Category: Music

The Mysterious Motet Book of 1539, Siglo De Oro, Wigmore Hall, 8 October 2022

The concert and talk were partly promoting this album – naturally we obliged on the day.

We attended this very tasty lunchtime concert and pre-concert discussion.

The noon-time discussion was between Patrick Allies, the artistic director of Siglo De Oro and Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter, the academic whose work on the context and musical transcription of this “Mysterious Motet Book of 1539″initiated the project.

I found the information about the development of part books as printing became widespread in the Renaissance and the distinction between Protestant and Catholic liturgical music at the time of the Reformation fascinating.

“Cantiones quinque vocum selectissimae,” CRIM, accessed October 8, 2022, https://ricercar.crim.cesr.univ-tours.fr/items/show/3366

Less convincing, to me, was the “mystery” aspect of the project, the conceit of which is, if I might paraphrase, “why might a publisher such as Peter Schöffer the Younger choose to publish a music book of Latin liturgical songs from Milan…in Strasbourg, which was, by 1539, a strongly Protestant town?”

It is well documented that King Ferdinand of Germany granted Schöffer a specific privilege to publish these works. Further, as Daniel Trocmé-Latter himself states in his book on the Singing of Strasbourg Protestants, Schöffer dedicates the publication to Ferdinand with a glowing dedication listing the King’s many titles and exalting him. It seems reasonable to guess that King Ferdinand wanted Schöffer to publish this work in Strasbourg and that Schöffer might have received some favour or favours from the King for doing so.

Keep King Ferdy onside for goodness sake

I was most excited when I worked out that King Ferdinand I was the great-great-great-great grandson of Philip The Bold, whose musical adventures I had been scouring and talking about only a few weeks ago:

Philip The Bold: Wine, Tennis & Song – A Performance Symposium First Presented At The Real Tennis Society Conference During The World Championships,  Prested Hall, 13 September 2022

Much like his illustrious Burgundian ancestors, Ferdinand seems to have been interested in tennis as well as music. Ferdinand was also evidently impressed by Milanese cultural style in several ways, not just liturgical music. He was also, reputationally, a conciliator between Protestants and the Catholics in his lands.

Still, if the purpose of promoting this music as “a mysterious publication” is as conduit for wonderful concerts and premier recordings of several of the pieces form the motet book…bring it on! It’s a thriller.

Here is a link to the concert programme.

The music in the concert was lovely. Janie and I both loved it. They mixed and matched between motets from that 1539 book and some more familiar, later pieces, e.g. by Byrd and Tallis, by way of contrast and comparison, which worked well musically.

Siglo de Oro don’t put much in the public domain, but the sample below is downloadable from the website plugging the album, so you might as well hear Johannes Lupi: Apparens Christus below before you click through and buy the almum.

Lovely, eh?

Enough rabbit from me – it’s time to eat some dinner and listen to that lovely CD we bought as we left the Wigmore Hall.

A Sojourn To Prested Hall For Play, Talk and Watching Tennis & Stuff, 12 to 14 September 2022

I played some real tennis (& padel), I spoke at the Real Tennis Society Conference, I watched four sets of the World Championship (the middle day) and had a thoroughly good time.

The idea, from my perspective, was hatched in May, while I was playing in the Lowenthal Trophy Tournament at Queen’s.

Finally…Unprecedented Success At Tennis, The Queen’s Club, 11 May & 27 May 2022

Frederika (Freddy) Adam tapped me up (moments before the final I seem to recall) to see if I would produce something vaguely historical for the Real Tennis Society Conference during the World Championship in September.

Only if I can get myself a decent seat for the match that evening and a room at Prested Hall for a couple of nights.

A couple of weeks later, I somewhat idly (more in hope than expectation) checked out the match and room situation. One front row seat had popped back into the pot and so had a room for two nights at Prested Hall. I eagerly grabbed both and resolved to do something for the history conference.

The upshot was an immersive performance piece, which you can read by clicking here or below…

Philip The Bold: Wine, Tennis & Song – A Performance Symposium First Presented At The Real Tennis Society Conference During The World Championships,  Prested Hall, 13 September 2022

The Prested people (both in the tennis club and the Hall) are incredibly helpful. They arranged for me to play real tennis on the Monday afternoon when I arrived and padel on the Wednesday morning before I left. Both were very good games.

