Highly recommended – we always enjoy Cardinall’s Musick concerts. We love their sound and we like the way that Andrew Carwood talks to the audience with a likeable mix of deep scholarship and folksy delivery.
Lots of unfamiliar pieces and even unfamiliar composers in there.
Here is a little vid of this group rehearsing and talking Byrd a few years ago:
I’m starting to get a bit fussy in my old age – perhaps because I am learning more about early music.
For example, it seemed to me that the Gregorian Chants interspersed in the Guerrero in the first half, were delivered (at least by the bass and tenor voices) in a staccato style when changing note within a word, quite contrary to the “smoothing” technique Ian Pittaway suggested to me. Patrick Craig, the countertenor, sang with that smoothing technique and it sounded cleaner to my ears. Janie thought the staccato was deliberate and fine.
I also found myself comedically irritated by a spelling mistake in the words for the Agnus Dei in the programme lyrics for that Guerrero mass…spelling that phrase Angus Dei at one point. It made me wonder whether there is a beef of God as well as a lamb of God.
But these are tiny points. The concert was a feast for the ears and just the calming experience I needed after a long day.
I particularly enjoyed the second half of the concert, with shorter pieces by Peter Philips, Philippe Verdelot, Adrian Willaert, Francisco Guerrero, Luca Marenzio, Daniel Torquet (“who he?” I hear you cry – Andrew Carwood is struggling to trace him too) and William Byrd taking the first 40-45 minutes of that second half.
There was a Christmassy encore by Hieronymus Praetorius – we were horrified to learn that, liturgically/technically speaking, we only reach the end of Christmas this weekend.
Still, we loved the concert and thoroughly recommend the broadcast to lovers of this type of music.
Janie and I had a super day at the Tate Modern, primarily for the members’ preview of the Pierre Bonnard exhibition.
It runs until 6 May 2019, so you have plenty of time to get to see this exhibition if you are looking at this article reasonably fresh. And in our opinion it really is well worth seeing. Comprehensive coverage of the work of this wonderful artist from the first half of the 20th century.
They let you take pictures at the Tate Modern these days and Janie most certainly went for it:
The painter of happiness, he was known as. We weren’t quite so sure about Pierre Bonnard’s personal life, which seemed to get complicated (to say the least) at times and resulted in the suicide of one of his mistresses – not so much happiness there – it might have been a better deal to be his dog:
But if you ignored artists of his generation because of doubts regarding their personal lives, you wouldn’t see much 19th or even 20th century art.
Here is a lovely little video about the exhibition:
If that video doesn’t make you want to see the exhibition…it’s not an exhibition for you!
We spent longer in that exhibition than normal, because it was so good, so we decided to get some refreshment next. The main members cafe was heaving with people (I suppose it was a preview day), so we went into the new extension to try the cafe in there – which hadn’t even opened when we went for the members early look at that building.
We were surprised to find that this new cafe is named Granville-Grossman Members Room, after Renee Granville-Grossman, a major benefactor to the Tate. She and her late husband were clients of Janie’s for many years. There we ate some lunch in far quieter surroundings than the heaving main members cafe.
After that, we returned to the main building to take a quick look at the Anni Albers exhibition which closes in a few days time.
Ah, so it was the equivalent Saturday two years ago – that’s a bit uncanny.
This time we enjoyed lavish hospitality at Caroline and Alan’s place. We also enjoyed son Alex’s company for much of the evening. Alex is now a strapping young man, which was somewhat predictable when you think about it, but always comes as a bit of a shock when you haven’t seen a youngster for a few years.
I tried to avoid saying, “haven’t you grown since I last saw you”, but that phrase came out anyway – at least half in jest.
Yummy nibbles before dinner with a very jolly Viognier. Caroline tried to assess which of the nibbles we liked best, but we were wise to the risk of saying, e.g. “the salmon ones”, because that would have enabled Caroline to say, “oh, so what’s wrong with the asparagus ones and the avocado ones?”. Janie and I are old hands at that game, even when the host/hostess isn’t actually playing it. Then a yummy main meal of:
red pepper soup;
herb-crusted lamb rack with poshed-up rice and roasted vegetables;
chocolate tart and fruit cocktail.
