Miloš: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, CC BY 2.0
Janie and I were really taken with Miloš Karadaglić when we first saw him, at The Wig, more than 10 years ago:
I bought some CDs (remember them?) on the back of that concert and we attempted to see him again a year or two later, but he had to cancel that concert due to injury and disappeared off our radar for a while.
I had noticed his name on schedules relatively recently, but this was the first time that the timings worked for us…more or less.
I say “more or less”, because I knew that we would most likely be at Lord’s that day for the fourth day of the test match…
…and a day at the test followed by a concert at The Wig was sure to be a rigorous test for Pinky, my brand-new hip.
Still, Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall are the only places left on the planet where some stewards and fellow patrons still occasionally refer to me as “young man”, so it had to be worth a go.
Pinky and I passed the test with flying colours, as did Miloš Karadaglić. But things have also changed for Miloš since we last saw him. For a start, he has become mononymous; “Miloš” is his entire billing name now. Miloš now plays with some strapping on one of his hands and plays accompanied rather than solo, perhaps to help manage his workload.
When I booked the concert the plan was for him to be accompanied by an accordion player, but the concert was changed substantially between booking and concert. Instead we saw him with the Piatti Quartet, which, frankly, was more to our taste than I imagine the accordion would have been.
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resources for the concert.
The concert was lovely. Miloš still plays delightfully and with great elegance. You could sense that he had built a great rapport with the quartet for this concert/mini-tour. The Piatti Quartet also played beautifully.
Miloš explained that, in a musical world that is increasingly about playlists that keep individual items short, while mixing and matching styles, this concert was designed like such a playlist. Hence the four movements of the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Guitar Quintet unusually peppered throughout the concert.
In the first half we heard:
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – Guitar Quintet Op. 143: I. Allegro, vivo e schietto
- Benedetto Marcello – Oboe Concerto in D minor: II. Adagio
- Luigi Boccherini – Guitar Quintet in D G448 ‘Fandango’
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – Guitar Quintet Op. 143: II. Andante mesto
- Malcolm Arnold – Serenade for guitar and strings Op. 50
- Anon – Spanish Romance
- Ástor Piazzolla – Libertango
This video clip of him playing the Spanish Romance will give you a sense of his playing:
During the interval, Janie struck up a conversation with the American lady who was sitting, alone, to Janie’s right. The lady told us that she had become a bit of a groupie for Miloš, having seen him several times at various locations in the recent past. She seemed surprised (and perhaps a little envious) that we had seen him as long ago as 2015. She then admitted that she had somewhat of a crush on Miloš and blushed. I asked politely what Miloš has that I haven’t got? I thought I heard a rather complimentary response from the blushing lady, although Janie claims to have heard the response differently. “Young man” was not part of the answer in either of our rememberings.
In the second half we heard:
- Philip Glass – String Quartet No. 2 ‘Company’
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – Guitar Quintet Op. 143: III. Scherzo. Allegro con spirito, alla marcia
- Pablo Casals – Song of the Birds (arranged by Piatti Quartet)
- Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco – Guitar Quintet Op. 143: IV. Finale. Allegro con fuoco
- Harold Arlen – The Wizard of Oz: Over the Rainbow (arranged by Tōru Takemitsu)
- The Beatles – Eleanor Rigby
- The Beatles – Fool on the Hill
- The Beatles -Here Comes the Sun
- Encore: Antonio Luca Vivaldi – Concerto in D major for flute, oboe, violin and bassoon RV90: II. Largo