Category: Music

Three Nights Out In A Row, Culminating With Homayoun Shajarian & Dastan Ensemble at Cadogan Hall, 6 February 2008

Barbat Credit to Galassi at the English language Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Barbat
Credit to Galassi at the English language Wikipedia
CC BY-SA 3.0

It was a bit of a social whirl early that week, with two work-related evenings Monday and Tuesday, then an interesting concert Wednesday.

Monday 4 February PEFC Evening at the House of Lord’s

This was a dinner organised by the Programme For the Endorsement of Forestry Certification Schemes (PEFC) about the world’s forest resources. In truth, I don’t remember all that much about the evening. We (Z/Yen and an expert panel) were doing a governance review with PEFC at the time. This event coincided neatly with a day in London with the governance review panel, most of whom attended the dinner in the evening.

I have a vague feeling that Zac Goldsmith might have been the guest speaker for this one, or perhaps I am getting confused with a different evening at the Palace of Westminster. Anyway, my e-mail trail suggests that the evening was a great success.

Tuesday 5 February Monique Gore Evening at the Kiwi Kitchen

This was a fun informal works outing organised by Monique ahead of a relatively long holiday in her native New Zealand.  We went to the Kiwi Kitchen on the North End Road – sadly now closed. It was a fun place and I recall the food being pretty good too. The only on-line Trip Advisor review that I can find (most have been closed down along with the restaurant) says:

“Perfect food, wonderful value for money”
5 of 5 starsReviewed 17 April 2009

Following a trip to New Zealand in January, we were missing the flavours of NZ and since we were in London decided to try out this restaurant. What an absolute gem!!
The food is cooked to perfection and the portion sizes are more than adequate – if you decide to go I would suggest taking a very large appetite!…

My abiding memory was that we had a large contingent of the Z/Yen crowd, not least the UNISON team. Coincidentally, the restaurant had a Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc named Unison on the wine list, which I decided we simply had to choose to mark the occasion. It was pretty good wine too.

I wonder whether Monique took any pictures that evening – she often did – if so, I’ll subsequently up one or two of them if she is good enough to provide them.

Wednesday 6 February – Homayoun Shajarian & Dastan Ensemble at Cadogan Hall

Janie and I were keen to try this Persian classical music, so we made an unusual decision to see a concert on a Wednesday evening (Janie treats patients at home on Wednesdays, so is a reluctant traveller into central London for the evening on a Wednesday).

This concert was worth the trip, not least to see/hear unusual instruments such a the barbat and tar (lute-type instruments), kamancheh (a spiky fiddle), tanbak, dayereh, daf, dammam & kuzeh (percussion instruments).

The Dastan Ensemble – click here for website – are a leading ensemble in their field. A fair chunk of London’s Iranian community turned out for this concert, plus a sizeable minority of interested folk like ourselves. Not all of the audience was reverent in the way a European audience would be for classical music; for example quite a few people moved around or made noise during pieces. Similarly, the ensemble had little sense of London concert timing etiquette, performing several encores and thus keeping us at the hall till well after 10:00 if I recall correctly.

We won’t be rushing to see Persian classical again in a hurry; it didn’t float our boat to the same extent as Indian classical (for example) does. But we were both glad to have tried it, even in the middle of a busy week.

The King’s Consort, Bach and Vivaldi Violin Concertos, Wigmore Hall, 31 December 2007

Kings Consort 31 Dec 2007

We’d made a bit of a tradition of going to the new years eve concert at the Wigmore Hall and see in the new year quietly at the flat if we liked the look of the concert. We certainly liked the look of this one when we booked it, many months before.

Between us booking it and the concert date, Robert King of the eponymous King’s Consort was jailed for indecent assault. Unaccustomed as we were to such occurrences in our favourite baroque ensembles, we wondered what might happen to our concert. It turned out that Matthew Halls, the harpsichordist, took over as the director temporarily and would lead our concert.

