You find out who your friends are when you go to this sort of concert…
…or more realistically, The Wigmore Hall management finds out who its friends are.
Frankly, I booked this concert because I fancied hearing the Liszt transcription of Beethoven Seven, which, in the end, Igor Levit decided not to perform. Never mind. This is the concert programme he chose instead.
Anyway, the “Friends Party” aspect was secondary in my mind.
Janie and I didn’t know that the Friends of Wigmore Hall had been going for 30 years. We are mere arrivistes at the place, starting our adventures there a mere 25 years ago, in 1998, with this concert:
..for which we befriended the place and then attended pretty regularly (several times a year, pandemic aside) ever since.
After saying some fine words about how important the Friends of Wigmore Hall is to the hall and how important the hall is to his artistic life, Igor Levit played Schumann and Brahms instead of the Liszt.
After the concert, maintaining the Brahms and Liszt theme (did you see what I did there?) a drinks reception with Champagne for those who like alcoholic fizz and sparking elderflower presse for those who, like me, prefer their fizz non-alcoholic during the day.
On departure, Janie and I decided to thank John Gilhooly, who has been running the place extremely well for years, for the party.
Janie and I confessed to not having been supporters for all 30 years. John told us that we didn’t look like those who had been supporting for 30 years. Perhaps he underestimated our ages and wouldn’t have guessed that we have supported for 25 of the 30.
We then chatted briefly about John’s campaign to try to introduce a younger audience to the Hall, which Janie and I applaud. John then made a slightly off-colour remark about the reception being a bit of a legacies marketing campaign event…”but not directed at you two, obviously”, he said.
So I suppose we’d better remove The Wigmore Hall from our bequests list, then. 😉
The theme of this rather wonderful BBC Lunchtime Concert at Wigmore Hall was imitations. All of the pieces had themes within them in which the music imitates some sort of natural sound.
Janie and I thought this was an excellent and very interesting concert. We very nearly missed it, as I, in an extremely rare omission, forgot to write this Wigmore Hall date in our diaries when I booked this back in February. It was only because there was a small change to the programme that I was alerted to my omission and fortunately we were both able still to make the date.
The headline picture is sort-of an imitation too – that painting by Jan Voorhout was once thought to be Dieterich Buxtehude, the composer of the first piece we heard, but is now believed simply to be a domestic music scene of that baroque period.
If you just fancy one little listen to some Baroque imitation, then the third movement of this sonata by Johann Paul von Westhoff, which we heard, should thrill your ears.
Continuing the theme of imitation, I suppose I spent the day “imitating” a young man. I have said in recent years that there are now only three places left where people sometimes call me “young man” without irony: Wigmore Hall, Lord’s and Gresham Society. Today I enjoyed all three.
After Wigmore Hall, I went on to lord’s for a cracking game of real tennis doubles.
2016 Picture by Toni Friend – I was so much younger then
Then on to the National Liberal Club for the Gresham Society AGM and dinner. For reasons known only to him (and in a style only Tim could muster), Professor Connell invited me to sit at the top table:
Would you care to join us on the top table tomorrow night?
Everyone else has refused and it will look a bit odd if there is no-one on it.
It would have been hard to refuse such a courteous request.
Tim Connell promised to keep the formal AGM bit to seven minutes but those around me suggested that he strayed into the 10-15 minutes zone, as usual.
Worse yet, despite spending the day in all three places where I am still occasionally addressed as “young man”, no-one had done so that day and no-one did so that evening.
Still, I chatted with lots of interesting people and enjoyed a good dinner.
Sir Thomas Gresham: 1519-1579 – I’m even older than him now
The concert included an excerpt from a Bach Partita, folk music from Bengal & Assam and then a couple of Amjad Ali Khan’s ragas, both of which arranged beautifully for violin and sarod.
To give you a feel for Jennifer Pike’s wonderful interpretation of a Bach Partita, here is an excerpt from her performing a different Partita:
To give you a feel for the brothers Amaan & Ayaan Ali Bangash playing together, here is a duet recorded a few years ago. No Jennifer Pike of course and a different tabla player – we saw Anubrata Chatterjee.