A very tasty Châteauneuf-du-Pape complemented the main meal, especially the lamb.
Conversation naturally covered the biggest issues of the moment – i.e. cricket, with me, Alan and Alex all in the same room. We also discussed politics and world affairs to some extent – without any irony whatsoever, of course.
Alex stuck around for a higher proportion of the evening than was necessary for good manners, but when he returned downstairs having gone upstairs after dinner to watch a movie, Janie and I both realised that the time had flown, it was getting really late and that we were in danger of outstaying even the warmest welcome.
Oh dear, Elizabeth! This one sounded so much up our street in the promotional literature – two real world poets who corresponded for decades – their own words dramatised into a chamber play.
One of the conceits of this production is that different actors will play the roles each night, having never previously seen the script (or quite possibly each other) before.
We got Shalisha James-Davis and Emun Elliott our night. Emun seemd well up for a sight reading gig, but Shalisha, bless her, even admitted before the play proper started that sight reading was not really her forte.
I was reminded during the performance of the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch, One Leg Too Few, in which a one-legged fellow auditions for the role of Tarzan.
You get my drift.
We wondered whether the piece would have worked better for us if both actors had been better able to sight read. It was especially disconcerting, given that Elizabeth Bishop was a woman of letters, to hear her character struggling to make sense of many words on the page…
…in truth, we suspect that the piece wouldn’t really have been for us anyway. The story told in these letters just didn’t grip us as we thought it could or should.
Here is a trailer from an earlier (US) production of the play:
Those who get to see some of the fine actors and actresses who are going to give The Gate’s experimental production a go might get a lot more out of it than we got, but for us, I’m afraid, both play and production are a dud.
The other memorable thing…but not in a good way, was the sycophantic audience – presumably friends of cast and crew – laughing at even the weakest jokes and desperately trying to give the impression that this thin gruel was enticing.
So rare at The Gate, but one we really didn’t take to – these things happen.
I first came across Janet Davis on the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website around 2004, when I started reading and then contributing to the site.
In those days I would sometimes comment on a group of people I would describe as “The Allen Stand Gossips” – a devoted collection of Middlesex CCC fans who mostly sat in that stand and nearly always had some gossip to impart about the players and/or the club. I soon learnt who Janet Davis was amongst that loosely-associated group.
As I became more heavily involved in the MTWD site, I ascertained that Janet was one of the first Middlesex fans to use MTWD regularly. I also learnt that Janet’s relationship with the site administrators – back then David Slater, Jez Horne and Barmy Kev – was less than harmonious at times. I soon came to understand why.
Janet’s devotion to the club could sometimes bubble over into seemingly one-sided comments. For example, Middlesex would “recruit” players from other counties, while other counties would “poach” our players. Janet was keen to find out the gossip and would quiz players and their loved ones quite relentlessly. Then sometimes she would state on the MTWD board that she knew something about a player but “couldn’t say” what it was. Sometimes she would report a false rumour – no doubt in good faith – but the result might be problematic for the site administrators and the site.
When I became an MTWD administrator and took on most of the editorial side, at the start of the 2006 season, I suggested that we widen the base of people to provide editorial material. I suggested Janet as one of the people who could and should contribute that way. Thus Janet became a major contributor of match reports for a few years.
In fact, my research has uncovered that Janet had previously contributed a piece of winter editorial – in the winter of 2002/2003 – very early in the days of the MTWD site. Before my time. Here is a link to that piece. It is very insightful for this tribute article, as it has Janet saying, in her own words, how her lifetime of Middlesex fandom started and progressed. Here is the intro to that piece, which was published in early April 2003:
I have been a cricket fan since my school days (I will not tell you when as that will give my age away). In 1975 whilst watching cricket on tv, Middlesex got to two one day finals and lost. One of the commentators said what a good side they were and that they would challenge for a trophy in 1976. 1976 turned out to be the year of the drought, with no rain during the major part of the cricket season. I work as a Pharmacist, so I worked as a locum, taking time off every so often to go to various matches.
That was the year that I kept a scrap book, which has been given to Vinny [Codrington – former Chief Executive] for Middlesex archives.
