Tag: Royal Albert Hall

The Well Tempered Clavier, András Schiff, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 7 September 2017

It’s years since we have been to the proms. I used to go regularly, even before I met Janie.

Then in our early days together…indeed for many, many years, we would take The Duchess (Janie’s mum), as she liked the place and the concerts. But once the Duchess went off the idea of going out to concerts, we focused our concert-going on smaller, more intimate venues such as The Wigmore Hall and St John’s Smith Square.

Anyway, Janie called me excitedly earlier in the week, as she was with Joyce Ma, who had excellent tickets for this concert and couldn’t use them. Would we like them?

It was hard to say no to such a kind and generous offer. We both love Bach and we both thought it would make a real change for us to visit the Proms again.

Further, as Janie was spending the day with Charlotte and I was spending the day at Lord’s with Chris – it was a very practicable arrangement for Janie and I to meet up and go on to the concert via a scrub and change at the flat – click here.

This concert was the very first time that the whole of Book One of The Well Tempered Clavier had been performed at the Proms. Interesting choice for a late night concert, as the 21:00 start meant for a 23:00 finish.

Imagine my delight when we entered the hall and I realised that Joyce had chosen pretty much exactly the seats I would have chosen myself “back in the day”, when I used to choose my seats with a connoisseur’s precision.

András Schiff performed the whole of The Well Temered Clavier Book One from memory, which seemed the most extraordinary feat in itself to me. He also performed with a wonderfully light touch and supreme confidence.

Michael Church in The Independent gave the performance a rave five star review – click here.

Fiona Maddocks in The Guardian also went for five stars – the Schiff is reviewed right at the end of her composite piece – here.

Boyd Tonkin at theartsdesk.com also gave a rave review and shows some lovely photos – here.

Both Janie and I nodded off at times – that is a compliment in a way because the music was so relaxing. In truth, The Well Tempered Clavier is not, to my taste, the most interesting work for listening rapt with attention. But it is delightfully easy on the ear if you listen to relax. This performance was a classic of a classic; it was just wonderful to end our day with it.

Janie took her own photos when Schiff took his well-deserved standing ovation and bow:

More…more…more…
No encore? Humph…just kidding!

A very special evening – thanks again, Joyce!

Kissin, Cousins, Zubin Mehta…A Big Night At The Proms, 9 September 1999

A memorable evening at the Proms, just a few days after our previous memorable visit. A rare midweek booking for us, but the promise of Evgeny Kissin, Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra was too tempting to miss.

Again we had The Duchess (Janie’s mum) with us.

The programme was two big pieces:

  • Frédéric Chopin – Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor
  • Anton Bruckner – Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)

I hadn’t seen Evgeny Kissin before but had heard about him. Janie thought he was excessively flamboyant – a complaint she has about many star pianists.

Anyway, here is a video of Mehta conducting Kissin performing an extract from this piece some years later – this time with the Israel Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra:

The Duchess thought Kissin’s cadenzas were absolutely wonderful but she thought him “rude” or “self-centred” doing encores ahead of the interval on a night with such a long programme. Takes one to know one.

The encores were Chopin’s Polonaise in A flat major and Scherzo in B flat minor, seeing as you asked…

…OK, you didn’t ask. But my mum loved that Polonaise and she would have got all excited about the young Evgeny Kissin had she been there and heard him play it a bit like this:

In truth, we did hear some people saying that they would have to leave before the second half, because they otherwise wouldn’t be able to get home, which was a real shame for those people.

While stretching our legs during the interval, we ran into my cousins, Angela and John Kessler, who were very keen on Kissin and also eagerly looking forward to seeing Zubin Mehta and the Bavarians wrestle with Anton Bruckner for 80 minutes or so after the interval.

The Duchess seemed most displeased that we had run into some people that we knew, preventing her from being the centre of attention for five minutes or so.

The Bruckner was certainly worth the wait. I had seen this symphony performed several times before but sense that this evening was the best performance I have seen.

Here is an extract of Mehta conducting the Bruckner Symphony, but on this occasion with the Berlin Philharmonic rather than the Bavarian State Orchestra.

Returning to our memorable evening, here is Erica Jeal’s review of that evening from The Guardian. Good to see Kissin and Mehta getting three stars while Whitney Houston only got two.

Kissin Jeal GuardianKissin Jeal Guardian 11 Sep 1999, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Geoffrey Norris in The Telegraph was not so sure about Kissin:

Kissin Telegraph NorrisKissin Telegraph Norris 10 Sep 1999, Fri The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

While Michael Kennedy in the Sunday Telegraph seemed less sure about Zubin Mehta than we were, comparing him, perhaps unfavourably, with Bernard Haitink and Günter Wand. I’m a lucky fellow, as I have seen all three of them conduct Bruckner 8.

Mehta Telegraph KennedyMehta Telegraph Kennedy 12 Sep 1999, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Knowing that the concert would finish late and that we both had an early start the next day, I sense that we did not go out to dinner after this one. Janie had probably prepared some cold compilations for us to munch, with a glass of wine, when we got home.

Janie also very sensibly had arranged for Jill Wooton to come and give us both a massage at home on the Friday evening. Two nights out with The Duchess in five days, with plenty of work in between, we sure both would have needed the massages and sure both had earned them.

Diary says that we went to Andrea’s BBQ party on the Saturday evening (a rather good one at her house in Shepherd’s Bush, if I remember correctly) and then to Mum & Dad’s for tea on the Sunday. We didn’t hang about back then.

Kremer Verses Kremerata: More Than Four Seasons At The Proms, 4 September 1999

Another quirky and memorable concert at The Proms. We took The Duchess Of Castlebar (Janie’s mum) with us to this one, as we thought she would like the Piazzolla. Possibly she did. You didn’t tend to get positive feedback from the Duchess back then and nothing has changed in 25 years, as I write in 2024.

