Tag: Michel Blavet

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:

Tabea Debus, St John’s Smith Square, Lunchtime Concert, 12 April 2018

I was determined to get to SJSS and see this concert, as I had earmarked this particular concert as an interesting one for some time.

Here is a link to the SJSS page for the concert.

Just in case that link no longer works, here is a scrape of that page.

The week had somewhat run away with me, though, having ruled out much of the previous work day unexpectedly for Hazel Jacobs’s funeral, followed by the Middlesex CCC AGM, which also had a somewhat funereal feel to it this season.

Anyway, I got to the office after an early meeting at the LSE and managed to get my office stuff done by the appointed hour, so I was able to hot-foot it to SJSS on time.

A jolly looking harpsichord

I thought Tabea Debus came across really nicely – showing great enthusiasm and academic interest in her instrument and the topic of the concert, while projecting also the poise and folksiness of a true show-person. A star in the making.

She has previous at SJSS and they in fact made a short vid for her first mini-residency as a young artist a couple of years ago – see below:

The concert I saw was mostly Telemann – the theme being the subscription lists Telemann developed during his masterful music business career, plus the high-falutin’ composers who were among his subscribers and friends; Bach, Handel and Blavet.

Below is a video of Tabea performing some delicious Telemann, but not the stuff we scoffed that lunchtime:

Tabea also played a couple of modern works which were part of a commission commemorating the 250th anniversary of Telemann’s death. One of those, Frank Zabel’s “…fizzling out” was extraordinarily complex-sounding and must be a real challenge to play.

Then on to a music lesson for my humble skills – although Ian Pittaway seemed surprisingly pleased with my simple transcription of a Loqueville Rondo.

Then on to punish myself with two real tennis singles matches at Lord’s – 135 minutes unbroken is too long for an old geezer like me.

But I digress.

That lunchtime at SJSS was an hour supremely well spent.  I’ll be looking out for Tabea Debus’s name again, that’s for sure.