Finishing Up in Glasgow, Museums and Live Music

My time in Glasgow is coming to an end and I have tried to fit a lot of different things into the past week. I went to the Riverside Museum which just opened this year and sits on the bank of the Clyde River across from the old shipyards.  It is the Museum of Transport for Glasgow and has exhibits of boats, trains, cars, bikes, busses, and trams going as far back as the late 19th century.  They showed the development of the tram system in Glasgow, which started out as small horse drawn carriages and evolved into a double decker system which was removed in the 1960's to make way for more busses.  Since Glasgow was an industrial town they had a couple of trains that were built here and shipped off to various places in the world including South Africa.  There were also models of some of the enormous ships (Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary 2) that came out of Glasgow in the early part of this century.  The exhibits showed some of the building process and the enormous amount of man hours it took for each structure.  One part of the museum had a street built to look like it would have in 1920 with shops, restaurants, and pubs and even a stop for the Glasgow Underground, which is a small system but the third oldest in the world (after London and Budapest).  There were also cars, bikes, and motorcycles from the earliest inventions all the way to the present.  I thought it was a really interesting museum because of all the history that comes along with transportation and because my time here will include journeys almost all of these forms of transport.  If it wasn't for the technological advances in transportation, we wouldn't be able to travel and see the amazing things this world has to offer.

I returned to the Gallery of Modern Art as well last week, slightly disappointed that there weren't as many new exhibits from my last visit but greatly excited by one of the new ones entitled Atelier Public.  This exhibit is a do-it-yourself for museum visitors and is a few rooms with white walls and work space with all sorts of craft materials.  The idea is that visitors, and some artists-in-residence, will create the exhibit themselves as if it were a working artist studio.  No paint and canvas but crafty materials like colored paper and stickers, blocks, clay, cotton balls, and various other colorful tools to create all sorts of works to be stuck on the wall or some of the display tables.  Many people used words in their creations and only a few were politically charged but many were very funny.  I played with some clay and blocks and left my mark in a few random small designs. I had a great time creating and watching what others did.  It really felt like being a child again and gives the visitors to the museum the spirit of creativity.  Just because it is an art museum doesn't mean it has to be old or elitist or removed from the interests of the general public.

Now of course in my last week here I had to see some good live music and certainly saw some varied performances.  Last Wednesday I went to a gig at a pub to see a bunch of local singer-songwriters playing for charity.  Many of the musicians play at another pub on a weekly Monday Open Mic Night which I have gone to a couple of times.  It is a great community of supportive musicians that play guitar and sing (some play keyboard or other instruments) and do covers as well as a wide variety of original songs.  Most of them have very good voices and musical skills and lyrics ranging from the humorous to the melancholy.  I saw one of the bands a couple of weeks ago at their own gig and they did a selection of songs in Gaelic, which is the native language for people in the north of Scotland.  It is a very difficult language to wrap your ears around but makes for some beautiful melodies and interesting music.  Everyone at the gig seemed to be having a great time with the music and enjoying the company of the people around them.  They all support local music for their own enjoyment and love so it is a comforting and fun atmosphere.

In the classical realm of music, I saw my final Scottish Chamber Orchestra Concert on Friday and was still just as impressed with the precision, delicacy, and expressiveness of the ensemble as I was when I first saw them.  The program was entitled Northern Landscapes and featured music by composers from Finland, Iceland, and Norway.  The first piece was a Sibelius suite to accompany a Finnish historical drama entitled King Christian.  The music is very descriptive in its moods that include distraught, playful, triumphant, and serene depictions of nature.  There was a movement for just strings in which they displayed their beautiful and balanced tone, a dance-like section for the woodwinds to show their rhythmic unity and playfulness, and several brass fanfares for the bravery and excitement of Finnish Nationalism. The next piece was by composer Haflidi Hallgrimsson, who gave a talk before the concert about this newly composed Violin Concerto.  He spoke of an early love for violin music that he gained from listening to the one radio station in his native town in Iceland and how he went on to play cello and was principal cellist for this Scottish Chamber Orchestra for many years before focusing on composing.  This Concerto was written for violinist Jennifer Pike and was commission by the Iceland Symphony which couldn't program it for another year so they gave permission to the SCO to premiere it.  Despite the composers's endearing personality and the violinist's beautiful tone and precision, I had a difficult time engaging with the music and did not find much of it very enjoyable.  The piece includes many small musical motives that build and grow but not in the typical Beethoven way with long strings of development and variety.  It begins and ends with the calm and simple solo violin with many rises and falls throughout.  There were many parts where the soloist played with individuals or sections in the orchestra and these changes in texture were interesting to hear and watch.  The violinist was very expressive and had some beautiful lines and virtuostic passages executed with great control.  The final piece on the program was Grieg's Symphony in C minor, a standard Romantic symphony written while the composer was still young.  The first and last movements are dramatic and exciting with some great melodies and fun harmonic twists.  The second is a beautiful Adagio followed by a fun scherzo.  Though it wasn't innovative or new it was still enjoyable to listen to and easy to follow; and the musicians seemed to have a fun time playing it!  This concert was conducted by Enrique Mazzola who was expressive and clear and allowed the musicians to play both musically and strictly together, an impressive feat.