The diary of Virginia Woolf. Vol.1, 1915-1919

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

33-34

text excerpt

I went to a concert at the Queens Hall. I ran into Oliver Strachey, standing very like a Strachey in the Hall because he dislikes sitting inside waiting for the music. I got by luck a very good place, for the Hall was nearly full - & it was a divine concert.  But one of the things I decided as I listen[ed] (its difficult not to think of other things) was that all descriptions of music are quite worthless and, & rather unpleasant; they are apt to be hysterical, & to say things that people will be ashamed of having said afterwards.  They played Haydn, Mozart no 8, Brandenburg Concerto, & the Unfinished. I daresay the playing wasn't very good, but the stream of melody was divine.  It struck me what an odd thing it was - this little box of beauty set down in the middle of London streets, & people - all looking so ordinary, crowding to hear, as if they weren't ordinary after all, or had an ambition for something better. Opposite me was Bernard Shaw, grown a whitehaired benevolent old man, & down in the orchestra was Walter Lamb, shining in his alabastrine baldness like a marble fountain.

excerpt from 'The diary of Virginia Woolf. Vol.1, 1915-1919' pp. 33-34 (196 words)

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