‘Proud to be human’

REVIEW From Bach to Radiohead: virtuoso mandolinist Chris Thile’s Queen Elizabeth Hall concert offered joy and humour as well as tears and shared meaning

I’m still thinking about Chris Thile’s concert last night at Queen Elizabeth Hall, and even having the occasional flashback. Who would think that a solo mandolin player could hold the audience of the London Jazz Festival pin-drop quiet with an entire Bach sonata (apart from the odd ripple of laughter – proving that classical music can be funny, in the right hands). Thile himself is self-deprecating and makes fun of his ‘novelty instrument’, citing the ancient advice that ‘You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.’

Chris Thile at Queen Elizabeth Hall

He mixed up songs from his own musical past with the entire Bach E major Partita and other Bach movements, plus audience-picked encores of Radiohead and Dylan, all performed with supreme artistry, style, imagination and technique, and bound together by his charming Halloween-themed narrative. Standing on a Persian rug and dimly lit, he somehow created a sense of intimacy that reached all the way to the back of the hall where I was sitting.

Thile’s chat included stories that, like the music, were delivered with a light touch but landed deeply. He remembered falling in love with Bach as a 13-year-old and learning the E major Partita by ear, bar by bar, from a tape cassette of Arthur Grumiaux (a choice that might explain his own classy musical sensibilities). Eventually, his mother went out and bought a Mel Bay book on reading music, sending him on his way to direct communion with the great composer. His reverence is still obvious – Bach is the greatest composer and makes us proud to be human, he says – and who can disagree with that?

He made light of his own fundamentalist religious background and told the story of how while in his bluegrass band Nickel Creek, he’d tried to convert the older, more famous ‘sinner’ Glenn Phillips, who was opening for the band. Phillips was magnanimous but trenchant, and Thile later wrote about the encounter in the next song, Goddamned Saint, which ends with the lines:

‘Like I’ve forgotten that the well I’m drawing from Springs from disagreements with people who believe That we can only change someone as much As we’re willing to be changed.’

From that philosophical provocation, he moved straight into Bach’s Chaconne, a piece that leaves me misty-eyed with awe at the best of times. In these circumstances, I was full-on ugly crying, and I could hear the burly Glaswegian man behind me, who’d come down specially from Scotland, weeping softly. I’m sure we were not the only ones. Bach’s transcendent journey was perfectly paced, voiced and built, the harmonic progressions working on the mandolin particularly well.

After the Chaconne, Thile told affectionate stories about his late grandmother Barbara, a metaphysical therapist who said she could ‘see dead people’. He invited us to think about our own ‘dead people’ in a moment of silence between the Largo and Allegro of the C major Sonata. When that moment came, the significance, shared by the entire audience, was palpable and profound.

I was reminded of a quote that Nicola Benedetti gave me to the effect that musicians have always been political-with-a-small-p: ‘Those who have made a powerful impact have had a lot to say about who we are as people, and been ferociously passionate about the case for humanity, and for reaching for something better.’

I realised that Thile is an example of this political-with-a-small-p. He wasn’t raging at tyrants or armies, but rather lifting us up, making us proud to be human indeed, but also challenging us. He reminded us of our deepest shared values and experiences, bringing us together whether we liked jazz, bluegrass or classical; Bach, Radiohead or Dylan. I am still haunted by those lines of Goddamned Saint and the power of his Chaconne – they will give me both pause for thought and succour. Thile may have given up organised religion, but this musical communion was the closest to a religious experience as I get. I certainly won’t forget it.