I met one or two of my fellow real tennis addicts at dinner in the hotel on the Monday evening, but the fun really started at breakfast on the Tuesday, where I found Freddy and Michael “Mikko” Lindell, one of the other conference presenters. Almost as soon as we started to chat, Mikko asked if he could draw me. Naturally I agreed. When I got back to my room after breakfast, about 30 minutes after that request, the headline picture (above) was sitting in my e-mail inbox.

Here is a link to the conference programme.

During my performance, just prior to playing an instrumental piece of music, I made a quip about suffering from pre-minstrel tension. As soon as I had finished, Mikko presented me with the following picture:

Janie is already working on getting this prized possession framed.

But we were mostly there for the World Championship, in which Camden Riviere was challenging Rob Fahey for the fifth and probably final time (Rob is now an astonishing 54), having toppled Rob in 2016 but somehow Rob had grabbed the crown back in 2018. This challenge, in September 2022, was the delayed March 2020 one.

Before the tennis was a reception, which was a chance to catch up briefly with real tennis friends who had come down just for the evening. After the tennis there was a loud and convivial atmosphere in the Prested bar/bistro – an atmosphere I can only describe as unique in the real tennis world…but then there is only one real tennis club in Essex.

The tennis that Tuesday evening was very exciting…at least it was in the end. The match was poised 2-2 sets after the first day. Camden won the first three sets on Tuesday evening with relative ease and was even 4-0 up in the fourth set of the night, when Rob somehow managed to start turning things around – astonishingly taking that set having saved several set point along the way.

Rather than read my prattle on this, better you read a proper journalist’s account – that of James (Jim) Zug – click here.

Actually James joined me for breakfast briefly the next morning before he flew back to the states and I scurried over to the padel court. It was a good opportunity to chat in person having exchanged e-mails in the past but not really chatted. Several other conferencistas were there at breakfast, which was a chance to swap metaphorical notes.

After padel, I packed and left, stopping off at Lord’s for one last look at county cricket this season – well it would have been rude not to.

On the pavilion/tennis side of the ground, I ran in to a few people who had been at Prested the night before. Then I wandered round to the new Edrich Stand, gracing it with my presence for the first time in glorious autumn sunshine. It was a fitting end to a very enjoyable short trip.

Middlesex trying to bowl out Glamorgan, second dig, in a crucial promotion battle

Guest Contribution: Mark Ellicott’s Response To His Summer 1982 Mix Tape

Mark Ellicott more recently (actually 2016)

In response to my “forty years on” piece about a mix tape Mark made for me in 1982…

Informal Contemporary Music Subsidiary Course At Keele In The Summer Of 1982, Tutor: Mark Ellicott

…which is probably worth reading before reading the following response…

…Mark responded with some fascinating reflections of his own about that music “forty years on”, along with his thoughts on what the follow-up mix tape should have been. I shall try to replicate that “thought-experiment mix tape” within this guest piece.

Ah Ian,

Every one of those tracks still gets a regular airing in my household! For me they have never aged because I’ve never gone through a prolonged period not listening to any of them. Anything by Grace Jones in that early eighties period always brings back memories of six in the morning in Freehold Street, Newcastle in the spring and summer of 1982 after a night at the 141 Club in Hanley  with the likes of Anna Summerskill, Mark Bartholomew, Vince Beasley and Jan Phillips, amongst others. Invariably all of us stoned / tripping and / or speeding. The ‘Nightclubbing’ album just tailor made for the wee small hours after a long night out just as everyone was coming down. It was THE album I most associate with that crazy summer term when I went through that cathartic metamorphosis!

The Grace Jones version of ‘She’s lost control’, originally by Joy Division, on that tape I made you was one of the more eccentric covers I’ve heard. Back in 1994 I had the good fortune to meet the great lady when she was booked to play at The Fridge in Brixton. It was touch and go whether she’d make it onto stage - she was several hours late I recall before the show eventually started - but I did ask what had prompted her to cover such a track by such a band. It transpired she knew nothing about the band, knew nothing about Ian Curtis’s suicide and had merely heard the original track before deciding there and then to do her own version. It ended up as the B side to her single ‘Private Life’. She was rather horrified when she found out about Curtis’s demise and that the song was about epilepsy - a condition he suffered from. 

The Roxy Music track ‘Both ends burning’ (from 1975) is etched into the memory because of their performance on Top of the Pops promoting it. Bryan Ferry dressed up as a GI with an eye patch dancing awkwardly as two heavily made up women, also dressed up in military garb, swung their hips behind him - looking vaguely glassy eyed in the eyeball department.

