Category: Music

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:

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.

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:

Guillermo Klein, Aaron Goldberg, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenon, Wigmore Hall, 1 February 2013

Another jazz night under Joshua Redman’s stewardship. This time, more colour than the four saxs we saw in November:

Axis Saxophone Quartet, Wigmore Hall, 2 November 2012

This time – two pianos and two saxophones.

Still, only some of this jazz worked for us. Some was very melodic and pleasing to the ear – some was a bit complex for our taste.

Well worth hearing, though and much needed distraction from all Janie’s health stuff, which we were trying to process at that time.

Axis Saxophone Quartet, Wigmore Hall, 2 November 2012

This was the start of Joshua Redman’s tenure as curator of Wigmore Hall’s jazz.

I recall that we were very excited about seeing this one and yet a little disappointed with the concert in the end. We love the sound of sax, but there was something about four saxophones and nothing else that lacked colour for this jazz, to us anyway.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this one.

Masterful playing of course and we enjoyed our evening; just not as much as we’d hoped.

 

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

You don’t have to be a Telemaniac (nor a Beliber) to have enjoyed this concert …but it helps.

We absolutely loved it, but then we are lovers of Baroque music by the likes of Telemann and Biber.

Further, we were treated to some early Baroque by Schein and Simpson, to whet our appetites and to show us how table music emerged as a genre in the 17th century.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for that evening.

The Academy Of Ancient Music (AAM), bless ’em, have put their full programme up on their website, so I am sure this entitles me to add a link to their pdf – there is some really interesting reading material in the programme.

Below is a short vid that shows the AAM under Richard Egarr rehearsing a Telemann concerto – one of my favourites as it happens:

Below is a nice selection of Telemann Tafelmusik – but not by AAM:

Finally, for those unfamiliar with Thomas Simpson (as we were) who would like to hear a small sample – below a little woodwind sampler, provenance unknown beyond the YouTube details provided:

Xavier de Maistre, Wigmore Hall, 10 July 2012

We treated the Mainelli family to this concert. Xenia was learning the harp at school at that time.

In any case, it looked like a lovely concert, which indeed it was.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert. For some reason the on-line resource says that the first piece was a Handel arrangement – I’m pretty sure it was the Concerto in D minor by Allesandro Marcello, as stated in the programme.

We met and ate in the Wigmore Hall restaurant before the performance – I think possibly taking desert/coffee/drinks at our table during the interval as well.

To get a feel for what this concert sounded like, here is a video of Xavier de Maistre performing Recuerdos de la Alhambra, by Francisco Tárrega, which I recall was a bit of a highlight at our concert.

I think everyone in our party had a jolly good time – the eating, drinking, chatting and of course the music.

Time At The Bar, Ignite, Wigmore Hall Bar/Restaurant, 22 June 2012

This seemed like a wonderful idea – improvised music to please lovers of jazz and contemporary music, after the Evelyn Glennie concert, in the bar/restaurant.

Of course we were up for it.

Here is the Wigmore Hall puff about it – click here.

It didn’t attract much of a crowd if I remember correctly.

We enjoyed our cold compilations and some wine…

…more than we enjoyed the music, which we found surprisingly bland – not jazzy in the way we thought it might be.

We’re all for the Wigmore Hall experimenting and the late night format is one of the more interesting experiments, although they are still struggling to find a formula that works.

But we have booked two more Wigmore Lates this year (as I write in 2018), both of which look right up our street, so we really hope the idea will find its feet eventually.

Anyway, below is the running order for the concert we heard on 22 June 2012:

Evelyn Glennie & Philip Smith, Wigmore Hall, 22 June 2012

Twenty years after my first sighting (and sounding) of Evelyn Glennie – click here or below…

Music At Oxford At The Old Royal Naval College, 9 June 1992

…Janie and I booked a fascinating-looking evening at The Wigmore Hall.

Here is a link to the details of this Evelyn Glennie concert – click here.

