Janie and I had a very tasty lunch of baroque music at Wigmore Hall, thanks to a young group of talented French musicians known as Nevermind, presumably because they think the name of their ensemble is not important.
More importantly, they introduced us to the compositions of Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729), who wowed The Sun King as a child prodigy and went on to become an eminent composer as well as performer. Along with many other female composers of earlier eras, she’s needed some rediscovering in recent years and by gosh she is worth rediscovering.
Imagine Corelli in a fantastically light-hearted mood, and he might just have composed a bit like Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, except that she was steeped in the traditions of the French baroque (e.g. Lully) and influenced by the Italian style, rather than upbeat Corelli, who would have presumably been steeped and influenced the other way around.
Or if you want to watch and listen to the concert, you can view it on the Wigmore Hall Site “watch and listen” section by clicking here. I’m not sure whether or not you need to be a member or just subscribed to the e-list or what, but I think you do need a log in of some sort to see this section of the Wigmore Hall site.
In our tradition of running in to people we know, Janie and I ran into Claire Durtnall, whom we have known for decades…
…and who had picked up a last-minute ticket for that concert on the off-chance.
Claire celebrated the chance encounter with a triple-selfie or two – if we are lucky she’ll send one of them in and I’ll add it to this piece…
…update – Claire did indeed send pictures:
Claire, me & Janie taken selfie-styleClaire & me taken regular style by Janie
But this account really should focus on the simply delightful music we heard. Mostly trio sonatas, we were carried to a happy place for an hour in that way only beautiful music can achieve.
But it turned out that one of Janie’s cohort, Sini Simonen, is not only a good Samaritan but also a virtuoso violinist. When Sini let it slip that she and her quartet, The Castalian String Quartet, were due to appear at the Wigmore Hall in a few month’s time, Janie and I agreed that, if we were available that day, we would go.
The links in the above piece to the exploits of my mother’s cousin Sid, not least his virtuoso playing of both violin and hand saw, are worth the price of admission alone. OK, there is no price of admission, but the stories are priceless.
…the Wigmore Hall concert on 1 May 2022 was an all Mendelssohn string quartet affair, but with a twist: we first heard Fanny Mendelssohn’s sole String Quartet, followed by Felix Mendelssohn’s 6th String Quartet.
Both were a very enjoyable listen – Fanny’s piece much lighter and easier on the Sunday morning ear than Felix’s. Felix was in sombre mood when he wrote his 6th, dedicated to his recently deceased and beloved sister Fanny – possibly also anticipating his own impending doom – he died soon after completing the work.
Impending doom? Felix portrait c1846
The concert was very well patronised – if not a complete sell out then surely the place was near to full. The performances were, deservedly, extremely well received by the Sunday morning audience.
Janie and I asked the elderly gentleman sitting next to us if he had enjoyed the concert.
Yes indeed. I prefer Fanny.
On balance, so did Janie and I.
Sini had said to Janie several times that we simply must show our faces in the Green Room after the concert, so it would have been rude to partake of the traditional Wigmore Hall sherry rather than visit the artistes in that hallowed room.
There were plenty of other groupies around in The Jessye Norman Room, but Sini greeted us warmly and we chatted for a while.
Before setting off for The Wig, I had discovered that the Castalian String Quartet had released an album this week, Between Two Worlds On Delphian…
I also couldn’t help but notice that the album includes a couple of arrangements of Renaissance pieces – one by Orlande de Lassus and one by John Dowland, as well as a Beethoven late Quartet and a modern quartet by Thomas Adès.
Sini, with characteristic modesty, mentioned in passing that she has arranged the Renaissance pieces as an experiment. She also kindly pressed a copy of the Between Two Worlds CD into my hand as we said goodbye to her.
Following an enjoyable stroll around Fitzrovia and Marylebone, Janie and I listened to the album as soon as we got home. We can both thoroughly recommend it; in particular the beautiful sound of the Renaissance piece arrangements. Choral works of that era were often arranged for consorts of viols, of course; the string quartet being the direct progeny of the viol quartet.
It was an enjoyable day and such a fitting way to remember my mum’s 100th anniversary.
