Listening to the BBC Radio 4 discussion on "Boasting" today, my mind flew back over 50 years to my meeting with the most modest person I ever knew.
As a student in Trinity College Dublin, I had just participated in an open debate about Music and its influence, when a middle-aged tramp - who I had assumed had come into the meeting to escape the cold, came up to me and said how much he agreed with my eulogy for music. He wore a ragged overcoat which had seen better days, was unshaven, looked fairly unsavoury. He said we should go to some concert as we obviously shared the same tastes. I thought to myself, How on earth could he afford to go to a concert? As if sensing my thought, he said, “Well, Radio Eireann (the Irish national broadcasting corporation) gives these free concerts, and I happen to have a couple of tickets”. I agreed against my better judgment, and so found myself sitting next to him while the rather excellent Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra played a beautifully evocative orchestral piece entitled “Sunshine and Shadow”, conducted – I think – by Brian Boydell, the eminent Irish composer and musicologist.
At the conclusion of the piece, the conductor turned to face the audience, and said that tonight we were honoured to be in the presence of the composer, Frederick May, whom he asked to stand. At this point, my tramp friend sheepishly stood up – for Frederick May he was indeed - to rapturous applause. This was his last piece for which a date was attributed– and he went on to live another thirty years, haunted by the Irish demon alcohol.
As a student in Trinity College Dublin, I had just participated in an open debate about Music and its influence, when a middle-aged tramp - who I had assumed had come into the meeting to escape the cold, came up to me and said how much he agreed with my eulogy for music. He wore a ragged overcoat which had seen better days, was unshaven, looked fairly unsavoury. He said we should go to some concert as we obviously shared the same tastes. I thought to myself, How on earth could he afford to go to a concert? As if sensing my thought, he said, “Well, Radio Eireann (the Irish national broadcasting corporation) gives these free concerts, and I happen to have a couple of tickets”. I agreed against my better judgment, and so found myself sitting next to him while the rather excellent Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra played a beautifully evocative orchestral piece entitled “Sunshine and Shadow”, conducted – I think – by Brian Boydell, the eminent Irish composer and musicologist.
At the conclusion of the piece, the conductor turned to face the audience, and said that tonight we were honoured to be in the presence of the composer, Frederick May, whom he asked to stand. At this point, my tramp friend sheepishly stood up – for Frederick May he was indeed - to rapturous applause. This was his last piece for which a date was attributed– and he went on to live another thirty years, haunted by the Irish demon alcohol.
I never saw him again.
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