I remember hot sunny days at Lords and making a new set of friends. I went to many of the away matches, some by train, some by car and some by coach. I will try and say a bit on the matches that I remember…
In the period that Janet regularly reported matches for MTWD, between 2006 and 2009, she provided a great many match reports and photographs. As the MTWD team had advised me, Janet wasn’t the easiest contributor on our books.
During the season, Janet would write to me and send me stuff most days – sometimes several times a day. Janet had latched on to me for this element of her life, although she didn’t know my true identity until 2008. My e-mail trawl for this tribute piece needed to be seen to be believed – I had forgotten how frequent the correspondence had been. Janet took lots of photos, but always landscape, even if taking a portrait.
Here is an example Janet sent me in July 2006, together with the full text of the accompanying e-mail, all of which might make Middlesex’s current captain (Dawid Malan, for ’tis he), blush:
” This is our new signing if anyone is interested. He’d compete with Nick Compton in the ‘pretty boy’ stakes “
Yes, Janet certainly had her favourites. Chad Keegan, I recall in particular. She also had a soft spot for Chris Wright – I remember Janet was devastated when Chris left Middlesex (or should I say, in Janet style, “was poached by Essex”?).
Janet’s match reports were often brimming with details about her life…details of her journey, her lousy neighbours, every aspect of the lunch she had brought with her, the posse of Allen Stand gossips who attended that day. Astonishingly, MTWD match report readers learnt more about Janet’s pussy (indeed several cats over the years) than the UK public ever learnt about Mrs Slocombe’s pussy, Tiddles, in Are You being Served.
Soon after Janet started reporting matches, I coined the byline “Auntie Janet” for her, rather than Janet Davis, although some pieces continued to go up under the more conventional byline. I thought “Auntie Janet” was appropriate for her and it seemed to stick.
One particular report of Auntie Janet’s from 2009, linked below, made me feel especially sad when skimming for this tribute piece. It is quintessentially Auntie Janet, with much talk about her knitting circle. In cricketing terms, it is primarily about a Phil Hughes performance for Middlesex in early 2009. The thought that both of those protagonists, Janet and Phil, are sadly/tragically no longer with us, brought quite a lump to my throat – click here for that 2009 piece…
Sadly, Janet became beset with health problems from 2010 onwards, so her visits to Lord’s became a rarity and her reporting ceased. I had in any case retired from all formats of MTWD by that time.
I am told that Janet continued to follow Middlesex avidly despite her ill health, so she must have been thrilled when we won the County Championship in such exciting circumstances in 2016. Goodness knows what Janet’s medical team must have needed to do at the climax of that epic season!
I have no photographs of Janet as an adult; she photographed players but didn’t send in pictures with her own image. Except for one winter, when we ran a baby photo competition. For some reason, Janet sent me two pictures; one of her as a baby (as requested) and the other from 1953 when she was nine years old. I have used the latter as the main photo for this feature. It’s all I have but also I think it is appropriate. Janet retained her childlike qualities throughout her life. Her manner could be frustrating for others at times, but Janet’s simple, unworldly demeanour was genuine and her devotion to Middlesex County Cricket Club unconditional.
Janet was one of the most dedicated fans of Middlesex County Cricket Club for many decades. She was, in every way, Middlesex Till She Died. Janet Davis 1944 to 2019; rest in peace.
As many friends and acquaintances know, I have been mucking around with a baritone ukulele for a few years now. I have also been taking an interest in the early music element of the instrument which is, to all intents and purposes, a Tudor guitar.
So I have recently been trying to combine some of the material I like for basic chordal strumming of songs I remember and like from my youth, with some of the techniques I’m starting to acquire to play early music.
Here are a couple of early efforts: Germ Free Adolescents and My Perfect Cousin, in the style of broadside ballads.
Here is Germ Free Adolescents in its original form by X-Ray Spex in 1978:
Whereas, here is my humble effort, unplugged:
My Perfect Cousin was released by The Undertones in 1980:
Whereas here is my more plaintive, unplugged version of the song:
Work in progress, admittedly, but I feel there is something there – for me, even if not for anyone else.
Time Is Love/Tiempo es Amor is a fairly traditional revenge tragedy plot, played out in a sort-of film noir style. Imagine Raymond Chandler, Tennessee Williams and David Mamet collaborating on a revenge play set in the Latino (or should I say Latinx?) community in Los Angeles…you might be getting an idea of it.
