Whilst relaxing with my friends and listening to the reassuring deep rumble of the Porsche engines that were going past, I spotted a city trader wearing his week-end kit and driving a silver two seater Audi. I quickly checked the number plate, a V registration, a hired car, and I alerted my friends: open rehearsal with Mrs. Martha Argerich! He is late!!!

We quickly summoned the waiter and rustled up some coins to pay the bill and run up the hill to the Salle Médran. The silver V registration Audi had been left by the side of the Salle Médran, no time to go through the security barriers to the designated car park, just enough time to pull the soft top over!

We could hear a piano and The Violin.

We checked with the security guards which entrance we should use and we were told that in order not to disturb the rehearsal we should enter via the secondary stage door and then go into the main hall. We crept into the back of the stage: there were rows of white musical cases the size of bodies, looking rather ghostly as they were bathed in a bluish light, stacked on the floor. After a few seconds to allow our eyes to adjust to the dim light we tiptoed towards the door to the main hall. We then realised that there was a gap in the curtains that surround the stage and through the gap, if we squatted, we could see this playing violinist surrounded by a golden halo. The violinist was wearing a pair of trainers, shorts and a sleeveless baggy top. We all exchanged a conspiratorial look, like children that have been sent to bed early because the parents are entertaining guests and instead of being in bed the children are kneeling on the first floor landing looking at the guests through the banister: "...... if we are VERY quiet the grown up will not realise that we are here!" We were all mesmerised by this figurine playing the violin and it was then that I was able to judge by myself whether the comment made by one of the patrons at the end of the concert on Friday 28th July 2000, "Eh, suona dalle gambe!", was correct. Eventually the figurine removed the bow from the violin and the magic disappeared.

We all dashed into the main hall whilst Mrs Martha Argerich and the violinist exchanged comments on specific parts of the music. At the end of the following piece the violinist asked the public whether the balance was correct. A gentleman in a white shirt answered affirmatively, the violinist turned to the public enquiring as to who had given the answer. As he turned we caught sight of the front of the sleeves-less top: two cartoon characters one telling the other "...... kiss my ass!" The rehearsal continued and at some point Mrs Martha Argerich stopped playing and turned her heard round and looked up at the violinist without uttering a word! The violinist interrupted his performance, smiled sheepishly and said: "I thought we might improvise!" She smiled and the rehearsal continued...

That evening we went to the concert: the highlight was "Beethoven Sonata No.9 in LA Maggiore op47."

For the concert the violinist wore his trademark black silk damask jacket cropped at the elbow over the pale cream silk shirt with puffy sleeves gathered with the narrow cummerbund the end of which he uses to wipe the SE by S area on the violin in between musical pieces.

The concert was a success! At the end the public surged towards the stage clapping.

Martha Argerich, with Nigel Kennedy, the epitome of the eccentric English gentleman, following her two steps behinds, came back on the stage several times to collect her flowers, (Nigel Kennedy was given flowers too!), and to play an encore!

(I went to the Albert Hall on Thursday 31st August 2000 to see Mrs Martha Argerich playing Shumann piano concerto. This time she did not have a score in front of her and although she came back on stage five times to collect flowers and to be applauded, she did not play an encore! suppose it was because Nigel Kennedy was not there to encourage her along!)

It was a most truly enjoyable holiday and it is most apt that my final memory of the Salle Médran, if I close my eyes, is Nigel Kennedy standing on the stage with his arms held high, and, however good all the other musicians in Verbier were, Nigel Kennedy was the best one, after all: "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves of music!"