The marble hall at Holkham is one of the most beautiful in the world- a Roman basilica in form, and as wonderful acoustically as it is architecturally. One evening Lord Leicester said: ‘Lionel, I should so like to hear the Chaconne in the hall- in the dark!’ I never could refuse a request from him, so far as lay in my power. The lights were extinguished, and a singular experience was mine. I felt not that I was playing but that I was listening – listening in wonder to Bach’s majestic music, as though I were not participating myself. The acoustics of the hall lent an incomparable sonority to the viola’s tone. << less