Time isn't everything

Vivaldi: “The Four Seasons, Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, RV 297, "L'inverno" (Winter),
Movement 1: Allegro non molto”

I changed my route last week, switching from Metro Line 6 > Line 10 to Line 6 > Line 7.  It saved me five minutes each way.  Fifty minutes a week in this minute-hungry world.

There’s something more claustrophobic about the new route through the Avenida de America interchange; it’s older and darker, more crowded.  But there’s something else besides.  Something deeply human.

Ghennadii stands, most days, at the end of another longer, straighter and more brightly-lit tunnel.  The one that links Nuevos Ministerios’ Cercanias station and its interchange of Metro Lines 6, 8 and 10.  Some mornings, just after eight, you can see him sitting on a stool rubbing rosin into his bow, a small speaker beside him containing the rest of the orchestra.

The travellator leading back from the Cercanias to Line 6 spills its burden of weary commuters and disoriented travellers a few metres in front of him.  Occasionally, one might drop a euro into his opened case. 

Yesterday morning (Monday) I decided to switch back to my old route: back to Line 6 > Line 10, via Nuevos Ministerios interchange.   Ghennadii wasn’t there.

Today, as I bundled up the escalator from the platform in a crowd of office workers and schoolchildren, I could hear Ghennadii’s playing floating over heads and above the clatter of trains behind me.

Blundering and jostling like a steer in an abattoir, I rounded the corner into the tunnel and saw a mop of greying hair above the rest: slightly crook’d, shoulder hunched and elbow working. 

I’m always nervous about distracting him, but generally look as I approach the travellator.  He glanced across and smiled.  I called out “Hola! Ghennadii!” and waved.  He nodded back, playing vigorously.  Bach, I think.  Something from the Brandenburg Concerto.  I asked him about it once.

The lesson in Calle Miguel Angel was rewarding: good fun and an opportunity for learning all round.  The students were engaged and generous with their commitment.   Well worth the journey.

Passing the Cercanias station again on the way back, I picked out Ghennadii’s strings above the noise.  Guessing, I’d say it’s a quarter of a mile from the Cercanias to where he stands.

Vivaldi this time.   The Four Seasons: Winter.  First Movement.

I first heard those staccato chords a long time ago.  I think the BBC were using the piece for incidental music: a Le Carre adaptation, maybe, but I could be wrong.  The intertwining and seemingly dissonant stabs of bow into string raise a tension that got under my skin.  Ghennadii plays the lead violin part particularly well as the movement reaches a point of pathos then begins to rebuild the tension.   

Around mid-morning, the travellator is almost empty.  Perhaps two or three people rested with their cases against the handrail as we approached Ghennadii and Line 6. 

Ghennadii’s usual stance, when not applying rosin, is facing towards the travellator, Cercanias station and Lines 8 and 10.  He is one of the first things many air travellers to Madrid encounter.

Picture the approach of Omar Sharif in “Lawrence”, but with Vivaldi’s Movement 1, Winter, slowly building and gaining in volume as the travellator draws Sharif towards the music’s source, inexorably reducing the gap between the two smiling men.

As I stepped off the travellator, Winter exploded in all its sonic glory.  Nothing needed to be said.

I reached the corner leading to the platform and I had a cheeky look back.  Still in the grip of concentration, Ghennadii had turned around.  His nod was almost imperceptible.  I should have waved.