‘Violence Grows’ by the Fatal Microbes was always being played by John Peel. The singer was 15 year old Honey Bane, a schoolgirl who’d been signed up on the strength of her already provocative stage performances. This was a howl of rage from a time when there really didn’t seem much hope for young people as unemployment skyrocketed. Her indifferent tuneless vocal delivery for whatever reason just resonated. 

‘Atmosphere’ by Joy Division arguably my favourite track released just after Curtis’s death  a fitting tribute to the man’s genius. He was only 23 when he died - just imagine what might have come later on in his career had things been different. I wonder how ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order might have sounded had he gotten his teeth into it. I still recall John Peel announcing his death on air and playing ‘Atmosphere’ and being quite shocked. No one then could have imagined the cult status they would 40 plus years later enjoy. 

‘Typical Girls’ by the Slits just a wonderful piece of pop-punk-reggae by the original riot girls. Ari Up the singer (alas she died of cancer some years ago) was John Lydons (nee Rotten) stepdaughter. John married Ari’s mother Nora, a German heiress, back in the eighties. It’s a track that despite its 43 years of existence still sounds like it could have been recorded in 2022.

Mark then went on to suggest a follow-on mix tape:

Had I made a second tape for you that year it would have undoubtedly included the following. All from that 1982ish period. 

‘My face is on fire’ - Felt
‘Fireworks’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Temptation’ - New Order
‘How does it feel?’ - Crass
‘Torch’ - Soft Cell
‘The back of love’ - Echo & the Bunnymen 
‘Second skin’ - The Chameleons
‘Persons unknown’ - Poison Girls
‘Hand in glove’ - The Smiths
‘Treason’ - Teardrop Explodes
‘Requiem’ - Killing Joke
‘Dead Pop Stars’ - Altered Images
‘Alice’ - Sisters of Mercy
‘Eat y’self fitter’ - The Fall
‘Painted bird’ - Siouxsie & the Banshees
‘Let’s go to bed’ - The Cure
‘Capers’ - The Birthday Party
‘Nightclubbing’ - Grace Jones
‘The look of love’ - ABC
‘Being boiled’ - Human League
‘Pissing in the river’- Patti Smith
‘Walking on thin ice’ - Yoko Ono

OK, let’s give that mix tape a go. I have really enjoyed listening to these tracks and hope readers enjoy them too. Many thanks, Mark, for your kind note and further selections forty years on.

A Quantum Of Lunchtime Solace With Trio Mediæval At the Wigmore Hall, 4 July 2022

Picture by Tore Sætre, CC BY-SA 4.0

Blooming heck this was a great lunchtime concert. It is well described on the Wigmore Hall site – click here.

The above picture is somewhat deceptive, as only two members of the Trio are permanent members, the singer in the centre of the picture, wonderful though she might be, is Torunn Østrem Ossum, not Jorunn Lovise Husan.

We have seen the former perform with the Trio – click here for my article on that concert.

The latter is, it seems, a singer who lunches, in that she was also the third singer when we last saw Trio Mediæval do a lunchtime concert at Wigmore Hall, some four years ago:

Trio Mediaeval, Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, 17 September 2018

They are supremely talented singers who fill that hall with a wonderful sound and a charming vibe. They sing with smiles on their faces. They make supremely difficult singing look almost effortless. It really was a joy to see them again.

This concert was based on their latest album, Solacium, which is centred around traditional Norwegian and Estonian-Swedish lullabies and hymns. It includes some modern works by Anders Jormin, Andrew Smith and Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen, all of which felt very much in keeping with the early music nature of the programme.

It was a BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert, so if you are reading this article reasonably fresh (i.e. during July 2022) you can hear the whole concert on BBC Sounds – click here.

Beyond that date, I believe you can watch (and hear) the concert from the Wigmore Hall live library. I’m not sure if you need to be a registrant, a member or if it is just available to all-comers. (We are members). Here is the link to the Wigmore Hall vid, where you can spot the back of my head (and Janie’s) in the front row without too much difficulty.

It’s just a shame there were not more people in the hall to enjoy this wonderful music live.

Lunchtime Baroque At Wigmore Hall, Nevermind, 13 June 2022

Janie and I had a very tasty lunch of baroque music at Wigmore Hall, thanks to a young group of talented French musicians known as Nevermind, presumably because they think the name of their ensemble is not important.