Janie and I were fascinated by this concert. Janie was already keen on Piazzolla and this helped cement that interest.

Here’s what we heard:

  • Giya Kancheli – V & V
  • Arvo Pärt – Tabula rasa
  • Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 1 in E Major, RV 269
  • Astor Piazzoll – Cuatro estaciones porteñas,  Verano porteño
  • Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 2 in G minor, RV 315
  • Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Otoño porteño
  • Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 3 in F Major, RV 293
  • Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Invierno porteño
  • Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, No. 4 in F minor, RV 297
  • Astor Piazzolla – Cuatro estaciones porteñas, Primavera porteña
  • Peter Heidrich – Variations on ‘Happy Birthday’
  • Alexander Bakshi – The Unanswered Call

Fiona Maddocks briefly wrote up the concert in The Observer:

Kremer Observer MaddocksKremer Observer Maddocks 12 Sep 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Here’s what the Arvo Pärt piece sounds like:

While here is the sound of the Piazzolla piece we heard interspersed between the oh so familiar Four Seasons:

We took the Duchess to North China after the concert. The restaurant West Acton, not the more northerly reaches of the Middle Kingdom…obvs.

A Late Night Prom With The Scholl Siblings & The Frieburg Baroque, 27 August 1999

This was a super way to kick off a bank holiday weekend. Janie and I had taken the day off work. No sign in the diaries of us eating out – perhaps we ate at Sandall Close and then jumped in the car to go to Kensington.

Interesting concert – Janie is partial to a bit of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, so that would have been the clincher. The other three pieces were rare items, all of which were getting their Proms premier that night.

  • Francesco Durante – Concerto No. 4 in E minor
  • Antonio Vivaldi – Filiae maestae Jerusalem, RV 638
  • Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer – Concerto No. 5 in F minor
  • Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Stabat mater

Here’s a beautiful recording of Andreas Scholl singing the Vivaldi piece (with a different orchestra), embedded from Andreas Scholl’s YouTube Channel:

I cannot find a review of the concert we heard, but I can find a most interesting preview in The Telegraph, including an interview with the Scholl siblings:

Scholl x2 Telegraph Rye Scholl x2 Telegraph Rye 21 Aug 1999, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

As Andreas himself says, the Royal Albert Hall is far from perfect acoustically for baroque music, but it does have a unique atmosphere of its own. This concert was a good one.

A Night At The Proms Without The Duchess But With Trevor Pinnock & The English Concert, 8 August 1999

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.

Here’s Geoffrey Norris in The Telegraph:

Pinnock Telegraph NorrisPinnock Telegraph Norris 09 Aug 1999, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Tom Sutcliffe in the Standard was a little more equivocal, but still wrote very well of the gig.

Pinnock Sutcliffe StandardPinnock Sutcliffe Standard 09 Aug 1999, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A Night At The Proms With The Duchess & The Hallé Orchestra, 5 August 1999

In those days we used to take Janie’s mum, Pauline, aka The Duchess, to the Proms at least a couple of times a season.

She was partial to a bit of Mahler, and a bit of Ludwig van…

…and a bit of verbal ultraviolence, now I come think of it.

Anyway, this is what we heard:

  • Symphony No 7 in A major by Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Violin Concerto by Alban Berg
  • Adagio from Symphony No 10  by Gustav Mahler
  • Henry V: A Shakespeare Scenario – Touch Her Soft Lips and Part by William Walton, arr. C. Palmer (encore)

The Hallé Orchestra, leader Lyn Fletcher, conductor Kent Nagano, violinist Kyung-Wha Chung.

All that information and more is on the excellent BBC Proms stub for this concert, which also enables you to hear and read about the stuff we heard – click here.

Janie’s diary suggests that we ate at Golden Chopsticks afterwards, with the helpful name “Mr Chow” jotted beside the phone number. (Harrington Road…long since gone.)

My First Night At the Proms: Me, Jilly & Claudio, 1 September 1983

Claudio Abbado in 1982 (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Judging from the notes in my diary, I was spending most of my working days late August and early September in Kenton, doing stuff for Laurie Krieger’s various enterprises, about which I have written a little elsewhere on Ogblog and no doubt will write more in the fulness of time.

As luck would have it, I was asked to return to the office that Thursday afternoon for the rest of the week. Luck, because Jilly, whom I had arranged to meet that evening, got a sudden compulsion to leg it over to the Royal Albert Hall to see the prom that night, as Claudio Abbado was to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.

It’s Claudio Abbado. he’s the greatest. We’ve got to see him. We might never get another chance…

I was less sure than Jilly about this at the time. She was a budding music student of course, whereas I was still on the low foothills of appreciating classical music.

But I had heard of both pieces to be performed that night – here’s the BBC stub for that “show”:

  • Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major, ‘Emperor’
  • Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique.

Indeed, I even owned a recording of the Fantastique.

I remember queuing for quite a long time. I don’t remember whether we enjoyed this concert from the arena or the gallery. My guess is that it was the gallery as I don’t think we could have got there early enough to get in to the arena, but perhaps in those days “after work arrival” was good enough for the arena.

Of course it was very good indeed. Of course Jilly was right – I can now always say that I saw Claudio Abbado conduct.

Feeling envious that you didn’t hear the concert? Wondering whether you remember what orchestras and soloists (Emmanuel Ax on the piano for the Emperor Concerto) sounded like live under Abbado?

Fret no more. A website named pastdaily.com uploaded the recording of this concert as a tribute when Abbado died in 2014. Embedded below.

Claudio Abbado Conducts The London Symphony – 1983 – Past Daily Mid-Week Concert/Tribute Edition

Thank you Jilly and thank you Past Daily.