Missed opportunity

I've just come across a notice in the Brentwood & Ongar Gazette (16 February 1990) advertising a performance at The Brentwood Music Centre on 4 May 1990 (Essex, England), followed by the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne (a resort town on England’s southeast coast) on 5 May. Jorge was meant to be playing, as I recall, the Rachmaninoff/Paganini with Andrew Litton and the Royal Philharmonic. But it was cancelled, though still advertised as late as 27 April in the Billericay Gazette.

I was working in Brentwood at the time and a colleague, whose son Peter Dixon was a cellist with the Royal Philharmonic, had arranged for me to sit in on the afternoon rehearsal. I still went and heard the orchestra rehearse the lovely ballet "The Three Cornered Hat" by Manuel de Falla, but I remember sitting there, thinking what I'd missed.

I also recall being surprised that Jorge would be playing outside a major city music venue. Brentwood although a commuter town for London, with an easy train link to London Liverpool Street station, and with a fine public school - as private schools are called in Britain - was not a major location. But having trawled the archives over the years, I now understand (as I didn't then) that this was far from unusual for Jorge!