Tag: François Couperin

Musical Polyglots, Improviso, St John’s Smith Square Lunchtime Concert, 16 May 2019

The above picture borrowed from Improviso’s website – click here or through the picture to read more about them.

A second visit for me to the London Festival of Baroque Music in a week – the first with Janie to see Jordi Savall.

Howay, Wey Aye, Man! – A Canny Interview With Jordi Savall Followed By A Canny Concert, L‘Europa Musicale: From The Renaissance To Baroque, Hespèrion XXI, St John’s Smith Square, 12 May 2019

The themes for the festival and from the 12 May concert continued in this charming lunchtime concert by Improviso – namely ideas around cross-fertilisation of musical ideas across countries/continents, plus the use of improvisation as part of the musical fabric in the Baroque period.

The concert is described on the festival website through this link – click here…

…and similarly described on the St John’s Smith Square website – click here.

I thought this concert might appeal to John Random, who enjoys these lunchtime concerts when we are both available for such. In fact the timing worked so well for us that John was also available to join me at Lord’s for a while after the concert.

While I was striding my way towards Smith Square, a voice to the right of me said “hello Ian”; it was John Friend, taking lunch in a cafe I was passing. Sadly I couldn’t stop to chat with him, but the irony of running into John Friend while on my way to utilise my “Friend of St John’s” rights to lunchtime concerts was not wasted on either of us.

The concert was lovely, with some unusual works as well as some familiar pieces.

Below is some of the Mecmûa-i Sâz ü Söz played in the traditional Ottoman style, rather than the Wojciech Bobowski adaptation which was played by our Improviso quartet.

I cannot find any examples of Improviso playing the pieces we heard at this lunchtime concert, but they do have several lovely examples on their website – click here, including the Castello sonata, embedded below:

John and I had, in fact, enjoyed seeing Johan Löfving perform before – just a few months ago, at such a lunchtime concert…

A Random Concert With John Random: Flauguissimo Duo, The English And French Gardens, St John’s Smith Square, 10 January 2019

…but the addition of three more musicians in Improviso, rather than just the duo, enabled each of the musicians to show their individual and collective talents superbly.

Below you can hear the charming Blavet sonata we heard, on this recording performed by Jed Wentz:

Below is the allegro from the Telemann Trio Sonata we heard, but performed by a different young quartet, Ensemble Tolmetes:

In addition to the several pieces listed on the programme, Improviso also improvised a La Folia, very energetically and beautifully I might say. This, for me, felt like a full circle, as Jordi Savall and his pals had performed a couple of La Folias on the Sunday.

Below, a very different La Folia interpretation from any that I saw this week, but an exceptional one by Jordi Savall, family and pals:

But returning to Improviso, they are a very talented young quartet who seem to take great pleasure in making music together and in explaining what they are doing to a rapt audience.

To round off this Ogblog piece, here are Improviso performing William Byrd’s charming tune, John Come Kiss Me Now, demonstrating their style of improvisation:

A Random Concert With John Random: Flauguissimo Duo, The English And French Gardens, St John’s Smith Square, 10 January 2019

It wasn’t really a random concert. Katie Cowling was supposed to be delivering a programme named Blow Ye Winds with Johan Löfving, but Katie was poorly so Johan showed up with another of his regular pairings, flautist Yu-Wei Hu, to perform a slightly different programme named The English And French Gardens. The medieval element had gone but a fairly similar Baroque assortment to that originally planned.

Here is a link to the SJSS archive page for the concert. Or if that doesn’t work, here is a link to a scrape thereof.

From and linked to http://www.flauguissimoduo.com/ – photo by Aiga Ozo

So, it might not have been a random concert but it was a Random concert, by which I mean John Random was going to join me. Or was he? There was some traditional too-ing and fro-ing with “can make it”, “can’t make it”, “can make it but might be late” messages. In the end, John arrived in time to see all but the first sonata.

John and I have been on a theorbo quest on John’s behalf for a while. Some Ogblog readers might recall our “hunt the theorbo” session in the National Gallery:

An Afternoon At The National Gallery And Stuff With John Random, 4 May 2018

Others might recall John’s visit with me and Janie to see the Les Kapsber’girls, at SJSS but their instruments of that sort were
smaller than theorbos.

Les Kapsber’girls, St John’s Smith Square, Then On To The New Extension Of The Royal Academy, 18 May 2018

So this concert closed a loop or two. John really did get to hear and see a theorbo. In fact, I think the concert included a little first for me too, as Johan Löfving played a short theorbo solo piece – I don’t think I had ever heard the theorbo as a solo instrument before. It was a lovely little piece. Coincidentally, it was by Kapsberger, which also closed a loop for John, as although he had seen Les Kapsber’girls, on that occasion the girls did not perform anything by their eponymous composer. I managed to find a snippet of Johan Löfving playing the very piece in question:

Not the best recorded audio nor video you’ll ever see, but a rare sighting of solo theorbo

Here is another short vid, which shows both of the Flauguissimo Duo – the Sonata by Johan Helmich Roman which they played as the closing number of our concert:

It really was a very charming lunchtime concert – these SJSS ones are such a treat when I can get to them and it was such a pleasure to be able to share that musical experience with John.

Afterwards John and I had a bite of lunch together in the crypt, which is a great place to eat and drink. John described it as his favourite crypt. Janie would agree wholeheartedly with that – she is also a devotee of the SJSS crypt, claiming that the crypt is the best thing about the whole place and that some small scale concerts should be held down there.

Our conversation covered many topics, some of which I mentioned had Ogblog pieces devoted to them, such as the story of the day I bought my hat and accosted Boris Johnson in the street while wearing it:

A Rather Strange Mix of a Day, 3 June 2016

John suggested that he would like to spend far more time reading Ogblog than he has available and that a decent length of custodial sentence might provide him with the time and inclination so to read.

I suggested that, on our way back to Westminster Tube Station, we might ask some of the more pugnacious Brexit protesters on College Green to provide John with the means to such a custodial sentence, but John demurred. Not dedicated enough to Ogblog, then?

Time flew by and I realised that I really needed to get back to the flat, as I had arranged further Renaissance/Baroque style activity for the rest of the day – a lesson on early music guitar technique with Ian Pittaway…

…who subsequently sent me a link to this lovely 10 minute vid by Elizabeth Kenny explaining everything you ever wanted to know about the theorbo but were afraid to ask…

…followed by a real tennis bout at Lord’s against a nemesis-like adversary, formerly a seriously top-ranking amateur cricketer, against whom I had never previously emerged victorious at tennis. But, steeled by all this early music, I did prevail for once this day.

After we parted, John had a similar second half to his day – journeying to Sidcup to see our mutual friend Colin Stutt perform in the Petts Wood Operatic Society production of 9 to 5.

John subsequently reported that:

Colin’s Dolly Parton impression is outstanding.

Sadly, we have no photo or video of Colin’s performance. Actually, that might be just as well.

Let’s sign off instead with some more Flauguissimo Duo – not a piece we heard on that day but a really lovely rendering of some Gluck and a chance to see Johan Löfving’s guitar playing and some beautiful virtuoso flute playing by Yu-Wei Hu:

Two Fine Baroque Concerts – Versailles: The Improbable Dream & Paris-Madras, With Some Fine Grub In Between, St John Smith Square, 12 May 2018

There were two London Festival of Baroque Music concerts at St John’s Smith Square that evening and we really liked the look of both of them.

So that’s what we did – we went and looked at them both.

Versailles: The Improbable Dream

The first was Fuoco E Cenere – all music pertaining to Louis XIV and Versailles.

Here is the SJSS card for this concert.

Now that’s what I call a theorbo

Quintessentially French Baroque

This ensemble was recently involved in a French TV series about Versailles – said to be the most expensive ever made in France – here is a short musical extract from the TV programme:

Mercifully for the down to earth SJSS audience, Fuoco E Cenere did not ponce about in 17th Century wigs and outfits for our concert.

Here is a more down to earth vid and interview about Les Folies d’Espagne by Marais, which they did play on the night:

The highlight of this concert, for us, was the singing of the young guest soprano, Theodora Raftis. She has an outstanding voice and tremendous stage presence. She seemed a little overwhelmed by the occasion at first, but it was great to see her warm to her work and become the highlight of the show by the end of the concert. She was clearly well appreciated by the audience and her fellow performers. Remember the name: Theodora Raftis. Not much of her to be found on-line, but here is some Donizetti – trust us, she’s upped her game big time since this vid was recorded:

The Platters

No , we didn’t see a 1950s vocal group, but we did eat charcuterie and cheese platters with salad and a glass of wine between the concerts. I won’t dwell on the shenanigans involved in booking a table and arranging the platters – let’s just celebrate the fact that waiters David and Ramon did us proud and that we thoroughly enjoyed our twixt concert supper.

