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.
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.
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
Very suitable hall for this sort of big work and a great occasion for us as part of our short break.
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?
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.
The weekend after Easter, we visited the London Handel Festival for this tasty Baroque concert by the (then) fairly new Southbank Sinfonia.
We heard:
Handel’s Overture to Giustino HWV37
Rameau’s Grand Motet: In Convertendo Dominus
Vivaldi’s Concerto Con Molti Istromenti RV 576
Lully’s Suite from “Isis”
Handel’s Te Deum for the Peace of Utrecht
Janie couldn’t complain that it was cold this time – we were having a bit of an April heatwave in London. But still she felt that St George’s was austere as a venue…
…”it’s bum-aching, like sitting in Church”…
…”it IS a Church”…
…so she reiterated her strong preference for the Wigmore Hall.
We both agreed that the music was lovely, though.
Below is a delightful later performance by the very same orchestra (under Julian Perkins) of the Giustino:
Below is a beautiful video of the Rameau In Convertendo with William Christie conducting but no identification of the orchestra ( Les Arts Florissants presumably) nor the wonderful soloists – perhaps some of the Early Music Group aficionados can help with the identification of those:
Janie (Daisy) and I weren’t there for the tense ending of that match either. But we were nearby – there in spirit if not in body.
We had been eagerly following the match all day.
But that day was also the birthday of Daisy’s mother, The Duchess of Castlebar. I had bought tickets for the three of us to see a Bach concert at the Wigmore Hall for that evening.
Janie had quite recently acquired a taste for chamber concert halls and baroque music, perhaps a year or two earlier. The Duchess tended to prefer large scale concerts of the Proms variety; we mostly booked those for her. But the Proms don’t get going until a bit later in the summer and it was the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death that year. So Bach at The Wig it was to be.
Anyway, that afternoon the Lord’s Test Match was beautifully poised and/but for reasons I cannot recall – had there been a lot of overnight rain? – the day’s play had been delayed and was playing out until quite late.
The Duchess is an avid follower of the cricket as well as a music aficionado. We called her to let her know that we were on the way to collect her. We could all listen to the ending of the cricket match together on the car radio on our way to The Wig.
As we drove to the Duchess’s residence, England wickets fell and the match seemed to be drifting in The West Indies direction. Daisy and I anticipated a dark mood and we were not disappointed.
Thrown it away, they’ve thrown it away…
…said The Duchess. We set off for Marylebone (the southern end thereof).
The Duchess explained to us, as she had several times before, that Denis (Compton), Ted (Dexter), Colin (Cowdrey) Ken (Barrington), Geoffrey (Boycott) and players of that ilk – whom she had met together with her late husband in the good old days- would not have thrown it away like this.
We arrived at The Wigmore Hall. England hadn’t lost a wicket for a while. Was it possible that they could snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat?
Daisy parked up – it was a warm sunny evening so we sat in the car with the roof open and the car radio on, listening to the denouement of the cricket match.
The Duchess Of Castlebar
Try to imagine the scene, dear reader, as it must have looked to passing tourists who understand little or nothing about cricket. A distinguished-looking septuagenarian with her family sitting in a car leaping around in their seats, oohing and aahing every 45 seconds or so as the commentator spoke.
Then, those same seemingly dignified folk whooping for joy for a while, before sealing up the car and entering the Wigmore Hall. Tourists: meet the English.
Basically it was an organ recital of JS Bach works by Jennifer Bate. When you click that preceding link you get some eye candy as well as the organist in question, as Jennifer Bate shares her name with a subsequent Miss England and sporting WAG.
Click the pic to read about the organist Jennifer Bate
It was a fine concert of mostly well-known Bach organ works. An example of one of the pieces (Bach after Vivaldi as it happens) can be seen and heard below.
A slightly sad coda to this Ogblog piece was the discovery that Jennifer Bate died in March 2020, just a few weeks before I wrote this piece.
Here’s another video of her playing one of the pieces we heard that night; Concerto in C BWV 595 (Ernst arr. Bach).
25 years ago, Janie and I decided to party like it’s 1999 at the start of 1999. What better to do that than a concert of baroque music at The Wigmore Hall.
