British ‘von Trapps’ release album as 15-cousin group
Bevan Family Consort are releasing ‘old family favourites’, half a century after their parents did the same thing
That original was actually a couple of years before I turned up in the area. But one of the lads was in our year (with Peter Briffa, if he’s reading, also Peter Morgan, who I know isn’t).
The original choir was formed around 50 years ago by Roger Bevan – grandfather of the current group – who lived with his family in a 15th century farmhouse near Wells in Somerset.
Well, yeeeees. He was head of music at Downside. So, for his sins, he had to try to teach me Music O Level. Which didn’t work out well. I can still remember him playing a third then a fifth for me on a piano. Then being horrified when I couldn’t immediately grasp the difference. “But, but, it’s obvious!”
Francis Bevan, one of the members, writes in the foreword to the album: “Music was so pivotal to the older generation’s lives that none of us cousins needed to be pushed to pursue it.
“Some have taken it more seriously and turned professional, but all of us share an innate ability and a love of making music together.”
Innate ability, that’s the thing. I was a techncailly proficient trumpet player. Got through Grade VI no problem, had a good timbre, could make it swing. But I never did grasp the basics of music. Couldn’t actually hear it, wasn’t, in fact, a musician. Possibly a technician who knew how to make a noise, but not a musician.
And that’s the thing about those with innate ability. They find it very difficult to understand those without it. But, but, it’s obvious.
Lovely man but teaching the theory of music to me wasn’t going to be his forte.
BTW, anyone else feel that cold breath on the back of the neck? Events of childhood now being half a century ago, things to be jubileed?