Tag: Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt, John Bull, François Couperin And More: Kit Armstrong, Wigmore Hall, 22 December 2024

It’s difficult to come up with appropriate adjectives for someone like Kit Armstrong. He studied composition and started playing the piano at the age of five, enrolled on undergraduate courses in biology, physics, mathematics and music at the age of nine, graduated in music at age 16 and completed an MSc in mathematics age 20. Words like “prodigy” and “genius” seem insufficient.

Anyway – I first came across Kit Armstrong when I was researching my performance piece for Gresham Society at Hampton Court Palace in September 2023…

Gresham Society Visit To The Royal Tennis Court, Hampton Court, 14 September 2023

…as I was keen to include some Byrd and Bull in the performance, which led me to Kim Armstrong’s magnificent album William Byrd & John Bull from 2021.

I was keen to see him live, so couldn’t resist the opportunity at The Wigmore Hall, despite Janie’s (and my) resistance to braving that area in the run up to Christmas.

By Sunday 22 December things should have simmered down around there…

…I said. I was right. Our journey and the parking was just fine.

To add to the charm of the evening, my tennis friend John Thirlwell was there with his companion. They made pleasant company before the concert and during the interval.

Mr Thirlwell relaxing after doing battle on the tennis court at Lord’s

Kit Armstrong had chosen a quirky selection of pieces. He explains his choice in the following promo vid:

Here is the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert, with all the details.

The first half of the concert was early music – Renaissance through Baroque periods:

  • Thomas Tallis – Felix namque I
  • Giles Farnaby – A Maske
  • John Bull – Lord Lumley’s Pavan and Galliard
  • John Bull – Telluris ingens conditor
  • François Couperin – Le réveil-matin
  • François Couperin – Les petits moulins à vent
  • François Couperin – Le dodo, ou L’amour au berçeau
  • George Frideric Handel – Suite in G minor HWV432

I wasn’t familiar with Giles Farnaby but enjoyed making his musical acquaintance through the piece, A Maske:

It was also wonderful for me to hear him play some of that John Bull material live. Telluris Ingens Conditor especially pleased me.

The second half of the concert was more modern, covering the 18th Century through to one of his own pieces from the 21st Century.

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  – Rondo in A minor K511
  • Camille Saint-Saëns – Africa Op. 89 (1891)
  • Leopold Godowsky – In the Kraton from Java Suite
  • Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji – Transcendental Etude No. 36
  • Arvo Pärt – Für Alina
  • Kit Armstrong – Etudes de dessin

We were especially taken by the Saint-Saëns (I have long loved that piece), the Leopold Godowsky (new to both of us as composer and piece alike) and the Arvo Pärt (we didn’t know the piece but tend to like Part’s charming minimalism.)

I have had trouble tracking down the encore, but I am pretty sure it was Baude Cordier – Belle, Bonne, Sage, as I cannot imagine that there are too many pieces from around 1400 which the composer set out in the shape of a heart. Cute.

In truth I don’t think the piece worked well as a piano transcript – it is more lovely to my ears as a vocal rondeau.

Still, it was a superb concert. Janie and I were enthralled by it and so glad we made the effort to go to The Wig just before Christmas!

Fading: The Hour Is At Hand, The Gesualdo Six, St John’s Smith Square, 28 March 2018

I’d heard a lot about The Gesualdo Six – they are currently the hottest boy band of the early music vocal consort world – so I have been keen to see them for some time.

This early evening concert at St John’s Smith Square slot didn’t suit Janie on a Wednesday, so I made one of those unusual but no longer rare concert bookings just for me.

What a super short concert it was.

SJSS had been turned around for this concert, so the audience faces the organ, not the massive, tired-looking stage – something I know they’d been talking/thinking about, but until now I had not yet experienced it. Janie and I have thought for some time that this configuration would work better for soloists and small ensembles.

It does work better.

I got in early to bagsy a good seat and took a picture. You can see my coat draped across a front row seat.

SJSS Turned Around

Nice touch with the candles.

The hall soon filled up – several hundred people I would estimate – the largest audience I have seen at SJSS for a while. The idea of doing an early evening concert of this kind ahead of the main event certainly worked for this evening – perhaps also linked to the fact that this concert was part of the Holy Week Festival.

Here is a link to the SJSS web page for the concert that night – click here.

I’ve scraped that page to here, just in case the above link stops working.

The people sitting to the left of me clearly knew one of the singers, Guy James, who chatted with them briefly before the gig. The younger woman in that party asked him to throw in a pop song or two – but he shyly demurred, saying that he’d love to but it would probably get him into trouble with the others. Not very rock’n’roll.

