William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

Is that William Carter on the theorbo or a Naxi Musician in Lijiang on the pipa?

I was most amused, when I tracked down the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) blog piece about the concert we attended on 24 September 2010 – click here for the whole piece – to read this snippet:

The mood’s lively tonight. William Carter (theorbo) comes in to the dressing room in the interval telling us that a punter has accosted him and enquired whether his instrument is Chinese. “No”, replies Bill. “It looks very much like an instrument I saw in China”, insists the punter mysteriously.

I can now solve the mystery – Janie (Daisy) is the mystery punter.

We had been to China a few months earlier and had seen a concert of ancient Chinese music performed by Naxi musicians in Lijiang, Yunnan province – pictures 97 to 107 on the following album:

036 Weishan Scenes P1000335

I remember Janie asking me whether that big lute thing…

…”theorbo,” I said…

Theorbo

…was the same as the Chinese instrument we saw in Lijiang.

“No”, I said.

“That’s what he said”, she said, confessing that she had asked William Carter that question as we were leaving the hall for the interval.

I explained that there was a fair bit of cross-fertilisation of musical instruments between east and west in the Renaissance period, but that instrument is a close relative of the lute and that family of instruments is more of a middle-east to west cross-fertilisation than a far-east to west influence. I also explained that the Chinese instruments of that kind might be far more ancient than any in the west, so technically, there might be a dim and distant connection.

“So, basically yes, then?” suggested Janie.

“Basically no,” I dared to disagree.

It is most amusing to find, so many years later (writing in December 2017)  Janie’s exchange with William Carter preserved on the AAM blog.

We have since seen pipa concerts and I think Janie could now distinguish theorbo-type and pipa-type instruments with some skill.

I have one other anecdote about William Carter, from a few months later. By that time, my mum was in Nightingale House, her dementia worsening. I was at that time often visiting her and then jumping on the tube to go to the city.

Walking along Nightingale Lane towards Clapham South, I saw a young man just ahead of me carrying a large musical instrument case that looked to me as though it could only contain a theorbo.

I hurried my step, caught up with the young man and said, “excuse me, but is that instrument of yours a theorbo?” He beamed a smile at me and said, “yes it is. I have been lugging this theorbo around London for years now and have had the daftest questions asked about it…you are the first person who has actually recognised it and enquired after it by name!”

It turned out that the young man was one of William Carter’s students at Guildhall and was on the way to see him. We had a most pleasant chat about early music on the tube into the city together.

The Bach Dynasty: JS Bach’s Forebears, Academy of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 24 September 2010

A very interesting concert, this. We had heard a fair amount of music by JS Bach’s many composer/descendents, but I don’t think we’d heard any music by his forebears before.

In some ways, it felt more like a lesson than a concert. The programme notes are/were fascinating. A summary note is available on page 9 of the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) season’s brochure – click here – that includes the programme for the evening too. (Also scraped to here in extremis).

In truth, this isn’t the most wonderful music we have ever heard; it is of its (mostly early to mid) baroque period. Unexceptional, other than the fact that it must have been an influence on JS Bach and all that followed.

But the AAM folk did their best to keep the concert lively and engaging. Richard Egarr is an engaging master of ceremonies, Pavlo Beznosiuk always looks as though he is about to wink at the audience and even William Carter smiled a bit during the riper anecdotes of introduction.

I especially like the AAM’s own blog piece – click here, which shows them to be a far more human, fun-loving lot than their somewhat scholastic veneer sometimes infers. However, there is a reference to a “mysterious punter” in the AAM blog piece which could be no-one other than our very own Daisy. Click here or the picture below to find out more.

Can you spot William Carter in this picture? Click through to try and solve the mystery

Here is a link to a search term that gets you most of (what little there is) to find out on line about this concert – including the above links.