From Venta Belgarum to cathedral city

The history of lovely Winchester, which we visited again briefly on a drizzly June afternoon prior to the Grange Park Rusalka, is selectively and handsomely displayed in one of the best small museums I've ever visited. Housed in a flinty early Edwardian pastiche of a Tudor house - good enough to be a Grade 2 listed building - the exhibits take you from the treasures of Roman Britain's fifth largest town on the top floor via finds from the heyday of Wessex's capital through to a select number of transported shops at ground level. It's school-friendly without the aesthetic effect being ruined, as I thought it often was by the interactive stuff and the message boards in Leeds' Royal Armouries, and seems to have had a simple new refurbishment.


The mosaic floor comes from a villa at nearby Sparsholt. Very well, so the floral and swastika design doesn't have the thrill of the pictorial mosaics at Bignor or Fishbourne, let alone the wonders of Volubilis, but it sits handsomely at the centre of the Roman display. There's a fun photo showing its arrival outside the museum in 1969, having been lifted from the villa's central room in 28 numbered sections.


In the display cases there's also a fine bronze head of a girl - slightly earlier than the mosaic, first or early second century AD. As my postcard informs me, 'the hair style is Roman, the hatching round the eyes and ears is a Celtic feature'.


I wasn't at all sure that the wall paintings were originals, since they weren't labelled, but the nice man on the desk downstairs assured me they were.


Down a level, and pride of the medieval floor is this wonderful 13th century moot horn decorated with four rampant lions and two standing bishops.



It's been proven beyond doubt that it's the real thing, used to summon folk to assembly. A replica is still used each May at the annual mayor-making ceremony, but the original sounds very well indeed. As Tim Norris of the museum staff has proved in a recording featuing its four true notes (B below middle C, B an octave above, F# above that, and a top B above that). Helpfully, you can hear his artistry while you look at the precious object.



In our short time walking round Winchester, I had one objective, having been advised to search out a little curiosity of a church. St Swithun sits modestly above the 14th century Kingsgate.


It's approached by a steep timbered staircase


and its interior, capped by a single-framed roof, is simple but obviously cared for by its devoted congregation.


Fragments of 15th century glass from St Peter Chesil grace the east window. Here's an angel to add to the collection.


As for the Cathedral, we need to go back and spend enough time to get our moneysworth (memories are hazy; I last visited as a child). Admission fees are quite steep, but there's a lot of upkeep involved, and you do get to see the library too. All this, in less than an hour from central London.

Novissima hora est

Forgive the rather pretentious borrowing from another great genius's meditation on death - the hallowed words of Elgar's Gerontius via Cardinal Newman - but they seemed appropriate as we near the hour of Mahler's death exactly a century ago (at midnight on 18 May 1911 if Alma's memoirs are to be believed). Gavin Plumley has been taking Entartete Musik through a day-by-day chronicle of the events leading up to the untimely demise, so anything I could say on the biographical details would be superfluous. Still, I see no harm in re-cycling one of my photos of the grave in Grinzing.


I'll be talking on the Resurrection Symphony tonight in Birmingham. In a way I wish the concert I'd been accompanying featured the Cooke completion of the Tenth, but at least Oramo's done that already in this cycle; other orchestras, disgracefully, have left it at the fully-scored opening Adagio.

The CBSO players seem quite excited by the fact that the estimable Sakari Oramo's replacement tonight is Kazushi Ono (pictured below by Eisuke Miyoshi). I know from experience that he's very good indeed, but I had no idea he was this good: to quote a string-player who e-mailed me last night, 'Kazushi Ono is an absolute genius - today's rehearsal was the most extraordinary day's work in my career since I played for Svetlanov back in the 80s. I think you are in for a treat'.


Hope so*. In the meantime, as a calm Mahler memorial I rather perversely offer you a piece the existence of which I was unaware until the doyen of BBCSO horn players, Chris Larkin, introduced it to my class last night. More on his extremely enlightening history of the horn anon, but here's Bruckner's simple but absolutely ravishing Abendzauber (Evening Magic) for four horns, tenor soloist, male chorus and three soprano 'yodellers' (for which in this instance read three opera-singers). Can't you feel the depths and heights of an Austrian landscape in this music? Jessica, if you're tuning in, could you tell me that you don't dislike this little slice of heaven-on-earth, please?



*we were. See Arts Desk review. Tried to lead a standing ovation, and my neighbours joined me, but the Birmingham audience doesn't rise as readily as the Americans. What does it take, I wonder?