Good Friday 2008

[rosie55.livejournal.com]

For many years now, I have travelled to Birmingham, about 100 miles North, on Good Friday to meet my best friend G. 

We went to Sunday School and school together, sang together in choirs in both of those places, she soprano, me contralto, shared a flat for a while, then married and raised our families. We are both nearer sixty than fifty now and may only see each other once a year, occasionally  more often but our friendship always clicks straight back in as though we were together yesterday. A precious friendship, this. G still lives only a few miles from where we grew up, I moved away.
We lunch together , sometimes accompanied by one or more of our daughters, according to their commitments and then we go to the annual performance of the St Matthew Passion, Bach's glorious choral master piece in Birmingham's magnificent Symphony Hall, said to be the best concert venue in Britain and one of the best in the world. This year my daughter J travelled back from London to come with us. We all sing for pleasure, all love this wonderful work, it  is now an intrinsic part of our Easter. The moment that the  hall hushes and a silent and attentive audience waits for that thrilling first chord never fails to get to me.
Birmingham is Britain's second largest city. It is often sneered at, as it has an industrial past and local people speak with an easily mocked accent but it is a lively place with a vibrant cultural centre and vigorous and innovative political leaders who have done much to renovate and rejuvenate former industrial sites.  If I had to live in a big city, it would undoubtedly be this one. So here is a picture guide to a corner of Birmingham, Uk and the Symphony Hall and surrounds.

Friday was - shall we say brisk? No, freezing would be nearer the mark. The winds, as we came up the motorway were very strong, buffetting the car and the wind appeared to have come straight from the Siberian steppes,judging by the temperature. In the car park, the wind was blowing so hard that I could not get the parking ticket to stay on the dashboard! it kept swirling off and ending up, out of sight on the floor whichever door we tried to use! In the end, J had to use a rear door, clamber over the seat, position the ticket and clamber back again - it was the sort of wind which takes your breath away!
I park a few hundred yards from the hall and approach it over well maintained public areas. 
The architecture may be bleak but the whole area is well cared for and clean and tidy.
There are colourful flowers everywhere  and these pretty windflowers    were nodding madly, no - lets be honest, they were all but flattened by the wind!. And these primroses and pansies  looked very cheerful

The approach to the Symphony Hall, (which is located in the same building as the huge International Convention Centre) is over spacious public squares  with interesting and varied sculpture and art. Many of the pieces reflect or are constructed of materials relating to Birmingham's industrial past of which the city is very proud. There was an extensive jewellery quarter near here and a huge tradition of metal working in the area. I'm not sure what this fellow signifies but he was quite fun! Here's a sideways view of him -    the wind was so strong the water was being blown away! 
It was too cold to linger,so I skedaddled to the ICC pretty quickly - ideas of a leisurely photographic tour of the art installations were abandoned in favour of hot coffee and survival! Another time,perhaps!
This is the entrance to the ICC    and this is another view -     This is a closer view of the front of the Symphony Hall part of it. There are varying angles in the glass front which are interesting and very attractive - they reflect the buildings around it, including the Repertory Theatre    next door and also the sky and clouds. I love to look at it (usually!)
This is the view      from the front of the Hall back towards the city centre. Wonderful floor!

I'm not always a fan of modern architecture but I do love this building. It works, on all sorts  of levels, it feels welcoming (and warm!),  it's easy to find your  way around, things are where they are needed.  This is the entrance area -     the Symphony Hall area is to the left, the conference centre on upper floors to the right.     On the ground floor are bars, galleries, cafes, shops, cloakrooms.   As you can see, there is a very striking glass roof so the whole atrium  is very light and airy.
Walking through the atrium, you go down a level   and come out onto the canalside area which has been comprehensively restored from it's industrial decline and now houses restaurants, bars, galleries, etc and some extremely desirable canalside apartments. There is a bridge over the canal where I stopped to take a couple of pictures.  It has to be said, I have never seen waves on the canal before!  There is plenty of holiday traffic on the canal now, and this next picture looks towards a famous canal area, Gas Street basin. 
No shortage of boats, even in March, there was a constant movement of boats coming through the area, some tying up so that their users could dine or have a drink in one of canalside bars. And there were even a few ducks!
Blue brick is a very traditional material here,very hard wearing and sometime used decoratively, as in this skilled brickwork in the canalside area -
Despite the freezing weather, sleet and wind, a jazz quartet was playing outside in Brindley Place, Unfortunately not many people were lingering to enjoy them.    As you can see, it was a bit wet!  When the weather is fine, events like this and the many tables outside bars, etc give this area a very continental feel.
 

We had a lovely gossipy lunch at Pizza Express before going back over the canal bridge to the concert. Since I had arrived a couple of hours before the concert was due to start, I had been able to wander and take some photographs undisturbed. This is looking through the ground floor main bar.    and into the foyer    which looks out onto the square I had just walked across. There are bars and viewing galleries at every level of the Symphony Hall    and  interesting angles   and views into other parts of the building -
During the interval, the audience look through the windows to the square -    This is the view through those interesting angled windows!  And this view    looks at one of the few things which remain from childhood visits (I grew up only six miles away) - this glittering statue is of three brilliant engineers -  Matthew Boulton, James Watt and William Murdock,  who lived in the city and who invented and developed the steam engine which, in turn, drove the Industrial Revolution which gave Birmingham much of its prosperity as a manufacturing centre par excellence. Birmingham is proud of engineers! The statue was a familiar sight  - our bus used to stop by it, though in those days it was bronze which I think was probably far more appropriate for engineers than the gold which has obviously been applied during a recent restoration!
This part of the foyer      leads to one of the many sets of double doors into the auditorium. The finish and quality of the build was superb and it shows still, the building opened in 1991 but it still looks fresh and immaculate in every corner, quite an achievement these days.
And here are three views inside the auditorium - obviously I could not take pictures during the concert but these were taken before the concert started and during the interval.
  There are three tiers in addition to the main floor. It seats 2,262 people when full.
 Here is a view of the stage with the choir waiting for the orchestra to enter.    and finally a view of the organ,    which was completed in 2001.
So that was our visit to Birmingham. The concert was, as usual, sung to a high standard though, to my regret, one of the choir has re-written the words "to make them more accessible to ordinary people" Not an improvement, in my view but still a  sublime afternoon.
Followed by a tranquil moonlit drive home, fortunately free of snow. Sadly  none of the photographs J took of the moon which seemed to float alongside the road all the way back, were useable  but I did manage to get just one    when we arrived home!