In truth, not all of the music pleased us, but most of it did and it was fascinating to watch Evelyn Glennie play so many different percussive instruments at such close quarters.

Here is a little vid of her playing the Vivaldi Concerto she played us that night – albeit from a different occasion and with a bit more of an ensemble in the vid:

We also booked the late night concert the same night – I seem to recall we arranged for a rather tasty platter of cold compilations at The Wig between the gigs. Yum.

The late night concert, which was served up in the restaurant, was less to our taste – click here or below – but never mind:

Time At The Bar, Ignite, Wigmore Hall Bar/Restaurant, 22 June 2012

Les Nations: Couperin the Internationalist, Musica ad Rhenum, St John’s Smith Square, 20 May 2012

What better way to enjoy spring in London than a day at the Lord’s test on the Friday…

England v West Indies, 1st Test, Day Two, Lord’s, 18 May 2012

…then following the test match for the rest of the weekend, then rounding off the weekend with some early music at SJSS?

That was a rhetorical question, people. There is NO better way.

We went to see Musica ad Rhenum under Jed Wentz. I always worry about people named Jed, because I am so regularly having my pseudonym, Ged, mis-spelt as Jed. My life would be easier if these J-people chose not to abbreviate their names to Jed. I don’t think I am asking too much there.

But I digress.

The music was mostly Couperin – see extract from the programme below.

It was part of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music that year – we just chose the one concert. It was one delightful concert too.

Yes, Janie and I did have a giggle at one of the pieces being named “La toilette de Venus”. Yes we can both be very childish.

For some reason, Jed Wentz and Musica ad Rhenum have put an enormous amount of their Couperin instrumental music into the public domain, so you can listen here:

The closest I can get to a sample of the lovely soprano, Andréanne Paquin, is the following choir piece, which includes her, singing Charpentier/Lully – not a million miles from Couperin:

Anyway, the above is a really lovely short vid. If you don’t like it, you can metaphorically flush it down La Metaphorical Toilette de Venus by not playing it.

Musical revolutions: Dawn Of The Cantata, Academy Of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 26 April 2012

I got more out of this concert than Janie did, for reasons the following text and vids partially explain.

I have recently written about the dawning of my interest in early music, dating it in 1987 when I “found” the Hilliard Ensemble, Josquin, Byrd and others on the radio – click here or below:

The Day That Early Music Found Me, 31 October 1987

But actually I was brought up with some early Baroque madrigals ringing in my ears – a reel-to-reel recording, made by my father, from the radio, of Monteverdi’s Madrigals of Love and War.

The extraordinary BBC genome Project allows me to find the concert in question so easily it is almost embarrassingly easy – it was broadcast on 4 June 1974 at 21:50 – click here. I wouldn’t have heard the recording on that day – clearly, but dad probably played it to me pretty soon afterwards and I remember listening to it a lot that summer. The concert had originally taken place in October 1973 – a few weeks after I started secondary school.

But I digress…

…except to say that I had never heard any Madrigals of Love and War live and was keen to hear some – hence my particular desire to book this concert.

Thursday evening is not (and in those days certainly was not) Janie’s favourite night to go to a concert. Nor is Monteverdi one of her favourites.

This concert conformed Janie’s view that Monteverdi is not really for her. All too noisy and the male singing is a bit shouty, she claims. I sort-of know what she means, without agreeing with the conclusion.

Janie did enjoy some of the instrumental music, though…

…here is a vid of some other folk playing the opening number we heard that evening – Falconieri’s lovely Ciaconna in G major:

…and Janie did enjoy seeing some of her favourite early music folk, such as Reiko Ichise on the viola da gamba and Janie’s pal, William Carter, on the theorbo.

Here is a vid with a good extract of John Elliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi mob being (in Janie’s terms) noisy and shouty:

…and here is a vid of the Academy of Ancient Music rehearsing L’Orfeo…

…and here is a YouTube in a rock video stylee of the soprano, Anna Prohaska, singing some Monteverdi on her own album…

…don’t ask me to explain the imagery in the above vid – I couldn’t even begin.