Category: Music

Academy Of Ancient Music Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 17 August 1998

This amazing concert was the culmination of a most enjoyable day off in South Kensington, which started with baroque music at the V&A at lunchtime…

BBC Proms Lunchtime Concert, Victoria & Albert Museum, 17 August 1998

…and got better from there.

The “big Prom” in the evening was really quite special. Here is a link to the BBC stub.

We heard:

  • George Frideric Handel – Coronation Anthem ‘The king shall rejoice’
  • Johann Sebastian Bach – Violin Concerto in E major
  • George Frideric Handel – Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major, No. 1 (Overture:) Andante – Allegro
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major, No. 2 Alla hornpipe
  • George Frideric Handel – Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major, No. 1 Sarabande (Minuet)
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major, No. 2 Rigaudon (Presto)
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major, No. 4 Lentement
  • George Frideric Handel – Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major,  No. 5 Air (Bourrée)
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major, No. 3 Minuets 1 & 2
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 3 in G major, No. 4 Gigue (Country Dance)
  • George Frideric Handel  – Water Music – Suite No. 2 in D Major, No. 3 (Trumpet) Minuet
  • George Frideric Handel  – Coronation Anthem ‘Zadok the Priest’
  • Antonio Vivaldi – Nulla in mundo pax sincera, RV 630 (Proms premiere)
  • Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto for Violin, Two Oboes, Two Horns, Cello and Bassoon in F major, RV 571 (Proms premiere)
  • George Frideric Handel – Sing unto God, HWV 263 (Proms premiere)

I’m not usually too keen on baroque in the Albert Hall, but this worked.

Matthew Rye gave it a good write up in The Telegraph:

Prom 39 1998 Rye TelegraphProm 39 1998 Rye Telegraph 18 Aug 1998, Tue The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

We agree.

BBC Proms Lunchtime Concert, Victoria & Albert Museum, 17 August 1998

Victoria & Albert Museum by Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0

We took a Monday off work to enjoy a lunchtime concert at the V&A, then meander around that space and then go to the evening Prom at the Royal Albert hall.

This was the lunchtime concert:

  • Francesco Gasparini – Quanto sei penosa
  • Arcangelo Corelli – 12 Trio Sonatas, Op 1 No. 9 in G major
  • Innocenzo Fede – Bellezze voi siete
  • Innocenzo Fede – Sei pur dolce
  • Innocenzo Fede – Violin Sonata in D minor
  • Alessandro Scarlatti – Correa nel seno amato

London Baroque was the chamber orchestra, with Charles Medlam leading and Catherine Bott beautifully belting the soprano bits.

Nice. Here is a link to the BBC stub for this concert.

To be clear we really enjoyed the concert and indeed our whole day.

London Philharmonic Orchestra Doing The Lenningrad Symphony And More At The Royal Festival Hall, 19 October 1997

For reasons no-one (not even herself) can explain, Janie is quite partial to Shostakovich, yet cannot abide Prokofiev.

Anyway, a client offered Janie a pair of fine seats at this concert and we said yes.

According to my log, we:

bumped into John and Angela [Kessler] there.

From memory, we encountered cousin Angela and John, rather than actually having a collision with them. I don’t think I knew, at that time, that Angela was on the Board of the LPO and I suspect that Angela and John were too polite to mention that fact.

We heard:

  • Bernd Alois Zimmerman – Trumpet Concerto “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See”
  • Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No 7 in C, Op 60 “Lenningrad”

Janie and I loved the Leningrad Symphony as performed that night by the LPO under the baton of Kurt Masur. I didn’t see the following review at the time, but Brian Hunt in The Torygraph bore out our assessment – he absolutely loved this concert:

LPO Shostakovich Hunt TelegraphLPO Shostakovich Hunt Telegraph 25 Oct 1997, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A belated thank you to the kind donor of our brace of tickets, who I think went globetrotting or something of that kind instead. Look what you missed.

Midori Chamber Evening, Barbican Hall, 27 September 1997

This might well have been another pair of hand-me-down tickets from one of Janie’s wealthy, music-loving, globe-trotting clients. Or perhaps Jilly at that time. My log is silent on the matter. It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing I’d have booked myself.

No matter – it was a very good concert, in that Midori is/was quite a special talent, who emerged as a child prodigy in the 1980s, then withdrew from public performance in the mid 1990s and since then occasionally reappeared. This was during one of her reappearance phases.

It was good to see her perform chamber style rather than with a big orchestra, although most of her concerts on that tour, by the looks of it, were big concerto stuff. In truth the Barbican Hall is not ideal for smaller scale works, but still it worked.

