28 June 2025

For some time now, I have been on the rota of preachers at Crail Parish Church. The congregation on a Sunday numbers around thirty to forty people. So, it was quite an experience to attend the kirk yesterday to hear a song recital as part of the East Neuk Festival.

The kirk was almost full with people squeezed into all the central pews and most of the pews in the side aisles. As chance would have it, I was stuck behind a pillar but I heard everything and saw most of the stationary action in the chancel.

Mark Padmore was the tenor and Joseph Middleton, the pianist. They were performing the Schubert Song Cycle, ‘Wintereisse’. The winter in the cycle  is to be found in the heart broken by love. ‘The girl spoke of love/ Her mother even of marriage’. But not now.

The desolation is reflected in the darkness of a winter’s night and a lonely journey across ice and snow. The weathervane mocks him. The Linden Tree recalls happier days. The Postman has no letter to lift his spirits. I have two favourite songs in the cycle which contains twenty-four.

Number 14, is called, ‘The Old-Man’s Head’.  Frost spreads a white sheen over the young man’s head. He’s glad. As an old man, the grave is close at hand. It soon melts away and he is horrified by his youth and ‘How long still to the grave?’

The last song  is called, ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy Man’. He turns the handle with numb fingers, playing as best he can. His plate is empty. 'No one listens to him,/ no one notices him’. But he doesn’t give up. ‘Will you play your organ? To my songs.’ asks the singer. Unity amongst those who suffer is our authentic ending.