Spanish Caprice

Sometimes, the oddest musical events bring a tear to the eye and a salute to the heart. They might remind you of friends no longer onstage, but who may yet walk on for a scene or two, or take a final bow at the curtain call.

This evening before dinner, I am sitting in my study listening to Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol. The man who brought us his amusing Flight of the Bumble-Bee and Scheherazade pulled off what was probably his most entertaining tour-de-force when he wrote this piece, essentially an amusement designed around Spanish themes.

It begins with what feels to me like an early-morning fishing scene in the Asturias. The whole drama unfolds here, from sunrise to sunset and beyond. It isn't really Spanish as a whole; the piece is all about Asturians going about their daily business while taking part in the pageant of life, with full richness, majesty and shades of intense colour. "Who cares about the rest of Spain?" the imaginary denizens of this powerful piece seem to be saying with good humour.

What's remarkable from a musical point of view is the fact that Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov seems to have performed many rare feats all at once, such as that of making an orchestra play the guitar without any guitars. It is akin to a ringmaster forcing the human cannonball to clown around while the lion-tamer swings calmly across the trapeze arena. Although such ideas, as they came into my mind, reminded me of old days in quite another organisation, one must still think of what amazing skill (or perversity) this act of creative imagination betrays.

But back to the idea of absent friends. I remember this piece because it is one of the pieces from the time 25 years ago when I first conceived of a love for what I thought of as nationalist music. To my mind, such music was music that showed a particular affinity or affiliation for a specific national cause. What got to me was the idea that a piece like the Capriccio Espagnol commemorated a lost kingdom, now barely a principality and no longer remembered for anything much (I mean, how many of you are Sporting Gijon football club supporters?)

It is for this reason that I memorised Kipling's Recessional and the poetry of Chesterton and Housman. I played through the forgotten art of that canny stage-composer Ketelbey and the odder moments of Russian nationalism. What mysteries were hidden in the nation-forging bravado of Sibelius's Finlandia? Why was Chinese music so much like Celtic music?

And all the while, I was hanging out with a bunch of close friends who till today are still close to my heart. The emotional and physical distance is there and yes, we have grown apart. But somewhere in the lost years is a bunch of guys hanging out in a small room listening to odd music and making Spyro Gyra, Mannheim Steamroller, and furtive piano performances in empty halls, all a part of their lives.

This post, I suppose, is for them all. It's about time.