It all felt a bit odd and of course the programme was silent on the matter of Robert King’s absence, but still it was a good concert if I recall correctly. I can’t find any reviews and the Wigmore Hall archive stubs don’t go back that far. But they are a very accomplished group of musicians and they attract some top notch soloists, so the quality of the performances wasn’t really a surprise.

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Berlin Philharmonie Großer Saal, 28 October 2007

So, we’re in Berlin having a short break – summarised here.

We have a chance to see one of our favourite visiting orchestras at the Wigmore Hall, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, play at home for once, at the Berlin Philharmonie.

Did they score? Of course they scored – they were playing at home.

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It was an afternoon concert – the Philharmonie looked like this when we came out after the gig.

This was a Vivaldi fest – three of Antonio’s big choral works, with the RIAS Kammerchor doing the singing:

  • Magnificat RV 611
  • Dixit Dominus RV 594
  • Beatus vir RV 597

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Very suitable hall for this sort of big work and a great occasion for us as part of our short break.

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One of the highlights of our short trip to Berlin, for sure.

I couldn’t resist buying a couple of Akademie CDs on the day, both of which have had plenty of play as it happens, certainly avoiding the “doesn’t travel well; I suppose it is a souvenir” pitfall:

I know, we heard Vivaldi on the day, not Bach. But I have good recordings of those Vivaldi works, I wanted to hear some good Bach recordings by that orchestra. OK?

David Greilsammer, Wigmore Hall, 12 October 2007

This concert was sponsored by the Tabor Foundation, so Janie and I went along and hoity-toitied with Michael and Doreen Tabor, plus Angela Broad and I think Catriona Oliphant was also there that evening.

Greilsammer_0002
Better yet, read the Classical Source Piece – click the picture

Anyway, this was a young musician concert and a very impressive young pianist is/was David Greilsammer. I can only find one preview of this concert – in the Telegraph – click here.

This review in Classical Source is enthusiastic and helpful – click here.

Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring Anthony Braxton, supported by Polar Bear, Royal Festival Hall, 8 July 2007

Oh dear!

We had enjoyed some real success fairly randomly booking jazz concerts and both felt that we wanted to broaden our jazz horizons yet further. We didn’t know what music from the “Free Jazz Movement” sounded like, but when paired with terms such as “avant-garde jazz” and “controversial”, we thought that the Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring acclaimed saxophonist Anthony Braxton might really be for us.

Better still, with my South Bank Centre membership and early booking, there were box seats to be had. Neither of us had ever tried the boxes at the Royal Festival Hall before.

Better yet, on the night itself, we really enjoyed the support band, Polar Bear, also billed as “experimental”. I remember the spokesperson between numbers introducing one piece they were working on, entitled “Lente”, because his Italian girlfriend would use the word “eccellente”, shortened to “lente”, all the time. I remember this, because Daisy and I to this day sometimes use this term to express a big yes. It all seemed well cool.

Great, we thought, this is our sort of Jazz. We were really excited during the interval. If the support band is that good, the main act must be unbelievable.

It was unbelievable, but not in the way we’d hoped.

What a noise. It really is hard for me to describe it. Frenzied. Lacking melody and tone for simple folk like us to engage with. Perhaps past its peak. Perhaps absolutely at its peak – can’t help you there – we really couldn’t tell. A Jazz Geek describes it here. A detailed piece from All About Jazz explains how historic and excellent (lente?) it all was. Possibly quite peaky, then.

There is an old adage about jazz that it is the only form of music where the musicians are enjoying themselves more than the audience. Perhaps that adage was especially written for the Free Jazz Movement.

At least we can say that we have seen Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton perform together, historically. Perhaps in our dotage this fact will enable us to come across as incredibly seasoned and sophisticated Jazz aficionados. Wide-eyed youngsters might gather round to hear us describe our experiences; “we suffered for our art back in the day, children, my how we suffered.”

Of course, this “free jazz” concert wasn’t free at all. £35 a ticket (for some reason I kept the tickets) – worth the price of admission for the more modern, experimental and accessible Polar Bear alone. Perhaps the old 1950s movement was known as Free Jazz because no-one in their right mind would pay to hear it.

