A delicious concert of baroque, mostly sacred, music at The Wig. We had thrown ourselves into the baroque season that year, venturing even on a Wednesday evening, which was usually off limits in our busy lives back then. I recall that the effort was well worth it.
We heard:
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer – Sonata no 8 in G
Sebastian Knüpfer – Wenn Mein Stundlein Vorhanden Ist
Johann Sebastian Bach – Mass in G Minor, BWV 235
Johann Sebastian Bach – Mass in G Major, BWV 236
Georg Muffat – Sonata ‘a cinque’ in D
Johann Kuhnau – Tristis Est Anima Mea
Back then, The King’s Consort was a bit of an “all stars” affair in the early music world, with Carolyn Sampson, Rebecca Outram, Charles Daniels and Andrew Carwood, to name but four, all appearing under Robert King’s banner.
Some unusual pieces in there too. Let’s see if I can dig out some tasty samples. Here’s a sweet performance of the Schmelzer by Ensemble Masques
The Knüpfer was part of The King’s Consort’s recording projects around that time. Here is their recording:
The first of the Bach Masses at the centre of this concert, BWV 235, has been beautifully recorded live by the Netherlands Bach Society.
Here is Herreweghe’s version of the Kyrie from the Bach Mass BWV 236. You can load and click through for the whole of this mass if you wish:
The King’s Consort had also recently recorded the Kuhnau a couple of years before this concert. Here is their beautiful recording.
Crumbs, Janie and I went to the Wigmore Hall to see a lot of baroque concerts that season. Here’s another one we rated as:
superb.
Kontrabande were terrific. Had they been 1970s rock rather than 17th & 18th century baroque they might have been described as a supergroup. Dig this list of great names:
Charles Humphries,
Clare Salaman,
Jane Norman,
Katherine McGillivray,
Richard Campbell,
William Hunt,
Laurence Cummings,
James Johnstone,
Elizabeth Kenny.
This is what they played that night:
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for strings and basso continuo in D minor RV 128
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Vestro Principi divino” RV 633
Antonio Caldara – Sonata a tre Op 1 No 5
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Stabat Mater RV 621
Antonio Caldara – Cantata “Soffri, mio caro Alcino”
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Lute in D major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Nisi Dominus”
I couldn’t find any YouTubes of Kontraband on-line, but the following one of Caldara sonatas and cantatas is very pleasing to the ear – I’d forgotten how much Caldara’s music pleased us that night:
A pair of baroque concerts over that weekend – Friday evening and Saturday evening. We chose to go and see both. It was part of a series named “Bach & His Contemporaries”.
I logged that Janie and I both described the concerts as:
superb.
On the Friday evening we saw/heard:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Trio Sonata in G for violin, flute and continuo
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer – Chaconne in D minor for solo harpsicord
Diderik Buxtehude – Sonata in B flat for violin and viola da gamba Op 1 no 4 BuxWV255
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in B minor for flute and harpsicord, BWV 1030
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – Passacaglia for solo violin
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in G minor for viola da gamba and harpsicord, BWV 1029
Johann Sebastian Bach – Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering, BWB 1079
On the Saturday evening we heard:
Georg Philipp Telemann – Suite in A minor for recorder and strings
Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto in C for two harpsicords, BWV 1061
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in G for violin and harpsicord, BWV 1019
Sylvius Leopold Weiss – Tombeau sur le mort de M Comte de Logy
Johann Sebastian Bach – Orchestral Suite no 2 in B minor
Trevor Pinnock, Rachel Podger and some of the others recorded the Bach trio sonatas that year. I have put together a playlist on YouTube Music which includes those lovely sonatas and some other pieces from the January 2000 weekend – click here to listen to that playlist. Don’t be put off by the strike through on the link – anyone can hear the playlist but you will get adverts if you are not yourself a YouTube Music subscriber.
If you prefer to just click the odd embed, here is one of the Bach sonatas we heard Trevor and Rachel play:
I wasn’t familiar with the work of JCF Fischer. Here’s Trevor Pinnock playing Fischer’s passacaglia, not the chaconne we heard. Still lovely:
Here are some other people playing (part of) the Telemann Overture/Suite that we heard:
The Weiss piece was a delicious listen. Here is Evangelina Mascardi giving it a go.
We heard William Carter play the Weiss at that January 2000 concert, long before Janie’s “mystery punter” evening at the same venue:
“Wachet Auf” means “Wake Up!”, which was possibly an early call for wokery back in the Baroque period…or possibly not. In any case, I wouldn’t recommend English speakers barking this German language expletive after a couple of G&Ts – it might be misunderstood.
We rated this gig “very good”. Some lesser known works by Bach’s lesser known contemporaries, sandwiched between a bit of Telemann and a bit of Bach:
Ouverture “Perpetuum Mobile”, Georg Philipp Telemann
Balletti Lamentabili a 4, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
O Heilige Zeit, Johann Kuhnau
Sinfonia No 2 in C Minor, Johann Ludwig Krebs
Wachet Auf, Ruft Uns die Strimme Cantata BWV 140, Johann Sebastian Bach
Here is O Heilige Zeit performed by Solomon’s Knot:
Here is the Krebs Sinfonia, performed by Capella jenensis:
Here is a recording of Wachet Auf by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman…
…whom we saw 25 years later performing Telemann sonatas and Tafelmusik at The Wig:
Excellent concert, this. Sonnerie was a superb but fluid ensemble, led by the indomitable Monica Huggett.
On this occasion they comprised Monica Huggett, Gary Cooper, Wilbert Hazelzet, Pamela Thorby, Catherine Latham, Katherine McGillivray, Catherine Martin, Emilia Benjamin, Alison McGillivray and Sarah Groser.
Here is the playlist from the gig:
Jean-Philippe Rameau – Pieces de clavecin en concerts No 3 in A major
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, Oboe d’amore, Viola d’amore, Strings and Continuo in E major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo in D major (“Il Grosso Mogul”) RV208
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, recorder, Strings and Continuo in E minor
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata No 1 for Violin and Harpsicord in B minor BWV 1014
Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto for Harpsicord, 2 Recorders, Strings and Continuo in F major BWV 1057
Here is a clip from an earlier but lovely recording of the E major Telemann piece, which includes Monica Huggett with the Academy of Ancient Music
While here is a lovely video of Ensemble Odyssee playing the Bach concerto we heard that evening:
We both went straight from work and both had early starts the next morning, so I guess we supped light at Sandall Close after the gig.
A memorable evening at the Proms, just a few days after our previous memorable visit. A rare midweek booking for us, but the promise of Evgeny Kissin, Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra was too tempting to miss.
Again we had The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us.
The programme was two big pieces:
Frédéric Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)
I hadn’t seen Evgeny Kissin before but had heard about him. Janie thought he was excessively flamboyant – a complaint she has about many star pianists.
Anyway, here is a video of Mehta conducting Kissin performing an extract from this piece some years later – this time with the Israel Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra:
The Duchess thought Kissin’s cadenzas were absolutely wonderful but she thought him “rude” or “self-centred” doing encores ahead of the interval on a night with such a long programme. Takes one to know one.
The encores were Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major and Scherzo in B flat minor, seeing as you asked…
…OK, you didn’t ask. But my mum loved that Polonaise and she would have got all excited about the young Evgeny Kissin had she been there and heard him play it a bit like this:
In truth, we did hear some people saying that they would have to leave before the second half, because they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get home, which was a real shame for those people.
While stretching our legs during the interval, we ran into my cousins, Angela and John Kessler, who were very keen on Kissin and also eagerly looking forward to seeing Zubin Mehta and the Bavarians wrestle with Anton Bruckner for 80 minutes or so after the interval.