Paris-Madras

It was this second concert that really inspired me to book the evening – the notion of a fusion of French Baroque and Indian raga music. How on earth might that work? Well, it pretty much did.

Here is a link to the SJSS resource for this concert.

Artefacts from the Baroque element…

Le Concert De L’Hostel-Dieu provided the baroque element. In truth, we got more out of the ragas than we got out of the Leçons de Ténèbres. The wonderful weather of the previous week had turned to miserable cold weather that day, so neither of us was much in the mood for the lamentations of Jeremiah. More seriously, we’d seen the Leçons de Ténèbres quite recently and didn’t realise that the concert would pretty much give us the whole lot un-fused with the ragas…plus ragas unfused with the lamentations.

…artefacts from the raga element

On the ragas, in particular, we liked the bansuri flute and the sarod. Soumik Datta, the sarod virtuoso involved, is far more rock’n’roll than the rest of the performers on show that night. Here is his showreel:

Below is the explanatory vid in French about the Paris-Madras project, in which you can hear Ravi Prasad sing and Patrick Rudant play his flute, as well as the baroque players of course:

The absolute highlight of this concert for us was the few passages when the musicians segued between the two styles and the ending when they all played together. Perhaps they judged the fusion to be risky, so they minimised its use, but to our mind it was a risk that came off big time and the fusion was the reason we went to see the concert.

Anyway, we came out the other side of the evening feeling very pleased with the whole occasion.

Adam Walker & Mahan Esfahani, Wigmore Hall, 24 June 2016

These “Wigmore Hall Lates” always seem like a good idea when we book them, but unless we are out and about that evening, they always seem like a big effort late in the evening just for an hour long concert.

I placated Daisy for this one by preparing a dinner from Big Al DeLarge’s Emporium, Tavola.  A veal ragu pasta preceded by a cold spinach soup.

Anyway, after the shock of the referendum result, we really didn’t much feel like going out but we did need some sustenance for the soul as well as for the body. This concert did the job.

It is only a few weeks since we last saw Mahan Esfahani at Saffron Hall with John and Mandy. I don’t think we’d seen Adam Walker before, at least not as a soloist.

Anyway the concert – set out in all its piece-by-piece glory here on the Wigmore Hall archive – was truly lovely and just what we needed. We both slept a little during the concert, but in a good way.

The positive thing from the Wigmore Hall’s perspective, is that these late concerts do seem to be attracting a younger crowd, which must be part of the purpose. The not such good news is that, in the absence of a big name, the hall is far from full for these.

Anyway, Janie and I both agreed that, in the end, it had been worth the effort to go out for a one hour concert starting at 10:00. But then, my flat is mighty close to The Wig.

 

Les Nations: Couperin the Internationalist, Musica ad Rhenum, St John’s Smith Square, 20 May 2012

What better way to enjoy spring in London than a day at the Lord’s test on the Friday…

England v West Indies, 1st Test, Day Two, Lord’s, 18 May 2012

…then following the test match for the rest of the weekend, then rounding off the weekend with some early music at SJSS?

That was a rhetorical question, people. There is NO better way.

We went to see Musica ad Rhenum under Jed Wentz. I always worry about people named Jed, because I am so regularly having my pseudonym, Ged, mis-spelt as Jed. My life would be easier if these J-people chose not to abbreviate their names to Jed. I don’t think I am asking too much there.

But I digress.

The music was mostly Couperin – see extract from the programme below.

It was part of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music that year – we just chose the one concert. It was one delightful concert too.

Yes, Janie and I did have a giggle at one of the pieces being named “La toilette de Venus”. Yes we can both be very childish.

For some reason, Jed Wentz and Musica ad Rhenum have put an enormous amount of their Couperin instrumental music into the public domain, so you can listen here:

The closest I can get to a sample of the lovely soprano, Andréanne Paquin, is the following choir piece, which includes her, singing Charpentier/Lully – not a million miles from Couperin:

Anyway, the above is a really lovely short vid. If you don’t like it, you can metaphorically flush it down La Metaphorical Toilette de Venus by not playing it.