The Opening event of ONLY CONNECT took place on Friday 13th May.

Peter Sheppard Skaerved-Violin/Speaker

Kreutzer Quartet plus trumpeters from the Royal Academy of Music

ONLY CONNECT concert 1. Tippett Fanfares and 4th Quartet. Beethoven . National Portrait Gallery 20 5 2011 Kreutzer Quartet with Trumpeters from the Royal Adademy of Music,Robert Smith, Hannah Bishop,Rebecca Crawshaw,Nathan Richards

 

 As the project unfolds-I will post material coming from vistiors, audience members and anyone who wants to comment on ONLY CONNECT through the website.

The linking of Eliot, Tippett and Beethoven elicited a lot of comment. An older gentleman in the front row of the concert on the 13th May had a profound understanding of Eliot, and reminded me of the link to Natasha Spender, who died a week ago. Eliot and Spender, he reminder me, discussed ‘quartet form’.

He then pointed out that I was too young to appreciate the following lines:

‘… . Do not let me hear / Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,/ Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,/ Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God./The only wisdom we can hope to acquire/Is the wisdom of humility…’ (East Coker)