Still, those box seats proved to be a boon for us. After enduring 40-45 minutes of the Cecil Taylor set (each number was quite long and we were determined to check this out properly), we concluded that we would get no more out of this experience. Those box seats enabled us to make a quick escape between numbers almost imperceptibly and without disturbing other patrons.

Free at last, free at last…

Academy of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 20 June 2007

I’m not sure why we feel this way, but we sense something a little cliquey and clinical about the Academy of Ancient Music – perhaps it is the corporate-style branding.

The music of course is beautiful.  Not quite sure why I chose this particular serving of fairly standard baroque concert fare, especially on an inconvenient Wednesday night for Janie.  I think I might have been itching to hear the BWV1042 violin concerto live and wondering about Locatelli.

We enjoyed it all well enough.

 

AAM 20 June 2007

Carlos Perez, Purcell Room, 1 June 2007

This geezer could play.

Janie was on one of her classical guitar kicks at that time (pretty much perennial, they are, but she was especially on one of those that year), so we booked this Purcell Room concert, even for a Friday night.

It was very much part of a cultural programme through the Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Society (LACCS) and the Chilean Embassy, so the great and the good from the Chilean community were out in force.

Friday evening after work, but the stresses of the week soon faded away as we listened to this wonderful music.

Did I mention that this geezer could play?  Well, you can decide for yourself, as the LACCS maintains an amazing archive – so you can hear some clips on this link…

…or if you would simply like to look at the programme and the programme notes, the LACCS has spared me the trouble of amateurish scanning by providing the programme here.  Jolly decent of them, as my dad would have put it.

Tom Kerstens, Wigmore Hall, 27 May 2007

We were supposed to see someone else.  Was it Paco Pena?  Juan Martin? Yet another well-known guitarist?

Anyway, we weren’t supposed to see Tom Kerstens.

Had we known his relative quality, we’d have accepted the offer of our money back rather than persevered with a Sunday evening concert substitute.  But we thought, heck, give the fellow a try.  Oh dear.

Still, we’d had a corker of a month in the theatre and music department until this point.  Here’s the programme (yes, really) – let’s draw a veil.

Tom Kerstens

Ensemble La Fenice, A Pilgrimage To Santiago, St John’s Smith Square, 21 May 2007

Wow, we loved this concert.

The last of our visits to the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music that year, this one really inspired us.  It comprises religious baroque music from the places people would visit on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.

The lovely Arianna Savall sang and played the renaissance harp.  She is the daughter of Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras.

So insired by this concert were we, that we made our own “pilgrimage to Santiago” the following spring, after visiting nephew Paul in Barcelona – click here for our pictures of Santiago.

Disappointing though, was the fact that we were unable to buy a recording of the music we heard.  All that was available for purchase on the night was mum and dad’s “Homenatge Al Misteri D’Elx – La Vespra” – interesting music but not the beautiful stuff we heard that night.

Surprised and delighted was I, therefore, to discover just now, while researching this blog piece, Ensemble La Fenice/Arianna Savall released a recording of the very stuff we heard that night, a mere four years after our concert.  I immediately purchased and downloaded the album and am listening to it as I write.  It really is lovely music.

Ensemble La Fenice

La Risonanza, St John’s Smith Square, 11 May 2007

Just two days after our last visit to the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music, we’re back to see another.  Janie is a sucker for a countertenor and we are both suckers for visiting European baroque troupes we haven’t heard before.

Typically of SJSS and its artistes, the fabulously-named Fabio Bonizzoni can only sell us recordings of the Scarlatti stuff we heard performed by other people a couple of days ago.

Still, I buy that CD and some other La Risonanza stuff.  We were neither disappointed by the concert nor by the CDs.

Fabio and La Risonanza rock.  Guest singers Roberta Invernizzi, Emanuela Galli, Xavier Sabata also rock.

Well, they don’t rock, let’s be honest, they are baroque musicians, none of them rock.  But this was a really enjoyable concert.

Here’s the stuff they played us that night:

La Risonanza 11 May 2007