what have I done that's best?

As I look forward I look back. What in my life have I done the best? What would I like to carry forward into my next?

Top of the list and instantly into my mind comes my playing of Liszt’s BACH Prelude and Fugue as the last item of what turned out to be my last organ recital. I didn’t know at the time that this would be so. My aim had been to show off the versatility of the instrument Henry Willis had built, in full consultation, for the Church of St Michael at the North Gate, in Oxford. I know I excelled myself. At the back of my mind is still the impression that people stood up and cheered as the last chord reverberated. I may have imagined it. Maybe it was the angels in heaven.

Two other performances then come to mind. First I remember a Saturday, the annual speech day (parents’ day) at St Felix School, Southwold, where I was standing in for Douglas Hopkins who was touring on the other side of the world as an examiner for the Associate Board of the Royals Schools of Music. The girls sang so well. I used every bit of the techniques I had learned from Douglas. And from others. They sang beautifully. They lived inside the words. They enhanced them. I remember that performance so well. We reached such a standard of perfection, I never could bring myself to attempt that item again. The title and the name of the composer escape me. I cannot forget how the senior choir sang the phrase “frost on the window pane”. They created an icy cold.

The other performance is in a different context. I had gathered together a small choir of students from the RAM. They may have still been collectively called I Cantici (which was meant to echo an instrumental ensemble called I Musici) or we may have metamorphosed into the Francis Cameron Chorale. The concert was in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster. We sang the four Marian antiphons as set by William Byrd. Though the texts are Latin, my little chorus expressed the pure beautiful painful intensity of Byrd’s music.

In my general teaching I am grateful that I have been able to reach out and point in the right direction for some of my pupils.

So it’s music music music once again. And that I shall be happy to carry with me into the next episode.

As for the rest. There are things I have done well. Others, not so well. Isolated incidents I wish had not happened. Others where I cherish the memories. Places I have been. People I have met. Particularly, people I have met. Some experiences brought me pain and distress at the time. On the balance sheet they now occupy minuscule space. I look back and know I have had a full and fulfilling life. Lessons learned. Lessons still incomplete.

Others will write the final verdict.

francis cameron, oxford, 2 june 2012

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