We heard:

  • Claude Debussy – Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano
  • Maurice Ravel – Sonata for Violin and Cello
  • Camille Saint-Saens – Fantaisie for Violin and Harp in A Major, Op 124
  • Gabriel Faure – Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello No 1 in C Minor, Op 15

I remember especially enjoying the violin & harp piece. Very charming. Here are some other people performing that Saint-Saens work.

Beethoven & Bruckner, European Community Youth Orchestra Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 9 September 1997

Another trip to the Proms with The Duchess (Janie’s mum) to see the European Community Youth Orchestra. The Duchess had a bit of a thing about youth orchestras.

This concert, under the baton of Bernard Haitink, was surely interesting if for no other reason than that. A great opportunity to see the great man.

We heard:

  • Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major
  • Anton Bruckner – Symphony No 7 in E major

Emanual Ax tinkled the ivories in the first piece of the night.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this event.

I don’t think this was the best rendition of Bruckner 7 I have ever seen…nor even the best rendition by Haitink, as we returned three years later to see the great man perform the same piece again, with the Berlin Philharmonic that time…but I think the following panning by Rick Jones in the Standard is a bit unfair.

Haitink EUYO Jones StandardHaitink EUYO Jones Standard 10 Sep 1997, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

In those days such a treat tended to pacify The Duchess for a while, so in that sense it will have been a success.

Dvorak, Lutoslawski & Brahms At the Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 30 August 1997

I think The Duchess must have chosen this one. I don’t remember her being partial to a bit of Brahms, but she must have been. I am quite partial to Brahms too.

We heard:

  • Antonín Dvořák – Overture ‘Carnival’
  • Witold Lutosławski – Cello Concerto
  • Johannes Brahms – Symphony No 1 in C minor

The BBC stub for this prom can be seen by clicking here.

In truth I don’t remember this particular concert well. I was familiar with the Dvorak and Brahms pieces but not the Lutoslawski one. I’m not sure I am much the wiser having heard it.

Rick Jones was impressed:

Tadaaki Jones StandardTadaaki Jones Standard 01 Sep 1997, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Scottish Orchestra Does Russian (& Georgian) Composers At The Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 3 August 1997

This was our one visit to the Proms that season away from the clutches of The Duchess. I had fallen into the habit of treating her to one ort wo Proms each season, by that time. Janie and I occasionally also went to something of our own choosing.

On this occasion, I think the programme looked unusual and yet approachable. Alexander Lazarev conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. I wanted to hear Francesca da Rimini performed live and Janie had acquired a taste for countertenor singing. Plus some unusual pieces.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

We heard:

  • Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka – Capriccio brillante (on the Jota Aragonesa)
  • Sergey Prokofiev – Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor
  • Giya Kancheli – Symphony No. 3
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Francesca da Rimini
  • Alexander Glazunov – Raymonda, Op 57 No. 26 Grand pas espagnol Act 2- encore
  • Trad. – Eightsome (reel) – encore

What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. Nothing went wrong. Although in truth, I don’t recall much about the lesser-known pieces and I cannot for the life of me work out where the countertenor fits in with this collection of pieces. Janie cemented her view that she didn’t like Prokofiev and that big symphony orchestra concerts were not really her favourite thing. Still, we both very much enjoyed our evening.

Here’s what the Glinka sounds like:

Here’s a good recording of the Prokofiev.

The Kancheli is strange yet certainly haunting:

I really enjoyed the Francesca da Rimini. Here is a more recent version of it from The Royal Festival Hall, but you’ll get the idea:

Dig this little bit of the Glazunov:

Fine composer, was Trad. Should have paired up with Anon – they could have been the Lennon and McCartney of the 11th to 19th centuries. Yet Janie insisted that the final encore was Trad’s “Tiresome Reel” rather than Eightsome Reel. I kinda see her point:

Geoffrey Norris in The Telegraph wrote very fondly of this Prom:

Lazarev Prom Norris TelegraphLazarev Prom Norris Telegraph 04 Aug 1997, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Robert Cowan in the Independent also waxed lyrical about this Prom:

Lazarev Prom Cowan IndyLazarev Prom Cowan Indy 05 Aug 1997, Tue The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Rick Jones was less impressed in The Standard. I’m not quite sure what he means by an errrant electronic high-pitched note. Janie would argue that Prokofiev is meant to sound like that.

Lazarev Prom Jones StandardLazarev Prom Jones Standard 04 Aug 1997, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Carmen by Georges Bizet, English National Opera At London Coliseum, 26 June 1997

I think I have the programme somewhere but this was on my mystery list until I found it in both our diaries while doing one of my “25 years on” trawls.