At the end of a long week there’s always a risk that a 90 minute play without an interval will test our attention span – but this racey and pacey piece held our attention throughout.
Credit to Daisy for choosing this one – in truth, I wasn’t attracted to it by the bumf. Also, the fact that the writer, Chè Walker, was also directing, raised alarm bells with me. The absence of the checks and balances that a separate writer and director brings to a play/production is often a road to weakness, but in this case I think Chè Walker has pulled off a coup.
Daisy was ever so pleased with herself when we recalled that this one was very much her idea.
It wasn’t really a random concert. Katie Cowling was supposed to be delivering a programme named Blow Ye Winds with Johan Löfving, but Katie was poorly so Johan showed up with another of his regular pairings, flautist Yu-Wei Hu, to perform a slightly different programme named The English And French Gardens. The medieval element had gone but a fairly similar Baroque assortment to that originally planned.
From and linked to http://www.flauguissimoduo.com/ – photo by Aiga Ozo
So, it might not have been a random concert but it was a Random concert, by which I mean John Random was going to join me. Or was he? There was some traditional too-ing and fro-ing with “can make it”, “can’t make it”, “can make it but might be late” messages. In the end, John arrived in time to see all but the first sonata.
So this concert closed a loop or two. John really did get to hear and see a theorbo. In fact, I think the concert included a little first for me too, as Johan Löfving played a short theorbo solo piece – I don’t think I had ever heard the theorbo as a solo instrument before. It was a lovely little piece. Coincidentally, it was by Kapsberger, which also closed a loop for John, as although he had seen Les Kapsber’girls, on that occasion the girls did not perform anything by their eponymous composer. I managed to find a snippet of Johan Löfving playing the very piece in question:
Not the best recorded audio nor video you’ll ever see, but a rare sighting of solo theorbo
Here is another short vid, which shows both of the Flauguissimo Duo – the Sonata by Johan Helmich Roman which they played as the closing number of our concert:
It really was a very charming lunchtime concert – these SJSS ones are such a treat when I can get to them and it was such a pleasure to be able to share that musical experience with John.
Afterwards John and I had a bite of lunch together in the crypt, which is a great place to eat and drink. John described it as his favourite crypt. Janie would agree wholeheartedly with that – she is also a devotee of the SJSS crypt, claiming that the crypt is the best thing about the whole place and that some small scale concerts should be held down there.
John suggested that he would like to spend far more time reading Ogblog than he has available and that a decent length of custodial sentence might provide him with the time and inclination so to read.
I suggested that, on our way back to Westminster Tube Station, we might ask some of the more pugnacious Brexit protesters on College Green to provide John with the means to such a custodial sentence, but John demurred. Not dedicated enough to Ogblog, then?
Time flew by and I realised that I really needed to get back to the flat, as I had arranged further Renaissance/Baroque style activity for the rest of the day – a lesson on early music guitar technique with Ian Pittaway…
…who subsequently sent me a link to this lovely 10 minute vid by Elizabeth Kenny explaining everything you ever wanted to know about the theorbo but were afraid to ask…
…followed by a real tennis bout at Lord’s against a nemesis-like adversary, formerly a seriously top-ranking amateur cricketer, against whom I had never previously emerged victorious at tennis. But, steeled by all this early music, I did prevail for once this day.
Sadly, we have no photo or video of Colin’s performance. Actually, that might be just as well.
Let’s sign off instead with some more Flauguissimo Duo – not a piece we heard on that day but a really lovely rendering of some Gluck and a chance to see Johan Löfving’s guitar playing and some beautiful virtuoso flute playing by Yu-Wei Hu:
I haven’t written about real tennis for a while. I am motivated to do so now (February 2019) due to the sad news that Michael Constantinidi, one of the MCC’s most senior players, passed away, aged 90, last week.
I partnered Michael in a game of “senior doubles” only a few week’s before he died and saw him on court just a few days before his sudden and unexpected departure.
Michael was an extremely likeable and charming man. It was always a pleasure to share the tennis court with him, either as his partner or as one of his adversaries.