More importantly, they introduced us to the compositions of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729), who wowed The Sun King as a child prodigy and went on to become an eminent composer as well as performer. Along with many other female composers of earlier eras, she’s needed some rediscovering in recent years and by gosh she is worth rediscovering.

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre by François de Troy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Imagine Corelli in a fantastically light-hearted mood, and he might just have composed a bit like Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, except that she was steeped in the traditions of the French baroque (e.g. Lully) and influenced by the Italian style, rather than upbeat Corelli, who would have presumably been steeped and influenced the other way around.

If you are reading this within a month or so of the concert, you can listen to the whole concert on BBC Sounds, by clicking here. I tried that the other evening and enjoyed the concert all over again.

Or if you want to watch and listen to the concert, you can view it on the Wigmore Hall Site “watch and listen” section by clicking here. I’m not sure whether or not you need to be a member or just subscribed to the e-list or what, but I think you do need a log in of some sort to see this section of the Wigmore Hall site.

In our tradition of running in to people we know, Janie and I ran into Claire Durtnall, whom we have known for decades…

Dinner With “The Back Knack Team”, 20 November 1992

…and who had picked up a last-minute ticket for that concert on the off-chance.

Claire celebrated the chance encounter with a triple-selfie or two – if we are lucky she’ll send one of them in and I’ll add it to this piece…

…update – Claire did indeed send pictures:

Claire, me & Janie taken selfie-style
Claire & me taken regular style by Janie

But this account really should focus on the simply delightful music we heard. Mostly trio sonatas, we were carried to a happy place for an hour in that way only beautiful music can achieve.

Fannying Around With The Castalian Quartet At The Wigmore Hall On Mum’s 100th Birthday, 1 May 2022

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

When Janie trained with and then joined The Samaritans via Zoom during lockdown, neither of us expected one of the consequences to be a real life visit to the Wigmore Hall Green Room (now known to the cognoscenti as the Jessye Norman Room).

But it turned out that one of Janie’s cohort, Sini Simonen, is not only a good Samaritan but also a virtuoso violinist. When Sini let it slip that she and her quartet, The Castalian String Quartet, were due to appear at the Wigmore Hall in a few month’s time, Janie and I agreed that, if we were available that day, we would go.

As it turned out, “that day” was a coffee morning Mendelssohn concert on a Bank Holiday Sunday – click here for the Wigmore Hall rubric on the concert.

Of course we could go…of course we would go…of course we did go.

The day was 1 May 2022, which which also happened to be the 100th anniversary of my mum’s birth.

Mum would have loved the idea of us going to a concert on her birthday to see Janie’s musician friend/colleague perform. Especially as Sini’s instrument is the violin; the primary family instrument of Mum’s very musical family, explained to some extent in this recent Ogblog piece about the family origins.

Turn It Up To Max & Spit: The Baltic Origins Of My Mother’s (Marcus) Family Revealed

The links in the above piece to the exploits of my mother’s cousin Sid, not least his virtuoso playing of both violin and hand saw, are worth the price of admission alone. OK, there is no price of admission, but the stories are priceless.

I was also reminded of the very last time I went to the concert hall with mum, which was a lunchtime concert at St John’s Smith Square in 2011 – a groupie circumstance of mum’s making, to see mum’s unlikely young friend, the pianist Karim Said:

Charlotte Bonneton & Karim Said, St John’s Smith Square, 29 September 2011

I hadn’t done “the Green Room thing” since then.

Anyway…

…the Wigmore Hall concert on 1 May 2022 was an all Mendelssohn string quartet affair, but with a twist: we first heard Fanny Mendelssohn’s sole String Quartet, followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s 6th String Quartet.

Both were a very enjoyable listen – Fanny’s piece much lighter and easier on the Sunday morning ear than Felix’s. Felix was in sombre mood when he wrote his 6th, dedicated to his recently deceased and beloved sister Fanny – possibly also anticipating his own impending doom – he died soon after completing the work.

Impending doom? Felix portrait c1846

The concert was very well patronised – if not a complete sell out then surely the place was near to full. The performances were, deservedly, extremely well received by the Sunday morning audience.

Janie and I asked the elderly gentleman sitting next to us if he had enjoyed the concert.

Yes indeed. I prefer Fanny.

On balance, so did Janie and I.