But there was one more coincidence to come – as I read the programme notes to the Between two Worlds album. The viola player on the album was not Ruth Gibson (whom we saw at Wigmore Hall) but Charlotte Bonneton. Wasn’t Charlotte Bonneton the young musician mum and I saw along with Karim Said that very last time mum went to a concert?
Yes indeed – it turns out Charlotte was The Castalian String Quartet’s viola player until quite recently – for some 10 years – perhaps already with the group when we saw her perform with Karim Said in September 2011. Perhaps Sini and/or some of the other Castalians were even there to support Charlotte that day.
I know the classical music world isn’t big – but it isn’t that small either.
This was our first concert experience of live music since before the start of the Covid pandemic.
There’s nothing like a bit of “Lamentations of Jeremiah” and “Stabat Mater” to cheer us up in a time of pandemic and war.
Actually Janie and I are big fans of The Cardinall’s Musick. Also, we thought that one hour concerts would be a good way of getting back on the bike in terms of concert going – this is the first of a few we are going to see this spring season.
Mostly familiar stuff, such as Byrd, Victoria, Tallis and Palestrina, plus some rarer material such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah by Gerónimo Gonzales – a composer so obscure that even Andrew Carwood couldn’t find him in the Grove or on Wikipedia.
But that just means that Andrew didn’t look hard enough – there are about 100 listings for Gerónimo Gonzales on Facebook. Our 17th century composer geezer is bound to be one of those – no?
The concert was broadcast on Radio 3 as a lunchtime concert and also was streamed, so you can watch it all on Vimeo if you wish – embedded below.
https://vimeo.com/696602289
You can even, if you look very closely indeed, grab a glimpse of Ged & Daisy at the very front on the right hand side – my bald patch glistening next to Daisy’s mop of reddish hair.
We enjoyed a snack lunch at Euphorium in St Christopher’s Place, then went back to the flat for a while before venturing into Piccadilly/St James’s to Boodle’s.
Last year I gave an on-line talk for that club, under the auspices of Oliver Wise…
…who told me at that time that he would like to host us for dinner at Boodle’s. As with so many things in this time of Covid, it took quite a while to find a suitable and allowable date.
It was worth the wait – we had a delightful evening with Oliver, Sarah, Julian Dent (another fellow realist and distant cousin to Oliver) and Julian’s wife Kelly. Great grub too.
A fine end to a really lovely day off, with live concert music again, at last!
I’d long wanted to see Concentus Musicus Wien. I also see so little Telemann listed these days and am a sucker for his stuff. So this concert caught my eye.
Janie really didn’t fancy this one on a Thursday evening, so I booked just the one ticket for myself.
Earlier in the evening, I went to LSE to help the LSE100 team celebrate their 10th birthday. I made a small contribution to the course in 2018, which, it seems, qualified me to join the party. I stuck to water at the LSE and indeed stayed dry at The Wigmore Hall too.
Word reached me that Dominic (my real tennis doubles partner) and his wife Pamela would be there that evening. Double-coincidence, because I learnt that i would be partnering Domnic again in a one-off game the next day.
Anyway, the music.
First up was some Biber. Are Heinrich Biber fans known as Belibers? They should be.
I can’t find a decent Concentus Biber on line, but the following performance of Battalia will give you a decent idea:
Next up was the Telemann, which I thought super special, not least the oboe and trumpet parts. Telemann fans are known as Telemaniacs in some circles, that i know for sure.
Again, you’ll need to make do with a different orchestra but this recording will give you a reasonable feel for it:
Then the interval, during which time Dominic, Pamela, a few of their other friends and I had a natter.
Then on to Vivaldi. Autumn. Nicely done.
Below is Julia Fischer playing it. Different style to Erich Höbarth, who led on the evening, but just differently lovely.
Finally, a bit more of a rarity, Purcell’s complete King Arthur Suite. Very good, it was. I only recognised odd snippets of it; for sure I hadn’t heard it in its entirety before.
To complete an evening of coincidences, I ran into my friend John from the health club as I was leaving the concert hall, so we travelled home together.
John is not so familiar with early music and original instruments – he said he found it hard at first to adjust his ear to the period instruments. It made me realise how much i have become accustomed to them – I don’t even think about the sound being “different” any more; it’s pretty much the way I expect to hear music of that period.
A shame the Wiggy wasn’t full – perhaps only 2/3rds or 3/4s full.
Ensemble Marsyas, who specialise in baroque music with Irish and Scottish connections, have taken up a short residency at The Wigmore Hall. This is the first of their concerts, which has a Scottish – hence Hogmanay – connection.
Only one of the works performed was by an actual Scot; a rather fascinating sounding chap named Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl Of Kellie. We’ll have to call him a late baroque composer I think.
Indeed, some in the Early Music community might fret at great length if I were to describe the rather charming Erskine Overture (or short symphony) as early music, as it was composed as recently as 1761.
But I contest that it is, by definition, “Early” music by virtue of being music composed by an Earl. Or should I describe it as Earlish music?
Be that as it may, the rest of the concert was music by Arne, Handel and Barsanti.
Francesco Barsanti might be described as an honorary Scot, a gentleman of Italian origin who spent several years in Edinburgh (where he composed much of his oeuvre) and who married a Scottish woman, before returning to London. We heard several of Barsanti’s adaptations of Scottish folk tunes as well as a couple of his concerti grossi.
There’s very little Ensemble Marsyas music on the web, but the following short snippets are charming. I especially commend the seventh, Handel’s How Beautiful Are The Feet from The Messiah, as very suitable for the season…
… and also for Janie’s chosen profession; podiatry (with a fair swathe of her clientele being at least as interested in the appearance as in the health of their feet).
But I digress.
Sadly, the expected mezzo-soprano Katie Bray was ill with meningitis, which is really serious but we were told on the night that she is recovering well.
Our substitute for the evening was Helen Charlston. An aficionado sitting next to us let out a whoop of delight at the mention of her name as the sub. The aficionado informed us that Helen Charlston has recently won a Handel singing award and is an outstanding young performer. Here is a video of one of her award-winning Handel performances:
Apart from substituting in something (I think another Handel aria) for the second of the Arne songs, she sang the same repertoire as we expected from Katie Bray.
The singing was very much a highlight, as was the horn playing of Alec Frank-Gemmill and Joe Walters throughout the concert. Scott Bywater’s timpani playing during the Barsanti concerti grossi was also a special performance.
Peter Whelan led, from one of the two harpsichords, with great charm and beaming smiles. Turns out he is also an accomplished bassoonist, not that we got to see the bassoon side of Peter Whelan on the night.
Still, feast your eyes on this – an earlier incarnation of Ensemble Marsyas with a good shot of Peter Whelan and isn’t that the boy Thomas Dunford of all people on the lute there – I do declare it is:
In short, they come across as a happy ensemble, does Ensemble Marsyas, enjoying making music together and delighting the audience.
Have another lug-hole full of Helen Charlston singing competitive Handel – this time an Italian aria, in similar style to the singing we heard in the concert:
I think she probably sounds even more assured now than she did when she won that 2018 competition.
In short, Baroque Hogmanay was a super concert on which to end our year – indeed our decade – of concert-going.
I took a punt on this one – Janie doesn’t much like staying in town for anything on a Tuesday evening – but I guessed, correctly, that this would be a really good concert.
I cannot better that review, so need only to defer to it and say little more, other than the fact that Janie and I were quite blown away by this gig. That “oh my gosh this is exceptional” feeling happens rarely for us now, as we are lucky and privileged to see a great deal of wonderful stuff.
But this concert really was the bees knees, as the above review explains.
I dowloaded all three Liberetto albums at the weekend, so we can listen some more to this material and to more of Lars Danielsson’s recent work besides.
Here’s a sample video of one of the tracks from the most recent, Liberetto III, album – Lviv:
Below is another trailer, from the first Liberetto album – different pianist on the vid but the current quartet played this piece on the night:
Have I menioned how good this jazz group is and how wonderfully Lars Danielsson’s music sounds?
I’ll stop and let Lars Danielsson Group’s work speak for itself.
Russ London — (Russ London) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons
This was the only one of the Wigmore Hall Lates concerts I booked this year and I don’t think Janie is now overly enthusiastic about me booking even one a year unless it is a “must see”.
