The King’s Consort, Bach and Vivaldi Violin Concertos, Wigmore Hall, 31 December 2007

Kings Consort 31 Dec 2007

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.

Wachet Auf: The King’s Consort At The Wigmore Hall, 9 December 1999

“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: