Tag: Harry Christophers

A Short Autumn Break In A 15th Century Cottage In An Old Market Town Part Two: Saffron Walden, 7 to 10 November 2024

John & Mandy suggested that we visit Saffron Walden for the dual purpose of seeing The Sixteen perform at Saffron Hall and to allow John to cook for us in his newly-extended kitchen…

…a kitchen so comprehensively extended that their home now appears to be a kitchen with some other rooms extended onto the kitchen, rather than a house with a kitchen extension:

Mandy & Me, with John (cooking) just visible in the distance

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

15th Going On 16th Century Cottage

Janie and I decided to make this a “proper short break”, arranging three nights in a properly old cottage, Drake’s Cottage, in the medieval part of town. The headline photo shows a picture of the outside of the cottage, inside the cottage. It dates back to 1461, making it even older than the 1480’s place we stayed in at Stratford a few weeks ago…

A Short Autumn Break In A 15th Century Cottage In An Old Market Town Part One: Stratford-Upon-Avon, 13 to 16 October 2024

…although in truth most of what remains appears to be a major rebuild from the 1530’s, around the time the bigger houses in the Myddlyton part of town were built. In any case, it is seriously wonky compared with proper mock Tudor such as our 1930’s Noddyland abode:

Proper mock Tudor with proper straight lines

We arrived later than intended on the Thursday afternoon. I was keen to get to the cottage before dark, as I am now really averse to driving on country roads when it is dark or even dusky. We didn’t quite make it, although you could argue that it was still dusky…just “well dusky” when we arrived rather than “proper dark”.

As we were self-catering, I was keen to do a bit of rudimentary cooking for a change, so knocked up a prawn and pea pappardelle dish with a large salad.

We took our time before venturing out on the Friday, but did some strolling at our own pace and went to find the market square with a view to returning there the next day to see the market.

Ah, there it is

Selfie showing our smug “we can find a market square” faces

I offered to host John & Mandy for drinks and grub at our humble cottage before and after the concert at Saffron Hall, an offer which was gratefully accepted. A mixture of wild and posh farmed smoked salmon on mini bagels with a Pouilly-Vinzelles pre show.

Sixteen Going On 17th Century: Monteverdi, Vespers of 1610, The Sixteen, Saffron Hall, 8 November 2024

Part of this gargantuan piece, the Ave Maris Stella and the Magnificat, was probably the first Monteverdi music I ever heard, as it came as part of a collection of music records/subscription booklets that Uncle Michael gave me when I was a small child:

https://www.discogs.com/release/9437456-Claudio-Monteverdi-Monteverdi-Part-Two

I still have that record and booklet. You can hear that version of the Magnificat digitised here:

Magnificat

I have a feeling that my dad wasn’t overjoyed by my affinity with early 17th century sacred music, hence him seeking out and getting me into Monteverdi madrigals instead:

You Don’t Have To Be Madrigal To Learn About Music Here, But It Helps: Madrigals Of Love And War From The Radio, 4 June 1974, Plus The Top Five From That Week To Worm Their Ways Back Into Your Ears

But I digress. Let us return to November 2024 and the Saffron hall:

“Ian – what is that enormous instrument called?”

“It’s a theorbo, Mandy”

I proceeded to tell Mandy my favourite theorbo anecdotes:

William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010

Mandy must have been very keen to hear The Sixteen that evening, because she looked super-excited when the lights went down, I shut up and Harry Christophers strode onto the stage.

It was an excellent performance of Vespers 1610.

You can hear The Sixteen’s recorded performance of Monteverdi’s vespers on this link – do not be discouraged if it looks crossed out, the link works, but you might be interrupted by adverts if you don’t have a YouTube Music account.

Back at our cottage, I had prepared a supper of charcuterie and cheeses, with a rather jolly bottle of Chocolate Block.

Our luxury medieval cottage

A super evening.

Saffron Walden Market, Bridge End Gardens & Dinner At John & Mandy’s Place, 9 November

Mandy & John supplemented advice we had already received about what to do on a Saturday in Saffron Walden, before heading to their place for John’s cheffy dinner.

I’ll tell the story mostly in pictures, as I have written more than enough words already:

The condiment lady sold us two types of balsamic vinegar

St Mary the Virgin, the tallest spire and largest organ in all Essex apparently

Parish buildings

Strolling the old town

Then into the Bridge End Gardens…

We were getting quite cold, so we didn’t attempt the maze in Bridge End Gardens.

Probably just as well – as a few hours later – we even managed to get lost in the relatively simple maze of streets between our cottage and the John & Mandy residence. Eventually John came out to rescue us in the street.

Look closely and you can see all four of us in this picture

John hard at work preparing our amuse-bouche

Food Porn Photo One: the amuse-bouche

Food Porn Photo Two: sea bass starter

Food Porn Photo Three: beef fillet with celeriac & beans

Food Porn Photo Four: tiramisu that tasted far better than it looks

IAN: Cheese? Are you kidding? JOHN: You’ve no stamina these days, Ian

It was a really enjoyable evening. Indeed it was a really enjoyable and much needed short break for me and Janie.

If you want to see all 70+ photos from this trip, click the Flickr link below and scroll away:

Music From The Chapel Royal With Excerpts From Pepys’ Diary, Wigmore Hall, 17 April 2019

Russ London — (Russ London) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

The combination of subject matter, music and the choice of performers for this concert made this a bit of a “must see” for me at the Wigmore Hall. Janie rarely graces that Hall on a Wednesday, as it is not so convenient for her after a surgery day, but on this occasion she felt motivated to join me.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert.

I have long been fascinated by Samuel Pepys as a character and as a diarist. Indeed, I nearly named this website “Poopys Diary” rather than Ogblog, as a nod to two of my favourite diaries, those of Messrs Pepys and Pooter.

I had followed with great interest Christopher Page’s Gresham lecture series on 16th and 17th century guitar, not least the lecture on Samuel Pepys and the Guitar:

Samuel Pepys The Guitarist, Gresham College, 16 May 2018

This concert seemed set to supplement that interest in the form of live performance.

Also motivated to come along was Robin Simpson, one of my nonagenarian friends from Lord’s who still plays real tennis – sometimes rather too well. When Robin mentioned, a few weeks earlier, that he is a member of the Samuel Pepys Club, I mentioned that we were going to this concert and Robin said he was unaware of it. I gave Robin the details. A day or two later I took an excited telephone call from Robin to tell me that he had got himself a ticket in the third row.

So when Janie and I got to “The Wig” just after 19:00 I was unsurprised to see Robin in the bar. We joined him and arranged some interval drinks. As Robin turned out to be a “Wigmore Hall virgin”, we acted as his guide, not least taking him into the hall through the quieter back stairs route that makes so much sense if you are sitting at the front of the hall.

I was especially keen to hear some of Pelham Humfrey’s music, as I had read about him but, to my knowledge, not previously seen any of his music performed.

The web is not awash with high quality Pelham Humfrey, but here is a link to a fine recording of O Lord My God from the 1960s, the Guildford Cathedral Choir – copyright prevents embedding this link but you can click and listen here.

Here is a link to a less-than-special but rather charming performance of By The Waters Of Babylon from a festival in Brazil:

It was also wonderful to see Elizabeth Kenny playing a couple of solo pieces on the five course guitar as well as her more familiar appearance with the theorbo. Elizabeth Kenny doesn’t play solos much, but I am able to find her charming 10 minute video-essay on the theorbo…

Sadly there don’t seem to be any vids of Elizabeth Kenny playing the five course guitar, but here is a video of Ramiro Morales playing some of the Francesco Corbetta we heard:

Another highlight was to hear Beauty Retire, a piece attributed to Samuel Pepys, not least because he mentions it several times in his diary, describing it as his own. In truth, Cesare Morelli seems to have had quite a lot to do with Beauty Retire and indeed all the pieces attributed to Pepys. Here and below is a recording of the song:

In truth, the whole concert felt like a highlight. The performances were uniformly excellent, as one might expect from Harry Christophers superb ensemble, The Sixteen, together with that fine actor, Michael Pennington, reading passages from Pepys.

The Sixteen are one of my favourite early music ensembles. They were one of the main “happening things” back in the late 1980s when I started listening to early music. I first got to see them live some 30 years ago when my old firm, Binders, sponsored one of their concerts:

Music At Oxford At The Sheldonian Theatre & Bodleian Library, 7 July 1989

Coincidentally, my first stage sighting of Michael Pennington, the fine actor who did the narration for the 2019 concert, was around the same time as my first sighting of The Sixteen.

Playing With Trains by Stephen Poliakoff, The Pit, 11 November 1989

But returning to the April 2019 concert, it was a superb evening of 17th century music and words. The audience was hugely appreciative at the end. There was a delightful encore too, but I didn’t recognise it and Harry Christophers didn’t announce it. If someone reading this can chime in with the name of the piece, I’d be grateful. I’d guess from the texture of the sound it was by Pelham Humfrey. Was it O The Sad Day? Have a listen; it’s lovely:

In any case, Janie, Robin and I all had a most enjoyable evening.

Music At Oxford At The Sheldonian Theatre & Bodleian Library, 7 July 1989

“Everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro” – picture produced in collaboration with DALL-E

We headed up to Oxford late afternoon Friday for an unforgettable 24 hours or so, centred around a superb concert of Handel performed by The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra under Harry Christophers.

When I say “we”, I mean “me and my workmates. This was my first of several Music At Oxford experiences with BDO Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (as it was called at that time). In fact, I think this concert was the first that Binders sponsored and that Music At Oxford thereafter became a bit of a Binders fixture for several years.

I was thrilled and impressed when I discovered that my firm was sponsoring this concert. I had discovered The Sixteen a couple of years earlier by hearing their recordings broadcast on Radio 3 and had found their sound mighty impressive.

Even now, writing in February 2019, nearly 30 years after the event, Janie and I still consider The Sixteen to be one of the very best early music choir/orchestras we have ever heard – indeed we have booked to see them again at The Wigmore Hall quite soon. It’s been a while – can hardly wait.

Harry Christophers 2
Harry Christophers in 2012, from Wikimedia Commons

But back in 1989 I had not yet seen The Sixteen live and/but it transpired that pretty much nobody at work had heard of them at all, so I was designated to be the in-house expert to whom inquisitive clients attending the concert might be sent for more information…

…in true management consultancy style, my having heard the performers a couple of times on the radio became, shamelessly, “recent, relevant experience”, enabling me to advise the clients about all matters Sixteen, Handel and indeed Early Music generally. I should have charged fees.

I remember the Friday afternoon, especially the journey to Oxford, very clearly. I spent the day at the office. As I still hadn’t passed my driving test, William Casey, the managing partner of the consultancy, offered to take me with him from the office to Oxford. I suspect that part of his purpose was to suck what little I knew about the music and the performers from my brain, so he could say something vaguely meaningful to clients.

Of course, we ended up leaving Faringdon Within later than intended and of course the Friday afternoon traffic between London and Oxford in early July was pretty heavy.

I discovered that the seemingly unflappable William Casey was as flappable as the rest of us when under time pressure, as we really did need to get to the Randolph Hotel, get changed into our fancy-pants clobber and be at the Sheldonian Theatre in good time to meet and greet guests.

Once we got away from the main London traffic it seemed we still had plenty of time. William and I chatted about various things, including life aspirations (mostly his) and William’s prior experience living and working in Brazil.

But I don’t think William had accounted for the dreadful traffic into Oxford on a Friday. 1989 was pre-M40 beyond Oxford, of course, so a fair bit more local traffic needed to use the narrow roads around and through Oxford in those days. So the stress levels started to rise again once the A40 into Oxford became a traffic jam.

At one point, William cut off a rather jammed up corner by driving up onto the pavement and jumping the traffic queue at the turning. Probably spotting my disquiet at that manoeuvre (which had not come up in any of my driving lessons) William exclaimed…

…everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro!…

…which is the most memorable single thing that William ever said to me.

Of course, it was all a bit of a rush once we got to Oxford. Of course, we weren’t really late – just a little later than intended – so we were able to do the meet and greet thing before the concert…

…which is just as well, because we really were the sponsors – look at this page from the festival brochure:

Within a few months, we had changed our name to BDO Consulting; the first of several subtle name changes in the five-and-a-half years I was at the firm.

The concert was lovely and the Sheldonian Theatre is a superb setting for baroque music.

First up, the small scale but very beautiful Nisi Dominus, a recording of which, by The Sixteen, recorded just a few months after our concert, is (at the time of writing) available for all to hear:

Next up was the Lord Is My Light – Chandos Anthem No 10. Currently a recording of this one by The Sixteen is also available for you to hear:

Then the interval, which we spent hoity-toitying with our client guests in the Bodleian Library:

Special Invite
Well Posh

The invite doesn’t use the term hoity-toitying but you can take my word for it, that’s what we did.

I cannot remember in detail who was there that evening. All of the consultancy partners and a great many of my immediate colleagues for sure. Possibly some of the accountancy partners too, although I have a feeling that this first sponsorship was very much a consultancy affair and that it was in future years that the sponsorship widened out to Binder Hamlyn more generally. Michael Mainelli might well remember and fill in some juicy details.

I don’t think I needed to attend to my own main clients that year – I don’t think they attended. But I had been involved to some small extent with several of the firms clients by then, so had a fair smattering of people I knew as well as the general entreaty to “walk the room”, be the designated in-house early music expert and pretend to look intelligent…or whatever.

The second half of the concert was the wonderful Handel Dixit Dominus. I cannot find The Sixteen recording on line, but there is a fine live performance under John Elliot Gardiner which you might enjoy enormously:

My log reminds me how I felt about the evening and what happened next:

Superb evening. Ended up back at the Randolph Hotel sing-songing with the clients etc.

I am trying to remember who the main ringleaders of the sing-songing were; my memory fixes on Jim Arnott, Dom Henry and Richard Sealey in particular, but I might be mixing up this event with another event or two. Again, Michael might remember these informal details more specifically than me. I’m pretty sure Michael also partook of the sing-songing.

I don’t think we were sing-songing Handel at all – I suspect our singing was more of the Hotel California/American Pie/Streets Of London variety.

I do remember that we went on singing and partying into the early hours of the morning.

I don’t remember how I got home – I think I took the train from Oxford to Paddington for the return journey.

For sure I was back in London for an evening of Theatre at the National – that’s another story for another Ogblog…

…as are the subsequent Binders/Music At Oxford sponsorship evenings. At the time of writing the only other one I have written up so far is the 1992 one which was, confusingly, in Greenwich, London:

Music At Oxford At The Old Royal Naval College, 9 June 1992

But for sure this first Binders/Music At Oxford event, in 1989, especially the thrill of seeing The Sixteen at the Sheldonian, was one of my most memorable and enjoyable work-related cultural experiences.