The Duchess seemed most displeased that we had run into some people that we knew, preventing her from being the centre of attention for five minutes or so.
The Bruckner was certainly worth the wait. I had seen this symphony performed several times before but sense that this evening was the best performance I have seen.
Here is an extract of Mehta conducting the Bruckner Symphony, but on this occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Returning to our memorable evening, here is Erica Jeal’s review of that evening from The Guardian. Good to see Kissin and Mehta getting three stars while Whitney Houston only got two.
While Michael Kennedy in the Sunday Telegraph seemed less sure about Zubin Mehta than we were, comparing him, perhaps unfavourably, with Bernard Haitink and Günter Wand. I’m a lucky fellow, as I have seen all three of them conduct Bruckner 8.
Knowing that the concert would finish late and that we both had an early start the next day, I sense that we did not go out to dinner after this one. Janie had probably prepared some cold compilations for us to munch, with a glass of wine, when we got home.
Janie also very sensibly had arranged for Jill Wooton to come and give us both a massage at home on the Friday evening. Two nights out with The Duchess in five days, with plenty of work in between, we sure both would have needed the massages and sure both had earned them.
Diary says that we went to Andrea’s BBQ party on the Saturday evening (a rather good one at her house in Shepherd’s Bush, if I remember correctly) and then to Mum & Dad’s for tea on the Sunday. We didn’t hang about back then.
Another quirky and memorable concert at The Proms. We took The Duchess Of Castlebar (Janie’s mum) with us to this one, as we thought she would like the Piazzolla. Possibly she did. You didn’t tend to get positive feedback from the Duchess back then and nothing has changed in 25 years, as I write in 2024.
Janie and I were fascinated by this concert. Janie was already keen on Piazzolla and this helped cement that interest.
Here’s what we heard:
Giya Kancheli – V & V
Arvo Pärt – Tabula rasa
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 1 in E Major, RV 269
Astor Piazzoll – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Verano porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 2 in G minor, RV 315
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Otoño porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 3 in F Major, RV 293
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Invierno porteño
Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 4 in F minor, RV 297
Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Primavera porteña
Peter Heidrich – Variations on ‘Happy Birthday’
Alexander Bakshi – The Unanswered Call
Fiona Maddocks briefly wrote up the concert in The Observer:
This was a super way to kick off a bank holiday weekend. Janie and I had taken the day off work. No sign in the diaries of us eating out – perhaps we ate at Sandall Close and then jumped in the car to go to Kensington.
Interesting concert – Janie is partial to a bit of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, so that would have been the clincher. The other three pieces were rare items, all of which were getting their Proms premier that night.
Francesco Durante – Concerto No. 4 in E minor
Antonio Vivaldi – Filiae maestae Jerusalem, RV 638
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer – Concerto No. 5 in F minor
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Stabat mater
Here’s a beautiful recording of Andreas Scholl singing the Vivaldi piece (with a different orchestra), embedded from Andreas Scholl’s YouTube Channel:
I cannot find a review of the concert we heard, but I can find a most interesting preview in The Telegraph, including an interview with the Scholl siblings:
As Andreas himself says, the Royal Albert Hall is far from perfect acoustically for baroque music, but it does have a unique atmosphere of its own. This concert was a good one.
Liberated from hosting The Duchess at The Proms, Janie and I went along to this concert on a Sunday evening planning nothing more than a light supper at my flat after the show. It was a Sunday evening and we both had ridiculously early starts the next morning.
Here’s the running order:
Johann Sebastian Bach, Singet dem Herrn, BWV 225
Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 49 in F minor ‘La passione’
Joseph Haydn, Non nobis, Domine, Hob. XXIIIa:1
Joseph Haydn, Insanae et vanae curae
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Requiem in D minor (compl. Süssmayr).
This was an excellent concert. You don’t need to take my word for that – it seems it got rave reviews afterwards. It has taken me 25 years to check out those rave reviews, but that’s me.