This was a “birthday treat” for Janie in which I expect i picked up the tab and Pauline, Duchess of Castlebar, graced us with her presence.

Janie’s not much one for opera but we all agreed that Carmen was a good place to really test that hypothesis. I had “done” Carmen as a small child of course – type cast as an urchin boy – another story for another Ogblog.

Anyway…

…this was the Jonathan Miller production at the ENO.

Edward Seckerson in The Independent sort-of liked it:

Carmen Edward Seckerson IndyCarmen Edward Seckerson Indy 15 Sep 1995, Fri The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Geroge Norris in The Telegraph loved it:

Carmen Geoffrey Norris TelegraphCarmen Geoffrey Norris Telegraph 16 Sep 1995, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

While Kate Kellaway in The Observer didn’t like it:

Carmen Kate Kellaway ObserverCarmen Kate Kellaway Observer 17 Sep 1995, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

I think we were fairly indifferent to the production. It certainly wasn’t as good as the Putney Operatic Society’s version 25 years earlier…I wasn’t in it for a start.

Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band, Barbican Hall, 8 June 1997

This was a weird but memorably fun evening.

Janie had known Laurie & (especially) Dot Johnson for a great many years – the latter being one of Janie’s clients.

Laurie was very well known in show business and media circles, primarily for writing TV theme tunes such as the following, which Janie and I both remembered fondly from our childhoods:

In 1997, it seems that Laurie, in an attempt to stave off dotage, was launching an autumnal recording and touring career with a new combo; Laurie Johnson’s London Big Band.

Dot kindly invited us to the 8 June concert and the star-studded after show party.

We were among the youngest people in the audience that night. Actually, I think our combined ages at that time (75-ish) might still have made us among the youngest people at the show that night.

Titter ye not, people – lounge music was “a thing” that year. Further, one of Laurie Johnson’s recordings with that new combo, Theme From the Professionals, had been in the pop charts during the preceding few weeks, making the event far more of a hip event than any of us might have imagined:

Janie and I, seated among the guest celebs in that central block of seats deemed the best in the Barbican Hall, enjoyed watching the bobbing heads of the elderly concert-goers in front of us, making micro-movements in recognition of the swinging beat of the music.

Indeed, for years…nay decades after the concert, Janie and I would mimic the uber-syncopation, not least the cymbal beats, of the Big Band’s rendition of the This Is Your Life Theme:

That one seemed to go down especially well with the elderly bobbing-head brigade.

The after show party was very enjoyable. I guess that we technically met a great many celebs: Laurie Johnson, Ron Moody, Jack Parnell, Don Lusher, Kenny Baker, Benny Green and Tommy Whittle were all on the bill…

…as was a lovely young woman named Alexia, who was a singing waitress at a restaurant that Laurie and Dot liked. They had taken Alexia somewhat under their wings and were promoting her through this show/tour.

Clipping from The Evening Standard 19 June 1997

We had a long chat with her – she seemed a really delightful young person – and resolved to try her Ripe Tomato eatery. To our shame never got around to eating there. It has only recently (25 years on) closed down and is only a few doors down from the All Saints Road location where we find my [Harris] family during the first world war, soon after arriving in Britain.

We didn’t meet John Dankworth & Cleo Laine that evening, much to Dot’s chagrin, as she seemed very keen for Janie to meet them, but for some reason (health we think) they were unable to attend. Nor was Lionel Bart there, possibly for the same sort of reason.

I do however remember chatting at length with Herbert Kretzmer, who was a good friend of the Johnsons and was very interesting company for quite a while at that function. Fellow lyricists and all that – me and Herbie had a great deal in common. 😉

Go on, bob your head gently to the swinging strains of the This Is Your Life theme again – you know you want to:

Just This One Visit To The Concert Hall That Year: Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 7 September 1996

I’m not sure why we went so very little in 1996 – I’m guessing we might have been preoccupied with other things when the Proms programme came out.

I don’t think this concert would have been our first choice, but Pauline liked Debussy and was convinced that Janie simply needed to work at it to find a place in her heart for Prokofiev. We tried a few times over the years and it didn’t ever work.

Valery Gergiev, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, would certainly have been a draw.

Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom.

We heard:

  • Sergey Prokofiev – Symphony No 6 in E flat minor
  • Modest Mussorgsky – The Nursery (arr. Edison Denisov)
  • Claude Debussy – La Mer

Here’s what Nicholas Williams thought about it in the Indy:

Gergiev Proms Williams Indy 1 of 2Gergiev Proms Williams Indy 1 of 2 11 Sep 1996, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com Gergiev Prom Williams Indy 2 of 2Gergiev Prom Williams Indy 2 of 2 11 Sep 1996, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com