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:
I didn’t make any notes in my log about this one. I don’t think we were overly impressed with it, but neither did we think it quite as awful as some of the critics. Still, I’d better let the critics do the job for me with this one, given that i wrote nothing.
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:
This “opus” was not Mike Ward’s finest hour as a comedy impresario.
For several years prior to this one…and indeed for many years after…the Actor’s Workshop would traditionally stage “New Year Revels”. Indeed, I met Mike early to mid 1990s, when his son, Adam, briefly wrote for NewsRevue and twigged that his dad’s annual show might benefit from material produced by NewsRevue writers. I contributed to the show for several years and visited it for the first time in 1997:
I have no idea why Mike decided to try something different in 2000. Perhaps it was because several of the NewsRevue “class of ’92” had all-but stopped writing sketches and songs by 1999. Possibly it was Mike’s irritation that so many of the sketches and songs that were written by young Actor’s Workshop folk for him to perform mocked his rhotacism. Septimus Gusset was, if I recall correctly, one of Mike’s “answers to that”. (Performing On The Waterfrontsome years later was another, no doubt, whereas Mike’s wonderful Casablanca The Musical, which literally brought the house down the following year, embraced that rhotacism).
In truth, Janie and I were not wild about the Septimus Gussett show and I don’t think it did anything like as well as “New Year Revels” in the matter of bringing the Actor’s Workshop community together for a celebratory show.
Still, Janie and I had a most enjoyable short trip up to Halifax. We stayed at the Crown, again and I am pretty sure that Lottie Ward treated us to one of her magnificent beef fillet feasts at Mike & Lottie’s place after the show.
What was not to like? Maureen Lipman as Peggy Ramsey, with sound support from Tom Espiner, Selina Griffiths, Richard Platt and Crispin Redman, all ably directed by Robin Lefevre.
Paul Taylor in The Independent was entertained but thought that Maureen Lipman as Peggy was a case of miscastology…so at least Maureen got an ology I suppose and for sure she spent a lot of time during the play on the phone.
But Mnemonic didn’t need our soft spot – it was excellent in its own right.
Superb
…I said in my log and meant it.
Strangely, writing 25 years later, this piece has recently been revived (or rather, reimagined) by Complicité in London at the National.
This original production was at the more utilitarian Riverside Studios, a venue we have always liked.
Excellent cast, including Simon McBurney himself, the wonderful Katrin Cartlidge (who died tragically young) and Richard Katz, who had previously worked wonders with my material in NewsRevue – for example the Woody Allen role in Mama Mia Farrow:
I think a lot of the usual suspects ignored it until it transferred to the National a couple of year’s later…and then was reimagined more than 20 years after that.
But we saw the original production…at The Riverside…have I mentioned that before?
“Surprise” Party For Elisabeth Mainelli, Lady Daphne, 2 December 1999
Janie has written directions to St Katherine’s Dock in excruciating detail in her diary for that event. I merely wrote “surprise! boat”.
I have a funny feeling that this surprise party was not the best kept secret in the City that year. I sensed that Elisabeth feigned surprise rather than was seriously surprised.
It would have taken quite a ruse to lure her to the boat in December on the evening of her birthday without some suspicion arising.
Still, I recall that it was a good party.
Caroline’s Engagement Party, The Ruts, 4 December 1999
We moved our Hedda Gabler theatre tickets from the Saturday to the Friday in order to attend this party.
I hope Caroline and Alan appreciate being given priority over Francesca Annis for our Saturday night entertainment.
*Spoiler Alert* The Caroline and Alan story had a happier ending than Hedda Gabler.
Joking apart, it was a great party as I remember it. Caroline’s mum went to town producing amazing grub for the party and there was a very happy buzz about the evening.
Z/Yen Seasonal Event – Park Inn, Wellington Terrace W2, Preceded By Drinks At Ian’s Newly Refurbished Flat, 17 December 1999
Sofa, so good – the living room in my flat
This was one of the more memorable Z/Yen seasonal events…but mostly for the wrong reasons.
Firstly, there was a mad rush to get my flat ready to accommodate the drinks party at mine ahead of the dinner at The Park Inn. Gavin’s snail-like progress was doing Janie’s and my head in – it would have been TOO embarrassing to have had to relocate the drinks because the flat wasn’t ready.
At one point- I think it was the preceding Friday as Janie and I both took that day off for this purpose – Janie even ended up on her hands and knees helping Gavin to varnish the floorboards – subjected to the indignity not only of doing the work for which we were paying but being bossed around by Gavin in the style that had put off his many attempts at engaging assistants:
GAVIN: NO! Don’t do it like that! Do it like this!
JANIE: Does it really make a difference, Gavin? I can’t see the difference and we need to get this finished.
GAVIN: NO! NOT LIKE THAT!
To add to the problematic nature of this event, several member of staff went down with an especially nasty lurgy in the days running up to the event. I think in the end only about seven or eight people attended, one of whom was Linda Cook who turned up despite feeling under the weather and ended up crashing out on my (brand new) bed and then going home rather than staying for dinner.
Fortunately, we knew May at The Park Inn so well that the constantly reducing of numbers and the eventual relatively small table was all handled with her usual professional and service-oriented demeanour, so all who ate, ate well.
No quizzes and no Secret Santa yet. Linda got into her stride from the early 2000s onwards in those regards.
Michael wrote the song that year…
Toil and Play
God rest ye Z/Yen par-tic-i-pants, There’s no point in dismay Remember Christmas parties All end in disarray Don’t save yourself from whiskey’s pow’r You might as well a’stray
O tidings of bromo and fizz Bromo and fizz O tidings of bromo and fizz
From year to year we reappear And wonder all the same How business so chaotic With such an awful name Can still inspire Nippon songs And ever-woeful games
O tidings of toil and play Toil and play O tidings of toil and play
But when to Ze-e-Yen they came Where their dear project lay And found us all hung-over But still prepared to pay We found our invoice quick and fast And saved ’em from May-Day
O tidings of toil and pay Toil and pay O tidings of toil and pay
Only Michael could choose the words “bromo and fizz” to replace comfort and joy. It seems that Bromo-Seltzer has a long and (in)glorious history in song lyrics. Who knew? (Well, Michael did, obviously). Perhaps you had to be there…or to have sent a sick note at the time…to get the gist of that song.
“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:
Another Friday, another theatre visit. This time we had even booked for the Saturday, but switched to the Friday to accommodate Caroline Freeman’s engagement party on the Saturday.
Janie and I rated this Hedda Gabler as “good”.
Janie and I had seen a mediocre (or, in Janie’s words, “OMG it was dreadful”) Hedda in Holland Park a few year’s earlier…
Even after this 1999 Hedda, I still didn’t feel that Janie had seen a good enough version, so we did it all again at The Almeida a few year’s later.
Anyway, this one was a West End preview with Francesca Annis as Hedda and other West End names such as Peter Bowles and Nyree Dawn Porter in tow. Frank McGuiness directed it.
This one started in Plymouth a week or so before we saw it in Richmond. Here is Leon Winston’s review from the Herald Express:
