We fancied this concert, which melded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Piazolla’s Four Seasons Of Buenos Aires.
So despite its scheduling in the Sunday coffee morning slot, which throws our tennis plans awry, we gave it a try.
A different, wrinkly audience on a Sunday morning. Some perhaps as keen on the gratis coffee (or a glass of sherry if you prefer) as the music.
The music was performed serviceably (I think we’ve heard the Piazolla Seasons done with more flare since) and we were glad to have experienced the Wiggy Coffee morning thing…but it isn’t really our type of gig.
Is that William Carter on the theorbo or a Naxi Musician in Lijiang on the pipa?
I was most amused, when I tracked down the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) blog piece about the concert we attended on 24 September 2010 – click here for the whole piece – to read this snippet:
The mood’s lively tonight. William Carter (theorbo) comes in to the dressing room in the interval telling us that a punter has accosted him and enquired whether his instrument is Chinese. “No”, replies Bill. “It looks very much like an instrument I saw in China”, insists the punter mysteriously.
I can now solve the mystery – Janie (Daisy) is the mystery punter.
We had been to China a few months earlier and had seen a concert of ancient Chinese music performed by Naxi musicians in Lijiang, Yunnan province – pictures 97 to 107 on the following album:
I remember Janie asking me whether that big lute thing…
…was the same as the Chinese instrument we saw in Lijiang.
“No”, I said.
“That’s what he said”, she said, confessing that she had asked William Carter that question as we were leaving the hall for the interval.
I explained that there was a fair bit of cross-fertilisation of musical instruments between east and west in the Renaissance period, but that instrument is a close relative of the lute and that family of instruments is more of a middle-east to west cross-fertilisation than a far-east to west influence. I also explained that the Chinese instruments of that kind might be far more ancient than any in the west, so technically, there might be a dim and distant connection.
“So, basically yes, then?” suggested Janie.
“Basically no,” I dared to disagree.
It is most amusing to find, so many years later (writing in December 2017) Janie’s exchange with William Carter preserved on the AAM blog.
We have since seen pipa concerts and I think Janie could now distinguish theorbo-type and pipa-type instruments with some skill.
I have one other anecdote about William Carter, from a few months later. By that time, my mum was in Nightingale House, her dementia worsening. I was at that time often visiting her and then jumping on the tube to go to the city.
Walking along Nightingale Lane towards Clapham South, I saw a young man just ahead of me carrying a large musical instrument case that looked to me as though it could only contain a theorbo.
I hurried my step, caught up with the young man and said, “excuse me, but is that instrument of yours a theorbo?” He beamed a smile at me and said, “yes it is. I have been lugging this theorbo around London for years now and have had the daftest questions asked about it…you are the first person who has actually recognised it and enquired after it by name!”
It turned out that the young man was one of William Carter’s students at Guildhall and was on the way to see him. We had a most pleasant chat about early music on the tube into the city together.
A very interesting concert, this. We had heard a fair amount of music by JS Bach’s many composer/descendents, but I don’t think we’d heard any music by his forebears before.
In truth, this isn’t the most wonderful music we have ever heard; it is of its (mostly early to mid) baroque period. Unexceptional, other than the fact that it must have been an influence on JS Bach and all that followed.
But the AAM folk did their best to keep the concert lively and engaging. Richard Egarr is an engaging master of ceremonies, Pavlo Beznosiuk always looks as though he is about to wink at the audience and even William Carter smiled a bit during the riper anecdotes of introduction.
I’m pretty sure we’d seen Ensemble Clément Janequin before and liked them so much we fancied another go for this concert of secular Renaissance music and modern music in that “Renaissance Cri” style. They were promoting their album L’écrit du Cri at that time; the concert was basically a performance of the album.
Here is a vid recording of the Ensemble singing Janequin’s hit cri, Les Cris de Paris:
This is not easy listening Renaissance (nor easy listening modern) music. I recall Janie being a little disappointed, awarding a low relaxation score despite the high fascination score and very high “talent” score for this ensemble, always excellent.
But I’m sticking to booking mostly sacred music from this Renaissance period (early 16th century) for Janie from now on. Ensemble Clément Janequin do plenty of that too.
Wigmore Hall on-line rubric doesn’t go back quite this far, but I have lifted the following text, which is also in the programme, from www.concert-diary.com – click here:
Il siglo d’oro – the Golden Age – was the name that Spaniards gave to their great flowering of music in the 16th century. Spain brought forth some of the finest writers of the age and the Virgin Mary was a popular subject with all of them. Francisco Guerrero was known as el cantor de Maria. Much of his highly characterful music was dedicated to the Virgin, from well-crafted four-part pieces to the more splendid double-choir numbers.
This fascinating exploration of music from 16th-century Spain sets Guerrero alongside his contemporaries and colleagues Morales, Esquivel, Vivanco, Alonso Lobo and the brightest star of all, Tomas Luis da Victoria.
The idea of this concert sounded great to me but not so great to Janie (or at least not for a Monday night in those days), so I made a rare trip to the Wig on my own that Monday night.
A simply delightful concert at the Wigmore Hall. Mostly Pergolesi with a bit of Vivaldi thrown in for good measure.
Janie is especially partial to the Pergolesi Stabat Mater. His less well-known Salve Regina and the instrumental pieces were beautiful. In fact the whole concert was utter tonic for our ears.
Florilegium always look as though they enjoy playing together…for all we know they might be masters of deception on stage and like a nest of vipers in the green room…but we suspect that they are as they seem – a serene, coherent unit.
They were promoting their Pergolesi CD at that time and nearly coaxed me into buying yet another disc, but I do already have a couple of complete Pergolesi Stabat Mater recordings.
Here is a very interesting promotional sample from YouTube, with some of the performers explaining the music:
Oh what the heck, that Pergolesi album of theirs is only £8 as an MP3 download and those other Pergolesi pieces were stunningly beautiful. As I write in November 2017, down it all comes like magic through the ether to my computer!
I have scraped that review to Ogblog just in case – here.
We were really impressed with Olivia Chaney, who confessed to being relatively inexperienced as a concert performer in 2010. I’m glad, writing in 2017, that it seems to be going well for her at this stage – click here.
Z/Yen team events on the whole tended to be sports-oriented affairs. Cricket, tennis, horse racing…sometimes watching, sometimes playing, sometimes both.
Becky Dawson, our resident musician-cum-administrator, suggested that something musical as an activity event would make a welcome change. We agreed, suggesting that if she organised it, we’d do it.
