A personal message of welcome from this evening's conductor
Allow me to extend a most warm welcome to this evening's Concert by the Barbican Chamber Orchestra. A special event indeed, not least since all this evening's musicians are performing on an entirely voluntary basis, in support of St. Bart's and the associated beneficiary causes. I trust this will dispel any prejudice to the effect tha musicians are not normally possessed of unduly philanthropic tendencies! Well, perhaps just occasionally we might be!
I should now like to justify the choice of the two causes espoused by this evening's performers. I should perhaps first explain that this Concert has even greater significance to me personally. It gives me extremely great delight and satisfaction that it is taking place: in the last year I had the good fortune of being admitted as a patient here in Bart's, where I underwent two operations and subsequent treatment, from which I have since made a complete recovery. I still occasionally feel a little like a sort of war veteran, but the memories are getting blurred, the pain and terror have been largely forgotten, and a certain ability to put things into perspective has (I trust!) been restored. But above all, it is the many kindnesses that tend to linger in one's mind, and this Concert is a very personal, symbolic expression of gratitude towards Bart's and all who were involved in my care during my two stays here. I started planning it when I was still a patient at [...] Ward, and indeed managed somewhat to disconcert one or two of the nurses by my request for an non-urgent appointment for a short consultation with the Hospitaller's assistant to discuss a non-grave matter! I was at once touched and amused to discover that my request had engendered certain anxieties about my ultimate intentions, which, to my acute embarrassment, had been misconstrued as being potentially liable to lead to a tragic outcome! (I had to assure all concerned that nothing macabre had crossed my mind for one moment - I had, of course, merely sought to ascertain the availability of the Hospital Church for a chamber music concert! Incidentally, I might add that, although our subsequent thinking was, as it were, scaled up to involve the Great Hall, my aspirations to perform in the Church of St. Bart's the Less have by no means been abandoned - indeed, far from it! There is a mailing list at the Hall exit whereon we hope that any of you wishing to receive the appropriate information in due course will kindly proffer the relevant contact details!)
To this day I still find it almost impossible verbally articulate my haunting recollections of my experiences. If pressed, I would admit that I find sounds to be especially evocative. Electronic sounds, emanating from pieces of ward gadgetry, possessed of a tyrannical regularity, with their oppressive, seemingly endless repetitions of immutable rhythmic patterns. Mechanical noises - I dreaded most those made by the wheels of a trolley approaching my bed; I am not, of course, thinking of the meals trolley, which would give rise to nothing but the most pleasurable anticipation - Bart's food putting even Pembroke High Table cuisine to shame! And of course the voices of fellow patients: the yells of a stroke victim suddnely crying out for his wife (followed by a rising antiphonal chorus of voices of protest as the occupants of other beds were awakened!); the sobs of a young girl in the depths of the night, who had just undergone her twenty-seventh operation; but also the sound of her irrepressibly vivacious, ready and infectious laughter. Indeed, I drew great comfort from the fellowhip of other patients, some of whom were far more seriously ill than I, but who nonetheless both inspired me and put my pusillanimity to shame with their remarkable courage and good-naturedness - not least the patient on my immediate left, a kindly Italian gentleman who was dying of cancer of the stomach. I would like to think that were he in a position to attend this evening's Concert perhaps the programme and its realisation would not dissatisfy him too much, and hope that by supporting the research undertaken by the Hospital's Surgical Unit (combined with that of the Royal London Hospital), active in the development new cancer treatments employing new photodynamic and gene-therapy methods, we might, even in an infinitessimally small way, make a positive contribution towards the prospects of other such patients in the future. I cannot commend this objective highly enough; the Unit's Research is worthy of the fullest possible support.
I know that a strong sense of gratitude, affection and loyalty towards the Hospital is ubiquitous amongst former patients of Bart's; indeed, I have no doubt that those with comparable experiences in other hospitals will look upon the establishments where they were treated with similar regard. But I have striven to understand exactly what it is that seems to make Bart's ``different''. Without doubt, Bart's is a cathedral-like, historic house of healing, and is amongst the most ancient and venerable of London's great instututions. But there's far more to it than history. Bart's to my mind is very much a living monument to the vision both of its founder and of those who endowed and nourished it over the centuries of its existence hitherto. I left Bart's with the overwhelming certainty that the spirit of the Hospital was embodied not so much in the buildings themselves, imposing and inspiring though they are - not least the present Hall, or indeed even the Wards, with their views of St. Paul's and the marble tablets at the head of the beds, imbuing each patient with a sense of the proud history of the place; but rather in the dedication, skill, tenacity, generosity of spirit and graciousness of disposition so abundantly in the midst of those working in the wards of Bart's in our own time. The words of Isla Stewart (Matron 1887-1910 and foundress of the St. Bartholomews League of Nurses) seemed utterly apposite, at least in my own ward: ``...to be the Sister of a ward, where the hearts of her patients do safely trust her, and where she feels herself the trusted colleague of her Surgeon or Physician - that is happiness indeed''. What better way of expressing our appreciation for their wonderful work than by demonstrating our practical support to some of their predecessors who, having devoted whole lifetimes caring for others, have fallen on hard times and are in need of assistance themselves! It is precisely this need which the Benevolent Fund of the St. Bartholomew's League of Nurses addresses, and so I should like to commend it to you also.
For those desirous of an opportunity to contribute more substantially to one or both of these meritorious causes, the Hospital's Special Events Manager and other official attendants will be at hand at the door. Do please feel free to approach them during the interval or in the immediate aftermath of the Concert.
I accept that an evening's music cannot save the world, the NHS or Bart's. But, finally, let us not underestimate the ineffable potency and worth of the gift of music in its own right, and the soul-enhancing, nourishing goodness music is apt to bestow even when all else seems to fail. Turning once again to my own modest experiences, I remember the unexpected delight of chancing upon a live broadcast from the Proms of Solti's wonderful performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony, minutes after my very first treatment had concluded and I genuinely felt disbelief to discover that I had survived the ordeal and that the world around me was still more-or-less where I seemed to have left it half an hour earlier! Or the fact that even when I was unable to concentrate on a page of verbal text, I was surprised to find I could still derive enjoyment by silently reading a score of Martinu's Sixth Symphony (perhaps more familiar to some as the music adopted by Kenneth Macmillan for his admirable ballet ``Anastasia''). And I find, week after week, at the Brookfields hospital in Cambridge where fellow volunteers and I perform to patients of whom a high proportion have suffered strokes, that the music does not fail to have a noticeable effect. For my part, even if only two or three patients are able attend this evening's Concert and to derive some solace, pleasure and enjoyment, our efforts will not have been without fruit.
In conclusion, I should like to quote from Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities":
...It also happens that, if you move along the [city's] compact walls, when you least expect it, you see a crack open and a different city appear. Then, an instant later, it has already vanished. Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or else someone's gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly. But everything must happen as if by chance, without attaching too much importance to it, without insisting that you are performing a decisive operation...
Please accept my whole-hearted wishes for a most enjoyable evening.
Haig Utidjian