Tag: Royal Festival Hall

A Concert With Cousins Angela & John, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall, 28 March 2012

Angela & John “a few” years ago – Michael & Pam would approve the photo choice

This concert was the evening before Uncle Michael’s funeral, for which I was scheduled to be the soloist – i.e. eulogist.

Angela and John are patrons of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). They suggested that I might join them for this concert. An element of bonding exercise and an element (I suspect) of last minute stage management. John had stuck his neck out a little with his Rabbi by suggesting that a member of the family undertake the eulogy and they didn’t want any mistakes.

We discussed matters over drinks and nibbles with the patrons and benefactors before the show.

“Rabbi Rosenfeld is absolutely clear that you should keep the eulogy brief”, said John – who is a graduate of the Arsène Wenger school of management.

“I got the message – I’ve timed the speech; eighty-nine minutes…”

“…EIGHT OR NINE MINUTES…if it goes past ten minutes I’ll shut you up myself…”

…I think John knew I was joking.

Meanwhile, unlike our family funeral, the concert was not going to proceed as planned. The Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin had gone down with “severe gastric flu” (as described in the apologetic programme note).

So we had a late substitute from one of the other dominions, Australia, in the form of Matthew Coorey.

The result was a game of two halves in some ways.

Supersub Coorey was spared the first half of of the concert, as Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, wisely, chose to lead the orchestra herself in the Mozart Violin Concerto No 3.

I say the first half…of course the Mozart is quite a short work whereas the second half, Mahler Symphony No 9, is a 90 minute marathon. So it was more like an 80:20 thing than a game of two halves…

…I’m digressing. Point is, the first piece I suspect included all the nuance and personality that had been planned for this concert. I have an affection for that simple but charming piece and it was delivered very well that night.

By contrast, the Mahler seemed, while very professionally performed, a somewhat retreated, standard performance of the great work. Hats off to Coorey for taking on such a monumental work at such short notice. But “letting the orchestra just do its thing” is probably as good as it gets in those circumstances.

Here is a short video of Lisa Batiashvili playing at home, Tbilisi. I couldn’t find a legitimate vid of her playing Mozart so I thought this gorgeous piece of Bach would do nicely.

While here is a short vid of Matthew Coorey conducting. It isn’t Mahler…instead it is Kodaly, so there is still rather a lot of early 20th century noise and some unusual percussion – it was the closest I could find:

Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring Anthony Braxton, supported by Polar Bear, Royal Festival Hall, 8 July 2007

Oh dear!

We had enjoyed some real success fairly randomly booking jazz concerts and both felt that we wanted to broaden our jazz horizons yet further. We didn’t know what music from the “Free Jazz Movement” sounded like, but when paired with terms such as “avant-garde jazz” and “controversial”, we thought that the Cecil Taylor Quartet featuring acclaimed saxophonist Anthony Braxton might really be for us.

Better still, with my South Bank Centre membership and early booking, there were box seats to be had. Neither of us had ever tried the boxes at the Royal Festival Hall before.

Better yet, on the night itself, we really enjoyed the support band, Polar Bear, also billed as “experimental”. I remember the spokesperson between numbers introducing one piece they were working on, entitled “Lente”, because his Italian girlfriend would use the word “eccellente”, shortened to “lente”, all the time. I remember this, because Daisy and I to this day sometimes use this term to express a big yes. It all seemed well cool.

Great, we thought, this is our sort of Jazz. We were really excited during the interval. If the support band is that good, the main act must be unbelievable.

It was unbelievable, but not in the way we’d hoped.

What a noise. It really is hard for me to describe it. Frenzied. Lacking melody and tone for simple folk like us to engage with. Perhaps past its peak. Perhaps absolutely at its peak – can’t help you there – we really couldn’t tell. A Jazz Geek describes it here. A detailed piece from All About Jazz explains how historic and excellent (lente?) it all was. Possibly quite peaky, then.

There is an old adage about jazz that it is the only form of music where the musicians are enjoying themselves more than the audience. Perhaps that adage was especially written for the Free Jazz Movement.

At least we can say that we have seen Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton perform together, historically. Perhaps in our dotage this fact will enable us to come across as incredibly seasoned and sophisticated Jazz aficionados. Wide-eyed youngsters might gather round to hear us describe our experiences; “we suffered for our art back in the day, children, my how we suffered.”

Of course, this “free jazz” concert wasn’t free at all. £35 a ticket (for some reason I kept the tickets) – worth the price of admission for the more modern, experimental and accessible Polar Bear alone. Perhaps the old 1950s movement was known as Free Jazz because no-one in their right mind would pay to hear it.

Still, those box seats proved to be a boon for us. After enduring 40-45 minutes of the Cecil Taylor set (each number was quite long and we were determined to check this out properly), we concluded that we would get no more out of this experience. Those box seats enabled us to make a quick escape between numbers almost imperceptibly and without disturbing other patrons.

Free at last, free at last…

People’s Palace, Royal Festival Hall, Preceded By The Benn Clatworthy Quartet & A BFI Visit Including Films From The Ian Carmichael Special Season, 6 December 2002

This is how Linda Cook announced the event to the Z/Yen team in November:

Dear All

The Xmas Party has now been arranged, and we are, in the Z/Yen style, going for the more than just a Christmas Meal/Drinking approach.

