Tag: Wigmore Hall

Journeys Through Music, Trevor Pinnock, Wigmore Hall, 30 October 2013

It’s not easy to get Janie up into town on a Wednesday evening. But this opportunity to hear a harpsichord recital by Trevor Pinnock was too good to miss.

And boy was it good.

A fascinating programme for the evening, starting in the 16th century and working deep into the 18th.

Click here for the Wigmore Hall programme link for this concert.

For those who don’t click, it is music by Antonio de Cabezón, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Bull, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Domenico Scarlatti and Antonio Soler.

Many and varied.

Below is a YouTube sound piece of the Antonio de Cabezón we heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK6tKcMKyB4

Below is an interview with Pinnock about his “Journey” project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UF9ug9RlWY

He talks so sensibly and knowledgeably in that interview, as indeed he did when explaining the recital to us on the night.

Anyway, that concert in October 2013 was a delicious as well as interesting listen and such an honour to see Trevor Pinnock perform those works up close.

The Celtic Viol, Jordi Savall, Andrew Lawrence-King & Frank McGuire, Wigmore Hall, 9 June 2013

Two nights in a row at The Wigmore Hall…two nights in a row from the Early Music and Baroque Series…two corkers.

The previous night we’d seen the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – click here or below:

‘Opus 5!’ – A Corelli Celebration, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Wigmore Hall, 8 June 2013

A very different style tonight. A rare chance to see Jordi Savall up close playing small scale music, along with Andrew Lawrence-King (he of the Loqueville that captivated me so many years ago).

Not all early music, of course, but some well early and some traditional of no fixed provenance; neither composer nor time period. Some lovely. All interesting.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall programme page for the evening.

Below is a YouTube with some music very much along the lines of the music we heard that night…

…and here is the very trio we saw, a few months later, performing live at the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa:

A truly memorable weekend of early music.

‘Opus 5!’ – A Corelli Celebration, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Wigmore Hall, 8 June 2013

This was an excellent concert. Janie and I are both partial to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and are also partial to a bit of Corelli. So we weren’t going to miss out on this one.

The concert was actually Corelli plus – it also highlighted some composers directly influenced by the great man.

The Wigmore Hall Programme page – click here – explains.

Below is a YouTube of the Alte Musik Berlin mob playing one of the Platti concerti we heard…

…followed by a real treat – the Corelli Op 5 No 10 (recorder concerto) shown live from the concert the night before ours, at the Kablow Dorfkirche – absolutely dreamy:

Kablow Dorfkirche KW
Kablow Dorfkirche

Mahan Esfahani, Byrd, Bach & Ligeti, Wigmore Hall, 3 May 2013

We were impressed when we first saw the harpsichord virtuoso, Mahan Esfahani, with the English Concert in 2009, when he was infeasibly young – click here or below:

The English Concert, Wigmore Hall, 15 March 2009

In the four years inbetween, Esfahani had become a real name in the early music world and here was an opportunity for us to see a recital of interesting stuff at very close quarters.

Click here for the Wigmore Hall listing for this concert.

All Byrd in the first half – absolutely enchanting. The second half captivated us a little less – mostly familiar material from Bach’s Musical Offering  (played beautifully) – we didn’t really see how the Ligeti fitted in with the Byrd and Bach. We love Hungarian folk music; the style just didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the programme, which was so relaxing. But that’s just us.

The concert was lauded the whole programme. It was recorded for Wigmore Hall live and therefore is available if people want to hear the whole thing – click here or the image below for a link direct to Presto Classical, where you can hear samples or purchase.

We loved this concert – a really enchanting Friday evening at The Wig.

Telemann And JS Bach, Florilegium, Wigmore Hall, 30 March 2013

You don’t get to hear Telemann’s Tafelmusik in the concert hall all that often, although we had seen The Academy For Ancient Music perform some, also at The Wig, only six months earlier – click here or below:

A Musical Feast: From Schein To Telemann, Academy Of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 21 September 2012

The attraction of this Florilegium concert was partly the Tafelmusik (we were to hear some highlights from Part One whereas we’d heard Part Two last time…

…but to a greater extent a chance to hear some Bach Easter music we had not heard before – here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on this concert so you can see exactly what went on.

It was a very enjoyable concert. Florilegium are always top notch – or rather they always have been when we’ve seen them.

The Easter Oratorio is a super choice for Florilegium, with their core strength being woodwind. I recall they also drummed up some fairly splendid trumpets for the occasion too. The singing soloists had beautiful voices.

Below is a vid of the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists under John Elliot Gardiner performing the piece. Larger scale, but a lovely vid and it will certainly give you an idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ICH1gK5fQ

I remember Janie remarking that the concert was just what the doctor should have ordered…

…at that stage of Janie’s “resurrection” that was a multi-layered joke, together with being a truthful reflection on what a tonic the concert had been.

Gorgeous, it was.

Guillermo Klein, Aaron Goldberg, Chris Cheek, Miguel Zenon, Wigmore Hall, 1 February 2013

Another jazz night under Joshua Redman’s stewardship. This time, more colour than the four saxs we saw in November:

Axis Saxophone Quartet, Wigmore Hall, 2 November 2012

This time – two pianos and two saxophones.

Still, only some of this jazz worked for us. Some was very melodic and pleasing to the ear – some was a bit complex for our taste.

Well worth hearing, though and much needed distraction from all Janie’s health stuff, which we were trying to process at that time.

Axis Saxophone Quartet, Wigmore Hall, 2 November 2012

This was the start of Joshua Redman’s tenure as curator of Wigmore Hall’s jazz.

I recall that we were very excited about seeing this one and yet a little disappointed with the concert in the end. We love the sound of sax, but there was something about four saxophones and nothing else that lacked colour for this jazz, to us anyway.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this one.

Masterful playing of course and we enjoyed our evening; just not as much as we’d hoped.

 

A Musical Feast: From Schein To Telemann, Academy Of Ancient Music, Wigmore Hall, 21 September 2012

You don’t have to be a Telemaniac (nor a Beliber) to have enjoyed this concert …but it helps.

We absolutely loved it, but then we are lovers of Baroque music by the likes of Telemann and Biber.

Further, we were treated to some early Baroque by Schein and Simpson, to whet our appetites and to show us how table music emerged as a genre in the 17th century.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for that evening.

The Academy Of Ancient Music (AAM), bless ’em, have put their full programme up on their website, so I am sure this entitles me to add a link to their pdf – there is some really interesting reading material in the programme.

Below is a short vid that shows the AAM under Richard Egarr rehearsing a Telemann concerto – one of my favourites as it happens:

Below is a nice selection of Telemann Tafelmusik – but not by AAM:

Finally, for those unfamiliar with Thomas Simpson (as we were) who would like to hear a small sample – below a little woodwind sampler, provenance unknown beyond the YouTube details provided:

Xavier de Maistre, Wigmore Hall, 10 July 2012

We treated the Mainelli family to this concert. Xenia was learning the harp at school at that time.

In any case, it looked like a lovely concert, which indeed it was.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert. For some reason the on-line resource says that the first piece was a Handel arrangement – I’m pretty sure it was the Concerto in D minor by Allesandro Marcello, as stated in the programme.

We met and ate in the Wigmore Hall restaurant before the performance – I think possibly taking desert/coffee/drinks at our table during the interval as well.

To get a feel for what this concert sounded like, here is a video of Xavier de Maistre performing Recuerdos de la Alhambra, by Francisco Tárrega, which I recall was a bit of a highlight at our concert.

I think everyone in our party had a jolly good time – the eating, drinking, chatting and of course the music.

Time At The Bar, Ignite, Wigmore Hall Bar/Restaurant, 22 June 2012

This seemed like a wonderful idea – improvised music to please lovers of jazz and contemporary music, after the Evelyn Glennie concert, in the bar/restaurant.

Of course we were up for it.

Here is the Wigmore Hall puff about it – click here.

It didn’t attract much of a crowd if I remember correctly.

We enjoyed our cold compilations and some wine…

…more than we enjoyed the music, which we found surprisingly bland – not jazzy in the way we thought it might be.

We’re all for the Wigmore Hall experimenting and the late night format is one of the more interesting experiments, although they are still struggling to find a formula that works.

But we have booked two more Wigmore Lates this year (as I write in 2018), both of which look right up our street, so we really hope the idea will find its feet eventually.

Anyway, below is the running order for the concert we heard on 22 June 2012: