A pair of baroque concerts over that weekend – Friday evening and Saturday evening. We chose to go and see both. It was part of a series named “Bach & His Contemporaries”.
I logged that Janie and I both described the concerts as:
superb.
On the Friday evening we saw/heard:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Trio Sonata in G for violin, flute and continuo
Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer – Chaconne in D minor for solo harpsicord
Diderik Buxtehude – Sonata in B flat for violin and viola da gamba Op 1 no 4 BuxWV255
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in B minor for flute and harpsicord, BWV 1030
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – Passacaglia for solo violin
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in G minor for viola da gamba and harpsicord, BWV 1029
Johann Sebastian Bach – Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering, BWB 1079
On the Saturday evening we heard:
Georg Philipp Telemann – Suite in A minor for recorder and strings
Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto in C for two harpsicords, BWV 1061
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata in G for violin and harpsicord, BWV 1019
Sylvius Leopold Weiss – Tombeau sur le mort de M Comte de Logy
Johann Sebastian Bach – Orchestral Suite no 2 in B minor
Trevor Pinnock, Rachel Podger and some of the others recorded the Bach trio sonatas that year. I have put together a playlist on YouTube Music which includes those lovely sonatas and some other pieces from the January 2000 weekend – click here to listen to that playlist. Don’t be put off by the strike through on the link – anyone can hear the playlist but you will get adverts if you are not yourself a YouTube Music subscriber.
If you prefer to just click the odd embed, here is one of the Bach sonatas we heard Trevor and Rachel play:
I wasn’t familiar with the work of JCF Fischer. Here’s Trevor Pinnock playing Fischer’s passacaglia, not the chaconne we heard. Still lovely:
Here are some other people playing (part of) the Telemann Overture/Suite that we heard:
The Weiss piece was a delicious listen. Here is Evangelina Mascardi giving it a go.
We heard William Carter play the Weiss at that January 2000 concert, long before Janie’s “mystery punter” evening at the same venue:
“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:
Excellent concert, this. Sonnerie was a superb but fluid ensemble, led by the indomitable Monica Huggett.
On this occasion they comprised Monica Huggett, Gary Cooper, Wilbert Hazelzet, Pamela Thorby, Catherine Latham, Katherine McGillivray, Catherine Martin, Emilia Benjamin, Alison McGillivray and Sarah Groser.
Here is the playlist from the gig:
Jean-Philippe Rameau – Pieces de clavecin en concerts No 3 in A major
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, Oboe d’amore, Viola d’amore, Strings and Continuo in E major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Violin, Strings and Continuo in D major (“Il Grosso Mogul”) RV208
Georg Philipp Telemann – Concerto for Flute, recorder, Strings and Continuo in E minor
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata No 1 for Violin and Harpsicord in B minor BWV 1014
Johann Sebastian Bach – Concerto for Harpsicord, 2 Recorders, Strings and Continuo in F major BWV 1057
Here is a clip from an earlier but lovely recording of the E major Telemann piece, which includes Monica Huggett with the Academy of Ancient Music
While here is a lovely video of Ensemble Odyssee playing the Bach concerto we heard that evening:
We both went straight from work and both had early starts the next morning, so I guess we supped light at Sandall Close after the gig.
Liberated from hosting The Duchess at The Proms, Janie and I went along to this concert on a Sunday evening planning nothing more than a light supper at my flat after the show. It was a Sunday evening and we both had ridiculously early starts the next morning.
Here’s the running order:
Johann Sebastian Bach, Singet dem Herrn, BWV 225
Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 49 in F minor ‘La passione’
Joseph Haydn, Non nobis, Domine, Hob. XXIIIa:1
Joseph Haydn, Insanae et vanae curae
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Requiem in D minor (compl. Süssmayr).
This was an excellent concert. You don’t need to take my word for that – it seems it got rave reviews afterwards. It has taken me 25 years to check out those rave reviews, but that’s me.
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:
Our first Prom together. BBC Prom I’m talking about. And when I say, “together”, that wasn’t just me and Janie – oh no – we also had her mother, Pauline, in tow.
In truth Janie wasn’t too keen on the idea of a “classical concert”, whereas Pauline was a keen music listener.
Still, Janie professed to liking Brandenberg Concertos, so this concert, entirely comprising J S Bach works, including three of the Brandenbergs, seemed a suitable entry point. This, despite my reservations about the Royal Albert Hall as a venue for baroque period music.
Here is a link to the BBC stub for this Prom. The Hanover Band with some cracking soloists: Anthony Robson, Benjamin Hudson, Catherine Latham, Robert Farley, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Rachel Brown, directed by Anthony Halstead.
This is what we heard:
Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major
Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1060 (version for oboe & violin)
Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D major, BWV 1050
Here is a later recording of The Hanover Band doing Brandenberg 5:
Meirion Bowen in the Guardian rated this Prom highly, while concurring with my view about the unsuitability of baroque music scaled authentically in the Albert Hall:
I mentioned to John during that 2018 visit that I had attended (nay, even been part of the hosting group for) a concert in 1992, around the time, strangely, that John Random and I first met.
I did recall that I had seen Evelyn Glennie perform that evening and that it had been a BDO Binder Hamlyn event as part of my old firm’s sponsorship of Music at Oxford. But the rest I couldn’t recall and I felt a bit silly about that, because I knew that I would have kept the programme at least and that it was all lined up to be Ogblogged…eventually. I should have dug out the bumf before the 2018 visit.
Anyway, curiosity got the better of me a few days later and I dug out the programme. Indeed, not only the programme but, inside the programme, instructions from the BDO Binder Hamlyn marketing department telling me what to do.
Here’s the programme:
Below is a link to a pdf of the instruction pack for hosts. There is even a copy of the form you needed to fill in if you wanted to arrive in Greenwich by boat.
People who know me through Z/Yen and associate “me and boats” in the context of our many Lady Daphne boat trips over the years, might be surprised to realise that I chose not to arrive by boat…those who know me a bit better than that in the matter of boats will be far less surprised.
A common theme to all the elements of this story so far is Michael Mainelli, who was/is:
the BDO Binder Hamlyn partner who led on the Music at Oxford sponsorship/marketing events,
my business partner at Z/Yen who owned and led on the Lady Daphne boat trips thing,
someone who, coincidentally, visited Morgan’s Rock in Nicaragua with his family (though not Mukul, which didn’t exist back then) a few years before Janie and I went there.
Anyway, I got a chance to interview Michael about the Music at Oxford event yesterday (25 January 2018). His main regret was that he couldn’t recall who he took as his date that year to Music at Oxford. Our conversation then side-tracked onto the loony rule that Binder Hamlyn had (and many firms still have) prohibiting intra-firm romances. Michael was already going out with Elisabeth back then but it was a secret, closely guarded by several dozen of the several hundred Binder Hamlyn staff and partners. So Michael had to take a decoy date to events like this instead.
Once we got over that digression, Michael recalled that this particular event was rather a ground-breaking one. Certainly it was the first time that we had taken a Music at Oxford concert beyond Oxford. But Michael thinks it might have been the first (or certainly one of the first) commercially sponsored concerts to take place at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel.
Michael also recalls that Evelyn Glennie was very pleasant company over dinner after the concert.
Here is an interesting little vid about Evelyn Glennie:
Here is a little vid of the percussion and timpani cadenzas from the Panufnik Concertino that Glennie played that night in the chapel – but this is some other people playing. It is a bit noisy:
But the Old Royal Naval College Chapel is a Baroque building of great beauty, so you might want to imagine the sole baroque piece we heard that night, Bach’s Ricecare a 6 from A Musical Offering. Here is a sweet vid of the Croating Baroque Ensemble performing it:
But surely the last word should go to John Random. Because, strangely, that 1992 spring/summer was when John and I met – through NewsRevue. John was the first director to have my comedy material performed professionally – click here or below for one of the better examples from that season:
On spotting that we also heard a piece by Antonín Dvořák in the Old Royal Naval College that summer’s night in 1992, I was also reminded of one of John Random’s lyrics from that same summer. Because that was the summer that Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. John wrote a superb lyric to the tune of Slow Hand by The Pointer Sisters, which included the wonderful couplet:
Not a compatriot of Dvořák,
I want a lover who’s a Slovak.
1992 was a seminal summer in so many ways.
A mere 25 years later…double-selfies hadn’t been invented in 1992
