I think I booked this one because of the Weill/Brecht. I really like the songs from The Threepenny Opera and you don’t often see them on the Wigmore Hall listings. Janie likes a bit of Shostakovich, so we thought we’d give it a try.
The concert comprised:
Alfred Schnittke – Sonata No 1 for Violin and Piano
Dmitri Shostakovich – Sonata for Violin and Piano Op 134
Maurice Ravel – Kaddish
William Walton – Sonata for Violin and Piano
Kurt Weill, Simon Mulligan & Bertolt Brecht – Songs from “The Threepenny Opera”
In truth, I think this concert convinced us that 20th century music, on the whole, is not for us.
Here’s the first movement of the Schnittke, to give you an idea:
Try the last movement of the Shostakovich
I do recall rather liking the Kaddish, which I hadn’t heard before:
Janie and I were partial to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and also we are Telemaniacs, so this concert was an obvious one to book, even coming so soon after another delicious-looking Baroque concert on the preceding Sunday.
We were not disapointed.
We heard:
Georg Philipp Telemann – Volker Ouverture in B flat major TWV55:B5
Johann Sebastian Bach – Harpsicord Concerto in D minor BWV1052
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto Grosso in A minor Op 3 No 8 RV522
Georg Philipp Telemann – Ouverture La Bizarre in G major TWV55:G2
Unusually, this was an afternoon, not an evening concert. It had a very geeky name for a very beautiful concert.
Technically speaking – geeky people took great pains to point out when we all celebrated the new millennium on 31 December 1999 – as there had not been a year zero – the real millennium must be 31 December 2000. The fact that calendars had changed, days added and all sorts was put to one side for those who wanted to celebrate the new millennium on 31 December 2000.
Janie and I just wanted to see this lovely concert and we were not disappointed. We were very keen on Florilegium and Emma Kirkby and the programme was enticing:
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Flute Concerto “La Notte” in G minor Op 10 No 2
Johann Sebastian Bach – Susser Trost, mein Jesus kommt from Cantata BWV 151
Arcangelo Corelli – Trio Sonata in D major Op 1 No 12
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Salve Regina in C minor
George Frideric Handel – Sweet Bird from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Henry Purcell – The Fatal Hour Comes On Apace
Henry Purcell – Music for a While
Henry Purcell – Suite from The Fairy Queen
Here is a nice vid of James Galway with the Ventian Soloisti under Claudio Scimoni playing La Notte:
Here’s Maria Keohane singing Susser Trost – very Christmassy it sounds to me:
Here is the start of the Pergolesi Salve Regina performed by Florilegium, with Robin Blaze, not with Emma Kirkby. I love this album, which I think I bought at that time – possibly that very night.
Here’s Emma Kirkby singing Sweet Bird, with the Academy for Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood – then Music For A While.
Oh boy, can she sing.
I don’t think Florilegium and Emma Kirkby have ever recorded together, so you’ll just need to take our word for it that the combination for the real millennium was the real deal…
A lovely concert of fairly standard baroque fare, beautifully performed by Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante.
We heard:
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in G Minor for Strings RV 157
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach – Sinfonia in F major F67 Die Disonanzen
Johann Sebastian Bach – Violin Concerto in G minor (after BWV 1056)
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Violin Concerto in B flat major op 8 No 10 La Caccia
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in D minor Op 3 No 11 for two violins, cello & strings
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in G minor for 2 violins and cello Op 3 No 2
There’s not much video of Europa Galante from that early period of their existence – but this one of them performing the delicious Vivaldi RV558 gives a good idea of what they looked and sounded like back then.
No idea what Part One was about – presumably Part Two looked the more interesting concert to us or Part One was on a date we couldn’t do.
We heard:
Josquin Desprez – Missa Sine nomine
Josquin Desprez – Memor esto
Josquin Desprez – Victimae paschali
Josquin Desprez – Tu solus qui facis mirabilia
Heinrich Isaac – Tota pulchra es
Nicholas Gombert – Magnificat IV
The Tallis Scholars under the leadership of Peter Phillips are always terrific at this sort of stuff. Among the finest exponents of Josquin, The Tallis Scholars have recorded the lot.
Here’s a recording of them singing Heinrich Issac’s Tota Pulchra Es:
While here is a short excerpt from the Gombert Magnificat.
I’m pretty sure that I bought my copy of that CD, with all the Gombert Magnificats, at that concert. That’s a recording I return to quite often, as it is so good. Here’s a link to the whole thing on YouTube Music.
To mark the 250th anniversary of Bach’s demise, the Wigmore Hall treated us to a concert entirely comprising his music:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Contrapuncti Nos 1-5 from The Art of Fugue BWV 1080
Johann Sebastian Bach – Cantata: Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit BWV 106
Johann Sebastian Bach – Cantata: Lass, furston, lass noch einen Strahl “Trauerode” BWV 198
Johann Sebastian Bach – Contrapunctus No 18 from The Art of Fugue
I don’t think the Purcell Quartet ever recorded The Art of Fugue. It does sound great in the string quartet format – here’s the Emerson Quartet’s recording:
The Purcell Quartet did record Bach trio sonatas around that time – the recording sounds great to my ears. I’ll be listening to all of these later – here’s a sample:
I cannot find Fretwork recordings of the pieces we heard that night, but this Netherlands Bach Society recording of “Trauerode” is rather lovely – albeit a larger orchestra than we heard at The Wig:
Here’s a recording of Nancy Argenta singing an aria from a different Bach cantata. It’s a rather yummy sound:
This concert will have been just the ticket for us after a busy week. No doubt one or both of us nodded off during some stage of the proceedings…in a good way.
