Page 90 - Alison Balsom Quiet City FULL BOOK

of herald, though here that’s less in terms of a fanfare and more in terms of gentle
calling, questioning, even consoling.

‘I do think those heralding moments are very evocative,’ she says. ‘Since I started
playing Quiet City it’s always evoked very visual ideas of New York for me – not that

I’d even been to New York when I started playing it, but I could imagine the idea of
playing out of an apartment-block window, looking across to the other side of the

street. It’s almost like an Edward Hopper painting. It’s inward-looking, but it’s also
calling out a question: “Am I alone – is anyone there?” And that’s exactly what we’re

talking about when we get to the Ives.’

This is the second cover story I’ve written in recent months which has turned towards
Ives’s extraordinary and enigmatic masterpiece The Unanswered Question.

Perhaps, more than a century since its earliest incarnation, it speaks somehow to
our own age’s concerns with a particular poignancy.

‘For me, the most powerful part of that piece is the string writing,’ Balsom says,
referring to the ethereal foundations which hold the increasingly discordant dialogue

of trumpet and flutes both aloft and at bay. ‘I take for granted the trumpet sound
because I’m the trumpeter, and when it comes in I feel privileged that I get to be part

of this piece. But when that first string chord starts, I immediately feel I can see the
universe, I can see those incredible photos of the whole galaxy – if that was a sound,
that would be it! And the fact that there’s this incredible trumpet question that runs