishop appears to argue that if gay marriage is legalised, the clamour will start for polygamy to be similarly blessed. But it’s not just marriage at stake. The Pope says that allowing gays to call themselves married is one of a number of threats to “the future of humanity itself”. Yikes.

More

ON THIS STORY

• Robert Shrimsley The best film I’ve ever eaten
• Robert Shrimsley My welfare plan (no shelf-stacking required)
• Robert Shrimsley Bourne again… and again… and again
• Facebook friends the art of deletion
• Leonard Cohen froze my bank account

ROBERT SHRIMSLEY

• A PR strategy for the Kony fightback
• A supercomputer for Citigroup
• Wanted - celebrity criminals
• Soccer spurns handshake

Marriage, according to our religious leaders is less a robust, timeless institution than a precious, delicate thing – a dandelion in the wind, easily blown away by others you’ve never met enjoying the same benefits. It’s like being a member of an elite club and then finding out that Katie Price has joined. You wonder if you still belong.

I understand where they are coming from. I recently bought an espresso machine to which I was hugely attached until I noticed Whittard was selling the same model to gays. Suddenly my macchiato seemed cheapened; and questioned my commitment to the morning shot. Now the Illy languishes untouched and I have begun dallying with an old jar of Maxwell House I was once close to. We’d fallen out of touch after I’d committed to proper coffee but recently reconnected via Facebook. So I’m wise to the dangers of gay marriage. We all saw what happened when homosexuality was legalised. Crime rates soared, obviously because people felt their previous law-abiding status had been devalued by the decision to stop treating gays as criminals.

My wife and I are resigned to our fate if the government presses ahead with reform and have already begun discussing custody arrangements. It’s a pity; because we’ve been happy together. But it’s clear that at the first glimpse of Boy George at the altar I’ll abandon my family and move out to small flat above a Pizza Hut. Across the nation, young couples will cancel their engagements, put off by the weddings of other adults who love each other and increased competition for wedding venues from gays and polygamists.

When otherwise intelligent people rely on such specious arguments, you have to wonder whether it isn’t because they daren’t say what they truly believe – that gays are lesser human beings who should be denied the same rights as others. It would be wrong to tar everyone in this way, but it is striking how many of the most vociferous objections come from those with a less-than-stellar record on gay rights.

Where opponents of gay marriage have a point is in noting that there seem to be few benefits not already secured by civil partnerships. But like any excluded minority, it is natural for gays to rail against exclusion. It is hard to believe that all those Jews who used to campaign against their exclusion from elite golf clubs actually wanted to join them. I don’t think there’s ever been a great Jewish golfer and it’s a long walk to the club house if you get hungry. But when someone takes the trouble to bar you, well, a chap can take that kind of thing personally.

One of the most striking (and heartwarming) social developments of the past decade is just how quickly civil partnerships have become entirely unremarkable. It is hard to believe the same would not be true of gay marriage. But maybe this easy acceptance is what is really driving the increasingly apocalyptic warnings. Perhaps, what worries opponents is not that marriage and society will be disastrously undermined by this reform, but that they won’t.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com

Tablet comes out for Soho masses throughout UK

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/266/17

Campaign for marriage

If you want to know more about our friends in the Campaign for Marriage please see

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/05/comment-the-coalition-for-marriage-a-creeping-rhizome-of-religious-extremism/

Rowan goes back to Cambridge

Mixed news. we knew that Rowan was about to leave Lambeth and for Cambridge but not when. Now we know he starts next year as President of Magdalen following Eamon Duffy, esteemed historian of the reformation. Rowan could not stay any longer without risking his mental health surely? His attempt to keep the Anglican Church together was over ambitious and allowed some to think they actually run the church with their opinions which are borderline hate crimes in my opinion. I just wish he had been able to put aside his idea of communio and manage to speak truth to power. In a small way he made me think of Pius 12 during the second world war when he thought he could save the German church by not condemning the massacre of the Jews. Perhaps not a good example but a pointer.

I still think Rowan one of the greats of contemporary thinking not just religious either. Learned, witty, eyebrowed, a good man. He deserves the mastership of a Cambridge college. I last saw him at Kings Place the Guardian HQ by St Pancras. He was in discussion with the economics editor, a sociology of work and Susie Orbach. Rowan just swept all before him with his scholarship but more so with his wit and good humour.

This is further encouragement to persevere with the Brothers Karamozov before reading Rowan's book on the subject.

The marriage equality debate moves on

We are exhausted. My civil partner and I have worked hard this last week or two. We have attended a number of meetings in Leicester and managed to ask questions of various heirarchs about their views on marriage equality and/or civil partnerships. We have been aghast at some of the examples of homonegativity and/or hate we have encountered. We managed to get questions to the Archbishop of Westminster when he spoke at Leicester University on Tuesday. It was such a pity that his talk was derivative and unimpressive. Afterwards, he was personally warm with us having just recorded an interview with Radio Leicester. The interview had him telling the world that there was a huge difference between a heterosexually married couple and a same sex couple. Although his (and Peter Smith) were more eirenical than Cardinal O'Brien the message is the same. It feels as if there has been a rowing back from the position on marriage that has evolved over the last 4o years that gives equality to the procreative and the affectional ends of marriage. We are back with Darwin and making babies. What an opportunity has been lost? I, along with many other Catholics, feel deeply disturbed by this reactionary position and hope that it will encourage fellow Catholics to speak out (I am not holding my breath).

It used to be said that celibacy was the summit of human achievement for catholics with marriage coming much lower in the pecking order.

Marriage? Civil Partnership? a week in LE2

Well, the letter from archbishops Vincent Nicholls and Peter Smith, has come and gone. It was meant to be read out this weekend. The church I attend did not benefit from the oral version, Thank God, and the existence of the paper version was pointed out by the priest at the end of mass. The homily was largely about the ten commandments with a link to the NT about the primacy of love. I never knew that the commandment about nor stealing referred to kidnap (stealing people) or so a hebrew bible scholar has argued.

This week in Leicester. Theme of the week seems to be outsiders.

Monday sees anti gypsy and traveller permanent site demonstration. DMU production of The Laramie Project starts on Monday also at Curve. This was sparked by the murder of gay teenager Matthew Shephard in Wyoming.

Tuesday archbishop Vincent at the university.

Station Mass at Holy Cross Wednesday 7.30. Philharmonia at DMH Wednesday.

Thursday first night of Gypsy at Curve. 7pm.

Saturday 17th St Patrick's day mass at St Patrick's with the bishop.
Canvassing in Queens Road against the NHS bill in the morning and rally at the Adult Education College in Wellington Street at 2pm.

Spot the outsider theme, eh?