Month: March 2013

Telemann And JS Bach, Florilegium, Wigmore Hall, 30 March 2013

You don’t get to hear Telemann’s Tafelmusik in the concert hall all that often, although we had seen The Academy For Ancient Music perform some, also at The Wig, only six months earlier – click here or below:

A Musical Feast: From Schein To Telemann, Academy Of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 21 September 2012

The attraction of this Florilegium concert was partly the Tafelmusik (we were to hear some highlights from Part One whereas we’d heard Part Two last time…

…but to a greater extent a chance to hear some Bach Easter music we had not heard before – here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on this concert so you can see exactly what went on.

It was a very enjoyable concert. Florilegium are always top notch – or rather they always have been when we’ve seen them.

The Easter Oratorio is a super choice for Florilegium, with their core strength being woodwind. I recall they also drummed up some fairly splendid trumpets for the occasion too. The singing soloists had beautiful voices.

Below is a vid of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under John Elliot Gardiner performing the piece. Larger scale, but a lovely vid and it will certainly give you an idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ICH1gK5fQ

I remember Janie remarking that the concert was just what the doctor should have ordered…

…at that stage of Janie’s “resurrection” that was a multi-layered joke, together with being a truthful reflection on what a tonic the concert had been.

Gorgeous, it was.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective, Tate Modern, 26 March 2013

I don’t receive much corporate hospitality – never have.

But Z/Yen had been doing some stuff around Long Finance and the London Accord with Bank of America Merrill Lynch at that time, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been taken unawares when I received a message from Kegan Lovely headed:

Lichtenstein Corporate Supporters Evening Private View: 26 March from 6:45 -9:00pm

As I said in my reply to Kegan:

My first thought when I saw the subject line was “those bankers, always supporting and sponsoring tax havens!!”

Then I realised what a kind invitation it was. Janie loves her modern art, so if you do have a pair of tickets left and if it isn’t too rude for us to arrive c19:30/19:45, we’d very much like to join you that evening.

It really was a timely and kind invite – Janie and I had been planning to go to this exhibition for sure – we both really like Lichtenstein’s work. Back then, Janie was not a member of the Tate, so the opportunity to see the works on a quieter, private evening viewing felt like a real treat to us.

In the end, Kegan was poorly, so couldn’t even make it to the event that night to be our host in person, but Janie and I got to enjoy the exhibition and some corporate hospitality too.

Here is a link to the Tate resource on this exhibition.

The vid below gives you a pretty good idea of what the exhibition was like:

My review at the time is there in my thank you e-mail to Kegan:

Many thanks for the Tate Modern event. Janie and I both really enjoyed the exhibition.  Even though we had seen a lot of Lichtenstein’s stuff before, we had never seen it all in one place.  Also there were lots of works – especially the sculptures, design pieces and “explosions” – that were completely new to us and very good.  Lichtenstein was more versatile and multi-talented than I had previously imagined.

The Low Road by Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 23 March 2013

Gosh, this one didn’t really work for us, although we thought it would. We like Bruce Norris’s plays and the Royal Court was serving up a stellar collection of cast and creatives.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource for this production.

To some extent we were unlucky – we’d booked an early preview and the mechanically complicated set had encountered some technical problems. We were kept waiting 30 minutes or more for a delayed start…

…for a play that we knew was quite long anyway…

…and at that time we were more easily pleased by short, sharp (and possibly less challenging) pieces.

But the other problem I had with this piece was the rather obvious way that points about the financial crisis and subsequent political/economic responses were rather obviously rammed down our throats.

Also, the play latched onto one of my bugbears which is the misrepresentation of Adam Smith’s subtle body of work into an unkind representation of all that is coldly economic.

It all felt a bit “tell rather than show”, which detracted from the drama, which is probably why the Drama 101 text book suggests “show rather than tell”.

Below is the trailer vid…

…and below this line is a behind the scenes vid:

It was all very clever and the cast was excellent, but by half time – pushing towards 22:00 already, we decided to give the second half a miss. After all, I had the script in my hand and could pretty well work out what was likely to happen.

Decidedly mixed reviews – really divided the critics, this piece – this link will take you to a search term that finds the reviews good and bad.

Laudamus Te, English Baroque Choir, Brandenburg Sinfonia, St John’s Smith Square, 16 March 2013

I’d never heard the Bach Magnificat in D played live but had always loved my recording of it (by The Sixteen – click here or image below):

I thought SJSS would be a magnificent setting to hear the piece live – after all that is where my lovely recording of the piece had been recorded. I was right.

In the first half, we heard the Schubert Mass in G, which I enjoyed more than Janie did, although she quite liked it. It was followed by a world premier of a JohnMcCabe piece named Psalm-Cantata, which frankly did little for either of us.

But we did both really enjoy the Magnificat.

Below is a video of Nikolaus Harnoncourt with an unidentified choir and orchestra playing the Magnificat magnificently:

Hello/Goodbye by Peter Souter, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 8 March 2013

We were really only up for light drama at that time and this one was just the ticket.

Witty, well-performed and produced – Hampstead Downstairs was proving consistently good.

Here is a link to the Hampstead resource for the production we saw.

Below is the trailer vid:

This piece transferred upstairs a couple of years later – no reviews from downstairs but mixed reviews from upstairs – click here for a search term.

I agree with those who say the play lacked substance, but it was fun and enjoyable, which pleased us that night.