It’s the Friday evening tiredness that gets Janie – especially after eating.
Perhaps I should have been wary of the lower case/UPPER CASE signal in the title of the concert.
Sean Shibe tries to show us the contrast and yet similarities between some beautiful, gentle 17th Century music from the Straloch and Rowallan Manuscripts and some modern electric guitar music of the most frenzied kind.
Here he is playing some of his gentle stuff – I believe the sample below is Dowland:
Although I much preferred Shibe’s acoustic guitar to his electric guitar work, I did really like one electric guitar piece: the Steve Reich Electric Counterpoint. Here is Steve Reich and Pat Metheney’s version of it:
I cannot find any YouTubes of Sean Shibe’s more ear-drum-splitting electric guitar music, with which he concluded the concert. You have been spared, dear reader. It ensured that Janie and I were wide awake for the journey home. Perhaps not in the very best of moods; but awake.
Perhaps we’re getting too old for this sort of caper.
We love the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. We first saw them at The Wig many years ago and have seen them a good few times since, both in London and in Berlin.
We hadn’t seen this orchestra for a while, though, so we thought we’d see if we could get hot seats for this concert. We could.
In truth I was not familiar with the Handel Op. 3 Concerti Grossi; I don’t think they get all that much of an airing, being seen as somewhat composite or compilation works.
But in the hands of fine performers, such music is sheer delight, as demonstrated by this concert.
This was our third visit to The Wig in just over a fortnight. In truth, I didn’t think we’d get our preferred seats for all of them but we did. NOT a complaint.
I was reminded of both of our other recent visits for a couple of silly reasons.
The in joke from that concert was that almost everyone involved with composing that 14th and 15th century English stuff was named John.
It occurred to me that a similar naming commonality could be applied to this baroque period, with the composers, the Hanoverian English kings and this evening’s conductor all named Georg/George.
…at which we were joined by Robin Simpson, experiencing The Wig and such music for the first time. At 91 going on 92, Robin demonstrated his remarkable observational skills when he remarked, the next time I saw him, that two recorder players were listed for The Sixteen at that Pepy’s concert, but there was no sign of either of them on the night.
I couldn’t explain their absence – perhaps some passing reader can. I guessed that there was a late decision to omit the recorders, perhaps due to the indisposition of one of the performers or perhaps, on Harry Christopher’s reflection, for artistic reasons.
Anyway, returning to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin concert, once again there were two recorder players listed, but, come the interval, there had been no sign of recorders.
What on earth is going on in the world of baroque recorder players, I wondered. Is there some sort of censorship going on, whereby recorder players are being prevented from expressing themselves? Are the recorder players being kidnapped, imprisoned or worse?
The answer, at least in the matter of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin concert, came towards the end of the evening, when Anna Fusek put down her violin and picked up a recorder, which she played (beautifully, as did every player with every instrument that night) in the Soave from Telemann’s Canonic Sonata VI. Below is someone else’s recording of that sonata.
https://youtu.be/-twe0crDPPg
Below is a recording of Academy of St Martin In the Fields playing Handel’s Op 3 No 1 Concerto Grosso, by which time Michael Bosch had metaphorically bonked his oboe on the head and picked up a second recorder to join Anna. Recorder mystery fully solved.
If you haven’t seen the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin before…or even if you have…the following video should be a treat for you. They are playing Handel’s Water Music, under Georg Kallweit, who also led the orchestra at the 4 May 2019 concert.
They really are a top notch orchestra. Janie and I feel lucky and privileged to have seen them several times. This Handel/Telemann concert, while not the most exciting programme we have heard them play, was just the ticket for us at the end of a day of (similarly baroque) sporting activity.
You don’t get to hear a lot of 14th and 15th century English music, not even in the early music series at the Wigmore Hall. So this concert by The Orlando Consort looked well worth booking and indeed it was a superb concert.
The members of the consort each introduced chunks of the concert – all clearly knowledgeable fellows but wearing their learning lightly on the night.
Mark Dobell, for example, theorised that most of the English composers of the period were either named John or “anon”, when he announced a block of pieces in the second half of the concert. Even the composer known simply as Forest was probably John Forest, we were assured.