Sini had said to Janie several times that we simply must show our faces in the Green Room after the concert, so it would have been rude to partake of the traditional Wigmore Hall sherry rather than visit the artistes in that hallowed room.

There were plenty of other groupies around in The Jessye Norman Room, but Sini greeted us warmly and we chatted for a while.

Before setting off for The Wig, I had discovered that the Castalian String Quartet had released an album this week, Between Two Worlds On Delphian…

…which was already picking up rave reviews, such as this one in The Scotsman – click here.

I also couldn’t help but notice that the album includes a couple of arrangements of Renaissance pieces – one by Orlande de Lassus and one by John Dowland, as well as a Beethoven late Quartet and a modern quartet by Thomas Adès.

Sini, with characteristic modesty, mentioned in passing that she has arranged the Renaissance pieces as an experiment. She also kindly pressed a copy of the Between Two Worlds CD into my hand as we said goodbye to her.

Following an enjoyable stroll around Fitzrovia and Marylebone, Janie and I listened to the album as soon as we got home. We can both thoroughly recommend it; in particular the beautiful sound of the Renaissance piece arrangements. Choral works of that era were often arranged for consorts of viols, of course; the string quartet being the direct progeny of the viol quartet.

It was an enjoyable day and such a fitting way to remember my mum’s 100th anniversary.

But there was one more coincidence to come – as I read the programme notes to the Between two Worlds album. The viola player on the album was not Ruth Gibson (whom we saw at Wigmore Hall) but Charlotte Bonneton. Wasn’t Charlotte Bonneton the young musician mum and I saw along with Karim Said that very last time mum went to a concert?

Yes indeed – it turns out Charlotte was The Castalian String Quartet’s viola player until quite recently – for some 10 years – perhaps already with the group when we saw her perform with Karim Said in September 2011. Perhaps Sini and/or some of the other Castalians were even there to support Charlotte that day.

I know the classical music world isn’t big – but it isn’t that small either.

Here’s to the Castalian String Quartet. You can read more about them through the link here and below.

Biographies

Christ On This Cross: A Meditation On The Crucifixion, The Cardinall’s Musick, Wigmore Hall, 11 April 2022

This was our first concert experience of live music since before the start of the Covid pandemic.

There’s nothing like a bit of “Lamentations of Jeremiah” and “Stabat Mater” to cheer us up in a time of pandemic and war.

Actually Janie and I are big fans of The Cardinall’s Musick. Also, we thought that one hour concerts would be a good way of getting back on the bike in terms of concert going – this is the first of a few we are going to see this spring season.

Here is a link to the programme we saw, which was a delicious mixture of Renaissance music suitable for the start of Holy Week.

Mostly familiar stuff, such as Byrd, Victoria, Tallis and Palestrina, plus some rarer material such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Gerónimo Gonzales – a composer so obscure that even Andrew Carwood couldn’t find him in the Grove or on Wikipedia.

But that just means that Andrew didn’t look hard enough – there are about 100 listings for Gerónimo Gonzales on Facebook. Our 17th century composer geezer is bound to be one of those – no?

The concert was broadcast on Radio 3 as a lunchtime concert and also was streamed, so you can watch it all on Vimeo if you wish – embedded below.

https://vimeo.com/696602289

You can even, if you look very closely indeed, grab a glimpse of Ged & Daisy at the very front on the right hand side – my bald patch glistening next to Daisy’s mop of reddish hair.

We enjoyed a snack lunch at Euphorium in St Christopher’s Place, then went back to the flat for a while before venturing into Piccadilly/St James’s to Boodle’s.

Last year I gave an on-line talk for that club, under the auspices of Oliver Wise…

Playing The Odds: A Real Tennis History, Yours Truly In Conversation With Oliver Wise, Boodle’s On-Line Event, 21 April 2021

…who told me at that time that he would like to host us for dinner at Boodle’s. As with so many things in this time of Covid, it took quite a while to find a suitable and allowable date.

It was worth the wait – we had a delightful evening with Oliver, Sarah, Julian Dent (another fellow realist and distant cousin to Oliver) and Julian’s wife Kelly. Great grub too.

A fine end to a really lovely day off, with live concert music again, at last!

Waterloo Sunset, Unplugged, 18 May 2020

Preparing for my singing lesson tomorrow, I was struck by this lovely song, Waterloo Sunset. The meaning of the lyrics can seem very different from its original meaning in this strange time of lockdown.