The music was beautiful, but I must admit that we struggled a little to understand the ancient and modern connections as explained. For example, the notion that the sarod pieces were basically in the Lydian mode, although I think that term could only apply perhaps to the tuning of the strings, not how the music is composed or played. We could however hear wonderful relationships between the instruments and the notion (explained in the notes) that underlying melodies in the ragas are utilised in similar fashion to cantus firmus styles in late medieval, Renaissance and even Baroque music made sense.
Anyway, it was all beautiful music, deployed in virtuoso fashion, leaving us thrilled with our night out at The Wig, as is so often the case.
We do like a bit of Renaissance music at the Wig. This lunchtime concert seemed just the ticket when we booked it months ago and still seemed like a coveted ticket come the day.
We thought it was an excellent concert. This size of ensemble and style of music works perfectly, to our ears, in The Wigmore Hall. The Tallis in particular was a memorably wonderful sound.
…which seems to be unresolved despite my pleas. The publicity material for The Gesualdo Six regularly shows seven people.
I’m not really one to talk, having recently been part of a six-person works-outing winning quiz combo known as “The FS Club 7”. But readers, many of whom are early music lovers, will surely know that the name is not a numerical claim, but a pun on the early music (i.e. some of it released even before the turn of the 21st century) pop combo, S Club 7.
But it is not my purpose in this piece to “bring it all back” in the matter of S Club 7’s ancient exploits, but rather to assess the wonderful world of Josquin’s Legacy, as sung by The Gesualdo Six.
While Josquin’s mostly late 15th century music formed the core of the concert, there were also pieces by his contemporaries, Jean Mouton & Antoine Brumel, plus several works by lesser known composers who followed a generation or so later.
It was a mixture of sacred music (both new and old testament liturgy) plus several regret/deploration pieces commemorating the death of fellow composers or patrons.
Here is a link to The Gesualdo’s promo vid for the album which this concert was surely (in part) aiming to help promulgate.
The concert was a BBC Lunchtime concert, which, if you are reading this within a month of the broadcast, can still be heard on the BBC Sounds App – here.
We attended this very tasty lunchtime concert and pre-concert discussion.
The noon-time discussion was between Patrick Allies, the artistic director of Siglo De Oro and Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter, the academic whose work on the context and musical transcription of this “Mysterious Motet Book of 1539″initiated the project.
I found the information about the development of part books as printing became widespread in the Renaissance and the distinction between Protestant and Catholic liturgical music at the time of the Reformation fascinating.
Less convincing, to me, was the “mystery” aspect of the project, the conceit of which is, if I might paraphrase, “why might a publisher such as Peter Schöffer the Younger choose to publish a music book of Latin liturgical songs from Milan…in Strasbourg, which was, by 1539, a strongly Protestant town?”
Much like his illustrious Burgundian ancestors, Ferdinand seems to have been interested in tennis as well as music. Ferdinand was also evidently impressed by Milanese cultural style in several ways, not just liturgical music. He was also, reputationally, a conciliator between Protestants and the Catholics in his lands.
Still, if the purpose of promoting this music as “a mysterious publication” is as conduit for wonderful concerts and premier recordings of several of the pieces form the motet book…bring it on! It’s a thriller.
The music in the concert was lovely. Janie and I both loved it. They mixed and matched between motets from that 1539 book and some more familiar, later pieces, e.g. by Byrd and Tallis, by way of contrast and comparison, which worked well musically.
Siglo de Oro don’t put much in the public domain, but the sample below is downloadable from the website plugging the album, so you might as well hear Johannes Lupi: Apparens Christus below before you click through and buy the almum.
The above picture is somewhat deceptive, as only two members of the Trio are permanent members, the singer in the centre of the picture, wonderful though she might be, is Torunn Østrem Ossum, not Jorunn Lovise Husan.
They are supremely talented singers who fill that hall with a wonderful sound and a charming vibe. They sing with smiles on their faces. They make supremely difficult singing look almost effortless. It really was a joy to see them again.
This concert was based on their latest album, Solacium, which is centred around traditional Norwegian and Estonian-Swedish lullabies and hymns. It includes some modern works by Anders Jormin, Andrew Smith and Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen, all of which felt very much in keeping with the early music nature of the programme.
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!
