Adventurous audiences and pianistic passion

Have you ever taken part in market research? Over the last few years I've probably been collared a few times in the Market Square and outside M&S and then whisked away to some upstairs office suite to give my opinion on such things as Heineken lager can designs, mobile phone handsets and the comparative strengths of Aero vs. Wispa chocolate bars (Aero every time for me). It's an odd experience, particularly when you've done some market research yourself. Those conducting it always ask you if you work in marketing (which presumably rules you out) but somehow I've still been recruited, possibly because arts marketing doesn't count in the gloves off world of commercial marketing.

Anyway, when I'm busy choosing between colour scheme A vs. colour scheme B, I sometimes wonder how much my opinion will influence the outcome of the research - will I, in my own small way, have stopped a metallic pink mobile phone making it into the shops? And how representative are my views? An I one of a tiny minority whose opinion is distinctly left field?

I mention this because I've recently conducted some qualitative research with two groups of Nottingham Classics subscribers. Often these get called 'focus groups' but these, being more informal testers of opinion, we called 'customer circles', though, really, you could pretty much call them what you like. As ever, I'd prepared far too many questions and barely covered half of the areas that I'd planned, but both sessions were really fascinating and often very surprising. Most striking was the adventurous spirit of many regular concert-goers. Many of you, it appears, are on the look out for the unexpected, the surprising - those concerts that take you off the beaten track. And we're not necessarily talking about cutting edge contemporary pieces here, rather those pieces in the repertoire that occupy a similar sound world to more familiar works. Having asked the two groups to rate seven different programmes from concerts over the last four seasons, it was interesting that the highest rated was the Hallé concert from last January, which included Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and Nielsen's 5th Symphony. When Peter Bolton and I were setting audience targets for that concert our prediction was for a modest size audience. In the event it was our biggest audience of the season. So, it just goes to show that it's not just the Beethoven and Rachmaninov that really pull in the crowds - slightly obscure Danish composers can do it, too!

Having said that, all the evidence so far is that Rachmaninov is certainly doing the business for our first concert of the season. The second piano concerto is, of course, one of the most famous in the repertoire but, oddly enough, hasn't been performed at the Royal Concert Hall in several seasons. Its popularity may well be due to it carrying a powerful emotional charge, and this is something that, as you may have noticed, I've pushed quite hard in the various promotional blurb I've written about this concert. It is, after all, the piece that defines David Lean's movie, Brief Encounter, and for that reason I decided, in the most recent Nottingham Classics e-bulletin to include a link to a clip from the film on YouTube. Believe it or not you can watch the entire film, in nine instalments, with Japanese subtitles, which is great if you're lost for something to do when surfing the Net and have an hour and a half to spare. And you can also amuse yourself by reading the comments underneath, which sometimes (as in Instalment Nine of Brief Encounter) turn into some kind of debate, argument, or even an online feud between viewers.

Fascinating stuff, in itself, but looking at the film again it's astonishing how much of a part Rach 2 plays in the film's emotional journey. David Lean/Noel Coward were probably enjoying some kind of joke when they get Laura's husband to ask her to turn down the radio which is blasting out the concerto in their living room. And it was noticeable in Kneehigh Theatre's brilliant sideways look at the play/film (which we enjoyed at the Theatre Royal earlier this year) that Rach 2 was, again, centre stage - quite literally, when Laura sits down at the piano and launches into the concerto's opening.

Which brings me, finally, to the point of all of this meandering stuff. How much of Rach 2's popularity is owed to the fact that it played such a starring role in Brief Encounter? Its passionate and yearning lyricism clearly lent itself perfectly to the story of two lovers tormented by their conflicting desires and family responsibilities but would its emotional force be as great if it hadn't been heard in the film? And are there other concertos that rival (or even surpass) its status as one of the supreme classical tearjerkers?

What do you think? Let me know by responding to this post or emailing me at admin@nottinghamclassics.org.uk.

Bye for now,

Neil