Some of the names in the composer column might be a bit confusing. Roy Henry, for example, might be King Henry V, King Henry VI or just possibly King Henry IV. Trent Codices is not the name of a modern US composer, nor a fellow who opens the bowling for New Zealand, but a collection of musical manuscripts from the Italian city, Trent. Who knew?
If you want to hear and see some 15th century music performed by The Orlando Consort, the following video from a Library of Congress concert in 2017 might be for you. But it is mostly composers from mainland Europe, not English composers of the period, so no Johns. The music starts some 4’50” in:
Whereas, if you would like to hear some extracts from of The Orlando Consort singing the sort of English polyphony that we heard at the Wigmore Hall, then this short extract vid from a CD promo might be for you. You even get some John and anon: including some John Dunstaple:
The singing was beautiful throughout the concert and we sensed that this quartet of singers take great pleasure in singing this music and with each other.
The hall wasn’t full but it was quite busy. The “nice front row couple” that I quite often see at The Wig and SJSS were there in the front row, just fancy!, a few seats along from us. We chatted only briefly this time.
Janie and I hadn’t seen The Orlando Consort before, although we had probably seen most if not all four of the individuals in other choirs and consorts. Anyway, we most certainly will enjoy seeing them perform again if/when we get the chance.
Russ London — (Russ London) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons
The combination of subject matter, music and the choice of performers for this concert made this a bit of a “must see” for me at the Wigmore Hall. Janie rarely graces that Hall on a Wednesday, as it is not so convenient for her after a surgery day, but on this occasion she felt motivated to join me.
I have long been fascinated by Samuel Pepys as a character and as a diarist. Indeed, I nearly named this website “Poopys Diary” rather than Ogblog, as a nod to two of my favourite diaries, those of Messrs Pepys and Pooter.
I had followed with great interest Christopher Page’s Gresham lecture series on 16th and 17th century guitar, not least the lecture on Samuel Pepys and the Guitar:
This concert seemed set to supplement that interest in the form of live performance.
Also motivated to come along was Robin Simpson, one of my nonagenarian friends from Lord’s who still plays real tennis – sometimes rather too well. When Robin mentioned, a few weeks earlier, that he is a member of the Samuel Pepys Club, I mentioned that we were going to this concert and Robin said he was unaware of it. I gave Robin the details. A day or two later I took an excited telephone call from Robin to tell me that he had got himself a ticket in the third row.
So when Janie and I got to “The Wig” just after 19:00 I was unsurprised to see Robin in the bar. We joined him and arranged some interval drinks. As Robin turned out to be a “Wigmore Hall virgin”, we acted as his guide, not least taking him into the hall through the quieter back stairs route that makes so much sense if you are sitting at the front of the hall.
I was especially keen to hear some of Pelham Humfrey’s music, as I had read about him but, to my knowledge, not previously seen any of his music performed.
It was also wonderful to see Elizabeth Kenny playing a couple of solo pieces on the five course guitar as well as her more familiar appearance with the theorbo. Elizabeth Kenny doesn’t play solos much, but I am able to find her charming 10 minute video-essay on the theorbo…
Another highlight was to hear Beauty Retire, a piece attributed to Samuel Pepys, not least because he mentions it several times in his diary, describing it as his own. In truth, Cesare Morelli seems to have had quite a lot to do with Beauty Retire and indeed all the pieces attributed to Pepys. Here and below is a recording of the song:
In truth, the whole concert felt like a highlight. The performances were uniformly excellent, as one might expect from Harry Christophers superb ensemble, The Sixteen, together with that fine actor, Michael Pennington, reading passages from Pepys.
But returning to the April 2019 concert, it was a superb evening of 17th century music and words. The audience was hugely appreciative at the end. There was a delightful encore too, but I didn’t recognise it and Harry Christophers didn’t announce it. If someone reading this can chime in with the name of the piece, I’d be grateful. I’d guess from the texture of the sound it was by Pelham Humfrey. Was it O The Sad Day? Have a listen; it’s lovely:
In any case, Janie, Robin and I all had a most enjoyable evening.