I did and do have an arithmetical problem with this group. When I looked at the picture on their website – click here –and/ or the above SJSS web page and/or indeed the programme for the evening, I kept counting seven people in The Gesualdo Six.

I had a similar problem with the Jackson Five the previous week at The Ladbroke Arms, as reported in my piece – click here or below:

Dinner And Music Biz Chat With Simon Jacobs, Ladbroke Arms, 20 March 2018

A knowledgeable-sounding fellow sat next to me about five minutes before the start of the Gesualdo Six concert – he said that he had seen some of the performers before (e.g. Joseph Wicks recently) but never the entire ensemble together and was very excited to be getting to see them.

I mentioned my cardinal number problem – i.e. the matter of seven people comprising The Gesualdo Six, hoping for some insight from this knowledgeable fellow.

“I know, yes…tough isn’t it,” was that gentleman’s unhelpful reply.

But from now it’s all good news.

There were only six people in The Gesualdo Six on the night – which put me at my ease again.

The music was absolutely lovely.

Indeed, the opening number, Tallis’s Te Lucis Ante Terminum, was worth the price of admission alone (as sports commentators would tend to put it).

I don’t normally go for modern choral music mixed in with early music, but I was much taken by the several lullabies by Veljo Tormis, which contrasted nicely with the Byrd lullaby.

I also enjoyed Owain Park’s own piece, Phos Hilaron. I cannot honestly claim to have got much out of Joanna Marsh’s pieces, though.

But basically I loved the gig – they are a wonderful ensemble – so when Owain Park announced that we could buy pre-release copies (due out Easter Weekend) of the group’s debut album on exit, I was up there with my £12 like a shot.

You can order/buy the album from all the usual outlets or direct from the band’s site by clicking below:

English Motets (2018)

Below is a video from an unspecified place of The Gesualdo Six singing some Tallis – a piece from the album but not from the gig.

Likewise, the following piece of Thomas Tomkins (seen below in Ely Cathedral) is on the album but wasn’t on show at the gig:

They only sang one piece of Gesualdo on the night – not the following one, but I can’t let you sample The Gesualdo Six without Gesualdo himself:

Finally, below is a little documentary piece about the group from SJSS itself two years ago. They look unfeasibly young in the vid – they still look young but not THAT young. Two years is a long time for a boy band. Another couple of years on the road and they might look like The Rolling Stones by 2020.

All of this rather puts my own attempt at some seasonal, medieval-style performance into the shade:

Canticle For Lauds On The Third Day Of Easter: Deus Intellegit, Litorean Order, c1300

After Z/Yen Board Meeting Lunchtime Concert, City of London Sinfonia, St Andrew Holborn, 25 March 2015

We probably should have a corporate rule that every board meeting should conclude with a lunchtime concert.

But in reality this sort of thing is a rare treat for us…but treat this was indeed.

Michael had spotted this one, no doubt through some aldermanic connection, so not only did we get to listen to the delicious music but we got to eat some of the delicious food for honoured guests afterwards and network a while.

I like Handel’s concerto grossi and we got two of them in this concert. The sandwich filling was some Arvo Pärt of the listenable variety.

It was all very pleasant indeed.

Fretwork & Clare Wilkinson, Wigmore Hall, 1 February 2009

Just a couple of weekends after our previous visit, another early music outing to the Wigmore Hall.

Rather a different feel, this one, as the conceit of the concert was to mix early music with some contemporary compositions influenced by those earlier periods.

Central to the concert was Purcell, whose 350th birthday was that year and who therefore featured a lot in 2009 concert programmes.

Here is the full listing for this 1 February gig:

In truth, Janie and I got a lot more out of the early music than the contemporary stuff, although I always enjoy Arvo Pärt more than I expect and the Shostakovich was interesting too.

But Purcell was the star of the show, as was Clare Wilkinson, who specialises in singing this Renaissance and Baroque stuff; often with Fretwork.

Lovely stuff, it was, on a Sunday night.

Kremer Verses Kremerata: More Than Four Seasons At The Proms, 4 September 1999

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:

Kremer Observer MaddocksKremer Observer Maddocks 12 Sep 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Here’s what the Arvo Pärt piece sounds like:

While here is the sound of the Piazzolla piece we heard interspersed between the oh so familiar Four Seasons:

We took the Duchess to North China after the concert. The restaurant West Acton, not the more northerly reaches of the Middle Kingdom…obvs.