I wrote “very good indeed” in my log for this one, which means that we both must have thought it very good indeed.
Paines Plough tended to do good stuff and Vicky Featherstone knows how to direct. This long precedes her dystopian miserabilist phase at The Royal Court, of course, although it had traces of misery in it.
In those days the Lyric Hammersmith Studio was putting on quite a lot of good stuff of this kind and getting good notices in places that mattered too.
According to my diary, we ate at Riso in Chiswick afterwards. I cannot find anything about it on-line and cannot remember anything much about the place. My handy copy of the 2003 Harden’s suggest that the place was not so memorable. That might explain it.
Still, the play/production was memorable, which matters more.
Excellent concert, this. Sonnerie was a superb but fluid ensemble, led by the indomitable Monica Huggett.
On this occasion they comprised Monica Huggett, Gary Cooper, Wilbert Hazelzet, Pamela Thorby, Catherine Latham, Katherine McGillivray, Catherine Martin, Emilia Benjamin, Alison McGillivray and Sarah Groser.
Here is the playlist from the gig:
Jean-Philippe Rameau – Pieces de clavecin en concerts No 3 in A major
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, Oboe d’amore, Viola d’amore, Strings and Continuo in E major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo in D major (“Il Grosso Mogul”) RV208
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, recorder, Strings and Continuo in E minor
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata No 1 for Violin and Harpsicord in B minor BWV 1014
Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto for Harpsicord, 2 Recorders, Strings and Continuo in F major BWV 1057
Here is a clip from an earlier but lovely recording of the E major Telemann piece, which includes Monica Huggett with the Academy of Ancient Music
While here is a lovely video of Ensemble Odyssee playing the Bach concerto we heard that evening:
We both went straight from work and both had early starts the next morning, so I guess we supped light at Sandall Close after the gig.
The log reminds me that we ran into Rob Pay, Susan Pay & Jay Jaffe at that show. In those days, Rob & Susan lived very near to my place, but my place was a building site that autumn and I was staying with Janie in Ealing at that time.
As for the play, I recall that Mike Alfred’s Method & Madness project was a bit Complicité-like, without quite the oomph (and certainly not the longevity) of Complicité.
The piece was basically adaptations (by Mike Alfreds) of a few Isaac Basevis Singer short stories.
Nick Curtis in The Standard was not very impressed:
The diary suggests that it was a long/late-finishing show, so I suspect that we picked up shawarmas after this show on the way home. The diary also tells me that we went to Gary [Davison]’s birthday lunch the next day. The diary is silent on where we went but in those days Gary tended to hold that event at Lemonia in Primrose Hill.
A memorable evening at the Proms, just a few days after our previous memorable visit. A rare midweek booking for us, but the promise of Evgeny Kissin, Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra was too tempting to miss.
Again we had The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us.
The programme was two big pieces:
Frédéric Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)
I hadn’t seen Evgeny Kissin before but had heard about him. Janie thought he was excessively flamboyant – a complaint she has about many star pianists.
Anyway, here is a video of Mehta conducting Kissin performing an extract from this piece some years later – this time with the Israel Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra:
The Duchess thought Kissin’s cadenzas were absolutely wonderful but she thought him “rude” or “self-centred” doing encores ahead of the interval on a night with such a long programme. Takes one to know one.
The encores were Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major and Scherzo in B flat minor, seeing as you asked…
…OK, you didn’t ask. But my mum loved that Polonaise and she would have got all excited about the young Evgeny Kissin had she been there and heard him play it a bit like this:
In truth, we did hear some people saying that they would have to leave before the second half, because they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get home, which was a real shame for those people.
While stretching our legs during the interval, we ran into my cousins, Angela and John Kessler, who were very keen on Kissin and also eagerly looking forward to seeing Zubin Mehta and the Bavarians wrestle with Anton Bruckner for 80 minutes or so after the interval.
The Duchess seemed most displeased that we had run into some people that we knew, preventing her from being the centre of attention for five minutes or so.
The Bruckner was certainly worth the wait. I had seen this symphony performed several times before but sense that this evening was the best performance I have seen.
Here is an extract of Mehta conducting the Bruckner Symphony, but on this occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Returning to our memorable evening, here is Erica Jeal’s review of that evening from The Guardian. Good to see Kissin and Mehta getting three stars while Whitney Houston only got two.
While Michael Kennedy in the Sunday Telegraph seemed less sure about Zubin Mehta than we were, comparing him, perhaps unfavourably, with Bernard Haitink and Günter Wand. I’m a lucky fellow, as I have seen all three of them conduct Bruckner 8.
Knowing that the concert would finish late and that we both had an early start the next day, I sense that we did not go out to dinner after this one. Janie had probably prepared some cold compilations for us to munch, with a glass of wine, when we got home.
Janie also very sensibly had arranged for Jill Wooton to come and give us both a massage at home on the Friday evening. Two nights out with The Duchess in five days, with plenty of work in between, we sure both would have needed the massages and sure both had earned them.
Diary says that we went to Andrea’s BBQ party on the Saturday evening (a rather good one at her house in Shepherd’s Bush, if I remember correctly) and then to Mum & Dad’s for tea on the Sunday. We didn’t hang about back then.
Another quirky and memorable concert at The Proms. We took The Duchess Of Castlebar (Janie’s mum) with us to this one, as we thought she would like the Piazzolla. Possibly she did. You didn’t tend to get positive feedback from the Duchess back then and nothing has changed in 25 years, as I write in 2024.
Janie and I were fascinated by this concert. Janie was already keen on Piazzolla and this helped cement that interest.
Here’s what we heard:
Giya Kancheli – V & V
Arvo Pärt – Tabula rasa
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 1 in E Major, RV 269
Astor Piazzoll – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Verano porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 2 in G minor, RV 315
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Otoño porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 3 in F Major, RV 293
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Invierno porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 4 in F minor, RV 297
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Primavera porteña
Peter Heidrich – Variations on ‘Happy Birthday’
Alexander Bakshi – The Unanswered Call
Fiona Maddocks briefly wrote up the concert in The Observer:
Riddance Telegraph Bassett 27 Sep 1999, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Riddance Feltham Gaunt 16 Sep 1999, Thu The Feltham Chronicle (Hounslow, London, England) Newspapers.com