1 – Hardened revellers can go to the Royal Festival Hall bar from 17:00 onwards, to enjoy a drink and some entertainment in the bar – Benn Clatworthy Quartet described as “tenor sax player in fast-moving hard-bop”.

2 – We shall stagger across the way (National Film Theatre) to see Bertie Wooster and Other Comical Characters “rare surviving footage from the famous 60’s World of Wooster series” at approx 18:20.

3 – Dinner will be at the People’s Palace in the Royal Festival Hall at 20:00.

I need to know which of the evening’s events your partner’s will be attending, I will assume that you are attending all events – if this is not the case please let me know.

Please email me your reply by close of play on Wednesday 20 November.

Regards

Linda Cook

Assistant Social Secretary for this evening, for and on behalf of the Social Secretary for this evening, Ian Harris

If you are desperate to know what the Benn Clatworthy Quartet looks and sounds like – feast your eyes and ears on the following video.

For the seasonal effect, you might prefer the following vid from Los Angeles – admittedly his sextet this time, but surely that is Father Christmas on trumpet? Actually, I think I prefer the sextet’s jazz.

The idea of visiting the British Film Institute (BFI) was linked to the fact that we were doing a fairly sizeable piece of work with that institution at that time. These days, of course, you can get a glimpse of rare old footage without traipsing to the BFI building itself. Here is an episode from that 1960s “World Of Wooster” series with Ian Carmichael:

The meal at The People’s Palace in the Royal Festival Hall building was excellent, although it lacked the “private room” quality that we prefer. We were sort-of screened off but basically in the main restaurant.

For that reason, if no other, we skipped the song that year. I don’t think that Secret Santa or quizzing had been invented yet…at least not for Z/Yen seasonal dos, but still everyone seemed to have a great time.

London Philharmonic Orchestra Doing The Lenningrad Symphony And More At The Royal Festival Hall, 19 October 1997

For reasons no-one (not even herself) can explain, Janie is quite partial to Shostakovich, yet cannot abide Prokofiev.

Anyway, a client offered Janie a pair of fine seats at this concert and we said yes.

According to my log, we:

bumped into John and Angela [Kessler] there.

From memory, we encountered cousin Angela and John, rather than actually having a collision with them. I don’t think I knew, at that time, that Angela was on the Board of the LPO and I suspect that Angela and John were too polite to mention that fact.

We heard:

  • Bernd Alois Zimmerman – Trumpet Concerto “Nobody Knows de Trouble I See”
  • Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No 7 in C, Op 60 “Lenningrad”

Janie and I loved the Leningrad Symphony as performed that night by the LPO under the baton of Kurt Masur. I didn’t see the following review at the time, but Brian Hunt in The Torygraph bore out our assessment – he absolutely loved this concert:

LPO Shostakovich Hunt TelegraphLPO Shostakovich Hunt Telegraph 25 Oct 1997, Sat The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A belated thank you to the kind donor of our brace of tickets, who I think went globetrotting or something of that kind instead. Look what you missed.

Mozart At The Royal Festival Hall, 15 February 1991

To the Royal Festival Hall in deep midwinter with Bobbie, as part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra 60th Anniversary festival. We went to a couple of these concerts; this was the second of them.

Stephen Bishop-Kovacevich waved the stick and David Butt played the flute. We heard three great works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

  • Symphony No 39 in E Flat Major
  • Flute Concerto in G Major, K313/KE285c
  • Symphony No 40 in G Minor, K550

I’m not sure this was a perfect fit of conductor and orchestra for these works, but it was lovely to hear these familiar pieces in the Royal Festival Hall. I cannot find any newspaper archive reviews for this one, so my one-line review based on a memory of an event from nearly 34 years ago (as I write) will have to do.

BBC Symphony Orchestra Feast On Bruckner, With Andrew rather Than Günter, At The Royal Festival Hall, 8 February 1991

Bobbie and I went to a couple of Friday evening concerts at The Royal Festival Hall as part of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 60th Anniversary festival.

We were supposed to see the great Günter Wand performing a couple of Beethoven Symphonies, but Günter pulled out at the last minute so Andrew Davis decided to shake a stick at one of Günter’s signature pieces:

Anton Bruckner – Symphony No 8 in C Minor.

Hence, a one piece concert, this.

I did subsequently get to hear and see Günter perform this piece with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at what turned out to be his last BBC Prom hurrah – another occasion when we turned up to hear one set of pieces and got Bruckner 8 instead.

The Night That Günter Wand Changed The Programme & Conducted His Last Prom, Royal Albert Hall, 9 September 1995

It’s just as well that I like Bruckner 8. I guess I have become mighty familiar with it over the years, collecting four Bruckner 8’s in 10 years between 1989 and 1999.

Malcolm Hayes in The Telegraph was unsure about this brave (but in his view, flawed) 1991 attempt:

David Bruckner Hayes TelegraphDavid Bruckner Hayes Telegraph 11 Feb 1991, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Still, Bobbie and I no doubt enjoyed our evening despite the absence of Ludwig Van and Günter.