This was an opportunity to hear two genres of Indian music in one concert. I don’t think that we’d seen Amjad Ali Khan before this concert – although I had heard my father’s recordings of him playing with Ravi Shankar.
This concert was part of his residency at the Wigmore Hall, which I think was a new idea back then.
The first half of the concert was singing in the Carnatic (Southern Indian) tradition. This was interesting but not as relaxing and delightful to our ears as the sarod music performed by Amjad Ali Khan himself in the second half.
For some reason the Wigmore Hall on-line stub for this concert is incomplete and has errors in it (at the time of writing – February 20180 – here is the link anyway.
So I have uploaded the information sheet, which I am sure is accurate:
We’d seen them perform before and had even previously seen one of their concerts at which Andrew Carwood explained the sectarian political backdrop to the music in those Tudor times…
…it must have been like the politics of Brexit but with capital punishment in place of the earhole bashing.
No wonder these Tudor composers took solus in lamentations and such Jeremiad material.
As usual with such concerts, it was fascinating to hear the contrast between the lesser and the better known composers; Tallis and especially Byrd being the better known and better represented composers on the night. The better known fellows deserve their status in my view; certainly for this type of music.
At a very geeky level this is an exciting Wigmore Hall concert, because this was our first concert of the 2011-2012 season, which was the first season that Wigmore Hall archived fully on-line.
In truth, Brad Mehldau concerts tend to be a bit geeky anyway. The fellow has so many influences and blends so many styles in with his jazz piano, the concert is almost like a music quiz.
Back then, I was less fascinated by the mandolin than I am now at the time of writing (January 2018)…
…but I have long been intrigued by the instrument and it was very interesting to hear it used as a jazz pairing with Brad’s inimitable jazz piano style.
I think technically Brad was no longer the curator of the Wigmore Hall jazz seasons by the time this concert came around, although it might have been, technically, the tail end of his 2010/2011 commitment to the venue.
I seem to recall that I enjoyed this concert more than Janie did…
…I also seem to recall that we both felt that we had “done” Brad Mehldau now, this being the third of his we had been to, unless the concert works or partner musicians were the main attraction for us…
…what could be a more fitting conclusion than a late night concert at the Wigmore Hall?
Back then, I used to describe Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall as the last two places on the planet where stewards refer to me as “young man”.
Now (as I write in late 2017) I’m afraid that not even the stewards at those two places call me “young man” any more.
But I digress.
This was a lovely short concert of Paco Peña and friends making glorious music together.
I’m pretty sure that Janie picked me up and whisked me back to Sandall Close after the concert – this was our penultimate weekend there. Another story.
We had the joy, honour and privilege to see the marvellous Hespèrion XXI that spring, little knowing that it was to be one of the last few concerts Montserrat Figueras was able to give.
The concert was entitled Mare Nostrum, a celebration of early music cross-fertilisation between eastern and western traditions of music, spanning from Byzantium to Al-Andalus and Sephardic traditions of music.
Available for download by clicking the image or through all major outlets
I also remember being slightly irritated on the night that none of the music we heard was available to buy on CD, as the relevant music was to be on a “forthcoming” CD. I would have been more sympathetic had I known that Montserrat Figueras was struggling with her health at that time.
I satisfied my crazy craving for Hespèrion XXI music at the time by procuring:
I resolved to seek out the Mare Nostrum album when it came out, but of course clean forgot about it and then went through a phase of not buying music, because I had so many CDs.
But today (29 December 2017), recalling how wonderful that 2011 concert experience was and how moving we had found this east-west fusion early music, I naturally could not resist the temptation to download the Mare Nostrum album. I’m so glad I did.
Janie and I have been thoroughly enjoying listening to the music and recalling that very special concert from 2011.
We have seen Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI several times since. We always enjoy those concerts, but feel very lucky to have experienced their live sound while Montserrat Figueras was still on the scene.
I love a bit of Corelli under almost any circumstances, but these adaptations of Op 5 concertos for the recorder have an especially soulful and melancholy timbre.
In the absence of Janie, I snapped up one of the CDs during the interval, as I was so sure she’d love the sound, which she did. We still both listen to this recording rather a lot. Indeed we are listening to it as I type.