These are the pieces we heard/saw:
Cantata “Cessate Omai Cessate”, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
Sinfonia to Cantata BWV 49, Johann Sebastian Bach
Concerto for Oboe d’Amore BWV 1055 (also transcribed Harpsicord), Johann Sebastian Bach
Cantata BWV 82 “Ich Habe Genug”, Johann Sebastian Bach
Concerto for Viola da Gamba and Recorder in A Minor, Georg Philipp Telemann
Cantata BWV 170 “Vergnugte Ruh”, Johann Sebastian Bach.
Perhaps there was a change of programme or perhaps my notes missed out the Handel by mistake. I’ll check back to the programme when next I can face the thought of an archaeological dig into my programme collection.
Here’s a video of Clare playing a strange and ancient instrument – the nyckelharpa – I don’t believe I have ever seen this instrument played live:
Here is an audio YouTube of Charles Humphries singing one of the Bach arias we heard, vergnugte Ruh, accompanied by Kontrabande:
While here is the Bremer Baroque Orchestra (similar scale to Kontrabande if I remember correctly) playing the very Telemann concerto we heard back then:
But while I lack a travel log for this holiday, I can fall back on my theatres and concerts log for the centrepiece of this day, the day after Thanksgiving – now known as Black Friday -was that “a thing” back then – I don’t recall hearing the term. Anyway, my log says:
Great gig on a Friday afternoon. Only 12 days after I met Rita. Moose had spent a couple of days schlepping around New York with me, so I treated her to this concert by way of a thank you.
I have also described Rita’s daughter, Mara Frank’s, informal New York tour guide role in the “Part One” piece linked above. All that remains to explain is that Mara was known as Moose back then. Possibly still is. I’ll try and find out, as I have managed to track her down and we are communicating over these pieces.
Anyway, point is…well, exactly the point I made on the log. I wanted to see stuff at the Lincoln Centre before I left New York and spotted that there was good availability of tickets over that holiday weekend.
The chance to see Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in New York seemed too good to miss. I thought Mara (Moose) might enjoy seeing them too.
Here is a recording of Zubin Mehta & The New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing the very Vivaldi piece we heard in the very Lincoln Centre in which we heard it – albeit the recording has sightly more high falutin’ soloisti:
It was a super concert that afternoon and I think Moose enjoyed it. But possibly she didn’t – she’d have been far too polite to say if she hadn’t liked it. Mara, if by any chance you remember, you can tell me truthfully now.
Subsequently, when she came to live in London, I discovered that Mara was a keen fan of Dr Demento. Moose and I spent many happy, silly hours listening to her Dr Demento tapes. But Moose is probably blissfully unaware of my own massive novelty song canon, as I think she had returned to the USA before my NewsRevue writing career started, in 1992. NewsRevue is explained in the anniversary piece – click here or below:
But Dr Demento (and Newsrevue) stuff is a far cry from Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil…but then, I like all sorts of music – Moose might also like both. In fact, now I come to think of it, John Random is a doyen of NewsRevue writers/lyricists and he is an avid fan of Zubin Mehta.
But back to Black Friday 1989: that was an afternoon concert and I’m pretty sure Mara and I spent at least the early part of the evening together too. This might have been the occasion when she insisted on buying me Godiva chocolates (mentioned in the Part One piece).
I also recall being scammed by a fast-talking sob-story merchant. It’s hard to imagine falling for one of those, but we didn’t have them in London back then (or at least young folk like me didn’t encounter them) so I fell for the “just need my train fare” story and gave him a couple of bucks.
He’ll be a junky and the bucks will be spent on drugs, not transport…
…said Mara.
I don’t fall for those any more.
I think Mara and I had a bite to eat together and I think this was the last I saw of her until she came to London for her placement the following year. But I’m happy to stand corrected if my memory has missed or confused these details.
As a musical aside, I remember thinking the concert an ideal choice for Moose, as it had some Sibelius in it and Sibelius had been the centre-piece of the concert at which I had met Rita.
I cannot find Zubin Mehta conducting Sibelius, but I have found one of the first ever filmed concerts at the Lincoln Centre, from the early 1960’s, with Leonard Bernstein conducting Finlandia, the very piece of Sibelius we heard. It is actually a very fine performance and also a rather splendid piece of historic concert filming:
