On Friday, 7th May, I was able to fulfill a long-standing desire to attend a performance of the great Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam in their home concert hall. The building itself is a masterpiece of 19th Century architecture and the acoustics are flawless. Photograph #1 is my ticket; #2 the auditorium (with audience) facing stage; #3 the auditorium (without audience) from the stage; #4 one of the assembly rooms in which drinks are served at intermission. I was lucky. The orchestra is so renowned that it is difficult to obtain a ticket for any of their concerts and people come from far and wide. The gentleman seated next to me that evening was from the Faculty of Music at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

As I'm sure everyone who has been there will agree, the Dutch are delightful, but thank goodness they all speak English, for Dutch is not pronounced the way it's spelled. For instance, the proper surname Buitenhuis is pronounced Burtonhouse. And I've been mispronouncing van Gogh and Schiphol (the airport) for many years.

On Sunday, 16th May, I spent a few hours in Oxford and in photograph #5 I am standing on Broad Street with The Sheldonian Theatre in background, where, in 1972 I took my doctorate. My Oxford contemporary, Bill Clinton, never finished his B.A., but Oxford granted him, whilst President, a Doctor of Civil Law (Honoris Causa) in the same building. The ceremony, conducted entirely in Latin, baffled Bill.

Sir Christopher Wren built The Sheldonian in 1664-1668. The interior is a U-shaped amphitheatre in the classical style and the seats are mere benches for everyone except the Chancellor, who sits on a throne, which is a neat way of reminding everyone of the established pecking-order. In olden times, on Degree Days, graduands entered the amphitheatre from the far end and stood waiting in the pit, each for his name to be called so that he might supplicate for his degree, then, when beckoned, come forward, and be capped by the Chancellor, or, more often, the Vice-Chancellor. Nowadays, temporary seats are provided so that a graduand may sit until his time has come to be capped, or, in other words, dubbed by the Chancellor's mortar board whilst he says "Admitto te." The acoustics are excellent and the Theatre is often used for concerts. I once heard the London Symphony Orchestra performing Brahms' Symphony #2 there. The orchestra was in the pit and I was sitting in the arena on one of those none too comfortable benches at the far end directly above the tympany. That triumphant finale of the fourth movement was glorious. It was like bathing in Brahms. 

The previous day, Saturday, 15th May, I attended a performance at The National Theatre of Great Britain in London of Alan Bennett's new play, "The Habit of Art" the plot of which had particular resonance for me. It portrays a group of actors rehearsing a play about the poet W. H. Auden in old age when he left New York and returned to his Oxford college. As it happened, I was president of the literary society in my college then and I invited Auden to come talk to us but he never replied. Years later I discovered why: I had mentioned knowing Caroline Newton (1892-1975) in Daylesford when I was a schoolboy at Conestoga. Pick up almost any biography of Auden and you can read for yourself what Auden thought of her.

The play is excellent, better even than his previous play, "The History Boys". Bennett has outdone himself.