Partnering Michael was almost like having a lesson. Not only because Chris Swallow, one of the professionals, was very often on the other side of the net trying to make life difficult (but not too difficult) for me, but because Michael would gently help me with praise and/or with context for my mistakes.
If I berated myself or apologised for a miss, he might say…
no, no, that was a very difficult ball, you did well to almost make it
…or if I missed a straight-forward shot, as oft I do, he might say:
never mind – you haven’t missed many all day.
On that day we played together in early January, I sensed that I was flagging a little towards the end of my second hour – I had played a rigorous game of singles against the actor Michael Keane (another delightful playing companion) before joining the seniors for doubles. But you wouldn’t have sensed any frustration from my doubles partner as my performance dipped late in the hour.
Michael Constantinidi was also a delightful gentleman with whom to chat in the locker room after a game. He’d led an interesting life and could discuss a great many subjects with insight and warmth.
He had been keen fives player – he had chaired the Eton Fives Association for many years. My fives game had been the Rugby Fives variety, but it transpired that Michael had spent much of his time with the Eton Fives Association building bridges between the two versions of the sport. Indeed, he had opened the refurbished fives courts at my old school, Alleyn’s some years ago.
Here’s a video that shows one of Michael’s pet Eton Fives projects, at Westway:
Whereas here is a promo video about Rugby Fives – no buttress but there is a back wall:
Michael Constantinidi used to joke with me that he was no use at taking the real tennis ball off the back wall because of his Eton Fives background, which presumably means that I still have ever so much more to learn about the tambour (the real tennis buttress) as a former Rugby Fives player.
But returning to Michael Constantinidi and real tennis; for a gentleman in his late 80s and latterly over 90, Michael was a remarkably good player still, moving around the court with surprising ease and speed.
But the thing about Michael’s real tennis play that I simply must write down and try to describe for posterity was his serve. It was bizarre…almost defying description…quite simply unique.
There are a great many different serves at real tennis, all with quirky names: giraffe, boomerang, railroad, bobble, demi-piquet and piquet (my own favourite)…
…but Michael’s serve was seemingly from another lexicon, or even from another planet.
Try to imagine an exaggerated version of a lawn tennis over-arm serve motion, not a million miles different from a “T-serve”, broken down into a couple of dozen individual, jerky, stop-frame motions, before the racket finally makes contact with the ball…
…Michael’s serve looked a little like that.
The coaches are encouraging me to try to simplify my serve, to minimise the amount of pre-impact movement, to concentrate on the essential part of the serve – where the racket impacts the ball – trying to get the desired amount of force, spin and length onto the ball. That is excellent advice, I understand, but it is entirely contre-Constantinidi.
And the extraordinary thing is, that not only did Michael’s Heath-Robinson-looking wind up to serve tend to transfix, hypnotise and confuse his opponent…
…it was on most occasions consistently accurate and surprisingly tricky to return. Like much in real tennis, it made little or no sense but somehow it worked for Michael. And probably only for Michael.
I don’t think we’ll see the like of Michael’s serve again, but if by some strange quirk of fate someone, somewhere decides to serve in that manner, I think it should be known for ever more as “The Constantinidi Serve”.
One can only assume the near-spherical symbols indicate “hard balls”.
Like the vast majority of real tennis players, Michael Constantinidi loved his hard ball sports, yet he was the softest, gentlest fellow with whom to play sport and delightful company off the court. His cheerful and charming demeanour will be fondly remembered and sadly missed around Lord’s.
This is a very interesting movie; in some ways an entertaining documentary and in other ways disturbing/thought-provoking.
It is the true story of identical siblings who were separated at birth as part of an ill-conceived scientific experiment and who become reunited in their late teens by happenstance.
While the other films we saw this season were all very interesting, both about the people involved and the issues those people encountered in their lives, Three Identical Strangers was deeper in that it made us think about a great many hugely important issues, ranging from medical ethics to the nature verses nurture debate.
The movie is extremely well made. It avoids the pitfall of trying to be too conclusive whereas, in reality, part of the fascination and tragedy of the story is that it isn’t and could never have been conclusive.
Janie and I saw the movie early evening and then spent the rest of the evening debating the issues. Highly recommended.
