To St John’s Smith Square at lunchtime, diverting on my way to the office for a musical snack.
Here is the SJSS stub for this concert.
I joined the nice “front Row couple” I quite often see and chat with at SJSS (and also occasionally at The Wig). They asked after Janie, as usually do and we chatted about Janie’s mild aversion (or I should say relative aversion) to SJSS.
We also discussed the ageing demographic at both venues and I alluded to the fact that I sometimes still get called “young man” at The Wig, whereas not so at SJSS.
Boxwood & Brass are “young people” for sure – a wind ensemble, based in Huddersfield, specialising in late 18th and early 19th century music. They describe themselves well enough on their own web site here.
One of their number, Emily Worthington, describes the project well in the following vid:
…and also the next one, which is about one of their earlier Beethoven projects:
I couldn’t help but think of the Noel Coward song, “Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs Worthington” despite the fact that the charming young clarinettist shows none of the unfortunate characteristics attributed to Mrs Worthington’s daughter in the song.
Anyway, the ensemble treated us to Czerny’s wind ensemble arrangement of Beethoven’s Septet in Eb Op 20. A light piece which was apparently very popular in Beethoven’s day.
Here is a charming performance of the original Beethoven septet:
The Czerny wind version has only recently been revived – essentially Boxwood & Brass seek out such versions for revival.
Returning to the phrase, “young man”, that really does apply to Carl Czerny, who was all of 14 years old when he arranged this piece for wind ensemble. Precocious little fella.
Meanwhile, as we upped and left the hall at the end of this excellent lunchtime concert, the nice man from the nice couple patted me on the shoulder and said, “see you soon, young man”. It doesn’t really count once you’ve seeded the idea to someone, but still I thought it was a kind, friendly touch.
Remember where you first heard the name of this Yorkshire-based wind ensemble, Boxwood and Brass; ‘appen they were champion – I were well chuffed wirrem.