They are evocative lyrics at any time. I have loved this song since I first came across it as a teenager.

It also occurred to me that this song mentions two of my ThreadMash friends, Terry and Julie.

Last week at ThreadMash, in addition to some business with satsumas, Rohan encouraged us all to sing Geraldine by Ian Dury and the Blockheads to one of our number, Geraldine, with predictably hilarious results given the latency on Zoom and Rohan’s technical “mastery”, or lack thereof, viz sound engineering.

Anyway, I’ve found a song that mentions two Theadmash people. That has to be a good thing. Waterloo Sunset. I hope I do it justice. Here it is again:

Hitting The High Notes With Lydia White, 5 May 2020

I have started taking some singing lessons with Lydia White via video conference. Actually this is something that John White and I had talked about some time ago, when I learnt that John’s daughter Lydia, as well as progressing her show business career in musicals…

…was also giving singing lessons. Meanwhile, Lydia’s career had just taken an unexpected, fortuitous leap forward into a leading role, when lockdown came, bringing that opportunity to an end after just a few shows.

Anyway, it turns out that Lydia is a very good singing teacher and that, although she hadn’t tried giving lessons by VC before, that she can provide excellent coaching that way, much as Ian Pittaway helps me to progress my instrument playing, mostly through remote lessons.

Today was my second lesson with Lydia and I must say that I feel that I am making progress very rapidly. Not that I’ll ever be a great singer, but there are some basics of technique that are enabling me to get a lot more out of my voice for less effort. Most importantly, I am really enjoying the process of learning and practicing.

Janie says she can hear a great deal of improvement, which is remarkable in such a short period of time…and given that Janie wears anti-noise earmuffs whenever I sing. OK I made up the bit about earmuffs.

Here is a link to Lydia’s singing lesson site.

At the end of the week, I thought I’d try out my new-found range & sum up the strange life we are currently leading with this beautiful John Prine song, Hello In There, which I have been unable to get out of my head since I learnt that Prine was ill, about a week before he died of Covid-19 in early April.

This charming, beautiful song is so much for our times. I can only try to do it justice. With some more lessons with Lydia, I’m sure I can only get better at it.

Belibers & Telemaniacs & All Sorts, Concentus Musicus Wien, Wigmore Hall, 6 February 2020

I’d long wanted to see Concentus Musicus Wien. I also see so little Telemann listed these days and am a sucker for his stuff. So this concert caught my eye.

Here is the Wigmore Hall material on the concert.

Janie really didn’t fancy this one on a Thursday evening, so I booked just the one ticket for myself.

Earlier in the evening, I went to LSE to help the LSE100 team celebrate their 10th birthday. I made a small contribution to the course in 2018, which, it seems, qualified me to join the party. I stuck to water at the LSE and indeed stayed dry at The Wigmore Hall too.

Word reached me that Dominic (my real tennis doubles partner) and his wife Pamela would be there that evening. Double-coincidence, because I learnt that i would be partnering Domnic again in a one-off game the next day.

Anyway, the music.

First up was some Biber. Are Heinrich Biber fans known as Belibers? They should be.

I can’t find a decent Concentus Biber on line, but the following performance of Battalia will give you a decent idea:

Next up was the Telemann, which I thought super special, not least the oboe and trumpet parts. Telemann fans are known as Telemaniacs in some circles, that i know for sure.

Again, you’ll need to make do with a different orchestra but this recording will give you a reasonable feel for it:

Then the interval, during which time Dominic, Pamela, a few of their other friends and I had a natter.

Then on to Vivaldi. Autumn. Nicely done.

Below is Julia Fischer playing it. Different style to Erich Höbarth, who led on the evening, but just differently lovely.

Finally, a bit more of a rarity, Purcell’s complete King Arthur Suite. Very good, it was. I only recognised odd snippets of it; for sure I hadn’t heard it in its entirety before.

To complete an evening of coincidences, I ran into my friend John from the health club as I was leaving the concert hall, so we travelled home together.

John is not so familiar with early music and original instruments – he said he found it hard at first to adjust his ear to the period instruments. It made me realise how much i have become accustomed to them – I don’t even think about the sound being “different” any more; it’s pretty much the way I expect to hear music of that period.

A shame the Wiggy wasn’t full – perhaps only 2/3rds or 3/4s full.

Super concert for those of us who attended.