Also available as a download now, from Amazon (click the pic) or elsewhere
It isn’t all that often that book to go to the Wigmore Hall on my own. But I really liked the look of this concert and Janie really didn’t fancy a special trip into town on a Monday evening, even for the Wigmore Hall. She was, at that time, normally still working long Monday clinics at her place.
The diary suggests I had worked a long day myself that day, ending up at Lord’s late afternoon, perhaps for a meeting about the Middlesex business plan. I’ll guess that it was the day of the AGM and that I therefore skived the Middlesex AGM that year for this concert.
What dedication to the early music cause and oh boy was it worth it.
The upshot of Janie missing out on this one was probably, in the longer term, good news. Since then, if I say that I shall nevertheless go alone to a concert that I really fancy, Janie usually then relents and agrees to come with me.
We fancied this concert, which melded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Piazolla’s Four Seasons Of Buenos Aires.
So despite its scheduling in the Sunday coffee morning slot, which throws our tennis plans awry, we gave it a try.
A different, wrinkly audience on a Sunday morning. Some perhaps as keen on the gratis coffee (or a glass of sherry if you prefer) as the music.
The music was performed serviceably (I think we’ve heard the Piazolla Seasons done with more flare since) and we were glad to have experienced the Wiggy Coffee morning thing…but it isn’t really our type of gig.
Is that William Carter on the theorbo or a Naxi Musician in Lijiang on the pipa?
I was most amused, when I tracked down the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM’s) blog piece about the concert we attended on 24 September 2010 – click here for the whole piece – to read this snippet:
The mood’s lively tonight. William Carter (theorbo) comes in to the dressing room in the interval telling us that a punter has accosted him and enquired whether his instrument is Chinese. “No”, replies Bill. “It looks very much like an instrument I saw in China”, insists the punter mysteriously.
I can now solve the mystery – Janie (Daisy) is the mystery punter.
We had been to China a few months earlier and had seen a concert of ancient Chinese music performed by Naxi musicians in Lijiang, Yunnan province – pictures 97 to 107 on the following album:
I remember Janie asking me whether that big lute thing…
…was the same as the Chinese instrument we saw in Lijiang.
“No”, I said.
“That’s what he said”, she said, confessing that she had asked William Carter that question as we were leaving the hall for the interval.
I explained that there was a fair bit of cross-fertilisation of musical instruments between east and west in the Renaissance period, but that instrument is a close relative of the lute and that family of instruments is more of a middle-east to west cross-fertilisation than a far-east to west influence. I also explained that the Chinese instruments of that kind might be far more ancient than any in the west, so technically, there might be a dim and distant connection.
“So, basically yes, then?” suggested Janie.
“Basically no,” I dared to disagree.
It is most amusing to find, so many years later (writing in December 2017) Janie’s exchange with William Carter preserved on the AAM blog.
We have since seen pipa concerts and I think Janie could now distinguish theorbo-type and pipa-type instruments with some skill.
I have one other anecdote about William Carter, from a few months later. By that time, my mum was in Nightingale House, her dementia worsening. I was at that time often visiting her and then jumping on the tube to go to the city.
Walking along Nightingale Lane towards Clapham South, I saw a young man just ahead of me carrying a large musical instrument case that looked to me as though it could only contain a theorbo.
I hurried my step, caught up with the young man and said, “excuse me, but is that instrument of yours a theorbo?” He beamed a smile at me and said, “yes it is. I have been lugging this theorbo around London for years now and have had the daftest questions asked about it…you are the first person who has actually recognised it and enquired after it by name!”
It turned out that the young man was one of William Carter’s students at Guildhall and was on the way to see him. We had a most pleasant chat about early music on the tube into the city together.
A very interesting concert, this. We had heard a fair amount of music by JS Bach’s many composer/descendents, but I don’t think we’d heard any music by his forebears before.
In truth, this isn’t the most wonderful music we have ever heard; it is of its (mostly early to mid) baroque period. Unexceptional, other than the fact that it must have been an influence on JS Bach and all that followed.
But the AAM folk did their best to keep the concert lively and engaging. Richard Egarr is an engaging master of ceremonies, Pavlo Beznosiuk always looks as though he is about to wink at the audience and even William Carter smiled a bit during the riper anecdotes of introduction.