Janie (Daisy) and I weren’t there for the tense ending of that match either. But we were nearby – there in spirit if not in body.
We had been eagerly following the match all day.
But that day was also the birthday of Daisy’s mother, The Duchess of Castlebar. I had bought tickets for the three of us to see a Bach concert at the Wigmore Hall for that evening.
Janie had quite recently acquired a taste for chamber concert halls and baroque music, perhaps a year or two earlier. The Duchess tended to prefer large scale concerts of the Proms variety; we mostly booked those for her. But the Proms don’t get going until a bit later in the summer and it was the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death that year. So Bach at The Wig it was to be.
Anyway, that afternoon the Lord’s Test Match was beautifully poised and/but for reasons I cannot recall – had there been a lot of overnight rain? – the day’s play had been delayed and was playing out until quite late.
The Duchess is an avid follower of the cricket as well as a music aficionado. We called her to let her know that we were on the way to collect her. We could all listen to the ending of the cricket match together on the car radio on our way to The Wig.
As we drove to the Duchess’s residence, England wickets fell and the match seemed to be drifting in The West Indies direction. Daisy and I anticipated a dark mood and we were not disappointed.
Thrown it away, they’ve thrown it away…
…said The Duchess. We set off for Marylebone (the southern end thereof).
The Duchess explained to us, as she had several times before, that Denis (Compton), Ted (Dexter), Colin (Cowdrey) Ken (Barrington), Geoffrey (Boycott) and players of that ilk – whom she had met together with her late husband in the good old days- would not have thrown it away like this.
We arrived at The Wigmore Hall. England hadn’t lost a wicket for a while. Was it possible that they could snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat?
Daisy parked up – it was a warm sunny evening so we sat in the car with the roof open and the car radio on, listening to the denouement of the cricket match.
The Duchess Of Castlebar
Try to imagine the scene, dear reader, as it must have looked to passing tourists who understand little or nothing about cricket. A distinguished-looking septuagenarian with her family sitting in a car leaping around in their seats, oohing and aahing every 45 seconds or so as the commentator spoke.
Then, those same seemingly dignified folk whooping with joy for a while, before sealing up the car and entering the Wigmore Hall. Tourists: meet the English.
Basically it was an organ recital of JS Bach works by Jennifer Bate. When you click that preceding link you get some eye candy as well as the organist in question, as Jennifer Bate shares her name with a subsequent Miss England and sporting WAG.
Click the pic to read about the organist Jennifer Bate
It was a fine concert of mostly well-known Bach organ works. An example of one of the pieces (Bach after Vivaldi as it happens) can be seen and heard below.
To be precise, extracted from my log, we heard:
Johann Sebastian Bach – Chorale Partita BWV 767
Johann Sebastian Bach – Prelude and Fugue in D Minor BWV 539
Johann Sebastian Bach – Sonata No 4 in E Minor BWV 539
Johann Sebastian Bach – Chorale Prelude BWV 740
Johann Sebastian Bach & Johann Ernst – Concerto No 4 in C BWV 595
Johann Sebastian Bach & Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto No 2 in A minor BWV 593
Johann Sebastian Bach – Pastorale in F BWV 590
Johann Sebastian Bach – Chorale Prelude BWV 645
Johann Sebastian Bach – Fugue in G BWV 577
A sad coda to this Ogblog piece was the discovery that Jennifer Bate died in March 2020, just a few weeks before I wrote this piece.
Here’s another video of her playing one of the pieces we heard that night; Concerto in C BWV 595 (Ernst arr. Bach).
Below is the sort-of programme handed out on the night – it wouldn’t be an organ recital without an organ appeal, now would it?
A concert of Vivaldi pieces, performed by the Hanover Band, led by Richard Egarr.
A Thursday evening concert – both of us had pretty chock-full diaries in those days, but Janie and I both managed to limit our appointments to avoid late afternoon ones.
We heard:
Concerto in G minor for 2 violins and cello Op 3 No 2
Motet “In Furore Iustissimae Irae” for soprano, 2 violins, viola and bass
Concerto in E minor for violin Op 6 No 5
Concerto in D minor for violin Op 6 No 6
Motet “Per la Solennita di S. Antonio” Vos aurae per montes
Concerto in D major for 4 violins, Op 3 No 1
Here’s at least a sample from each of the pieces we heard that night – sadly none by The Hanover Band who didn’t tend to record this stuff. The “In furore iustissimae irae” is worth the price of admission alone.
Crumbs, Janie and I went to the Wigmore Hall to see a lot of baroque concerts that season. Here’s another one we rated as:
superb.
Kontrabande were terrific. Had they been 1970s rock rather than 17th & 18th century baroque they might have been described as a supergroup. Dig this list of great names:
Charles Humphries,
Clare Salaman,
Jane Norman,
Katherine McGillivray,
Richard Campbell,
William Hunt,
Laurence Cummings,
James Johnstone,
Elizabeth Kenny.
This is what they played that night:
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for strings and basso continuo in D minor RV 128
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Vestro Principi divino” RV 633
Antonio Caldara – Sonata a tre Op 1 No 5
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Stabat Mater RV 621
Antonio Caldara – Cantata “Soffri, mio caro Alcino”
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto for Lute in D major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Cantata “Nisi Dominus”
I couldn’t find any YouTubes of Kontraband on-line, but the following one of Caldara sonatas and cantatas is very pleasing to the ear – I’d forgotten how much Caldara’s music pleased us that night:
