Last songs

The Wigmore Hall brought its journey through the 600 odd songs of Schubert last week to an end last week with a recital given by Angelika Kirchschlager (an Austrian, born just before I left school, so mature but a good bit younger than us) and Julius Drake (home grown, a little older. Said to give serious time to the trust at reference 1 set up to commemorate his mother). Given that I know his name, odd that we only seem to have seen him once before, quite recently, at a recital noticed at reference 2.

Huge full moon behind the station as we came up station approach. Something to do with the moon being as near the earth as it gets.

Trains somewhat messed up. Oxford Circus full of people when we emerged there.

Wigmore Hall fairly busy too, it being something of a gala occasion. Quite a lot of posh sounding opera types. The director himself put in an appearance at the bar, pressing the odd bit of flesh. We took our picnic in the Bechstein Room, as has become our winter custom, with Cavendish Square being a bit dark and cold. Even supposing the one seat at the northwestern corner to be free of encumbrance.

We think we learned that the bar manager at the Wigmore Hall was born in Osasco, now a big city in its own right, once an appendage of the even bigger city São Paulo, the home town of the goalkeeper for Manchester City, one Ederson Moraes, seemingly the best goalkeeper in the world. But he may have meant that he was born in Lisbon, the home town of Benfica, the club in Portugal from where Manchester City got Moraes. All this because I was sporting the Manchester City scarf and was mistaken for a fan, was allowed temporary membership of the freemasonry of serious fans. See reference 3 for a similar confusion.

Unusual flower arrangement upstairs, with a mixing of colours more usual in the summer. Although they were the dull colours of winter, rather than the bright colour of summer. Very effective though, as usual.

We were given a fine performance by Kirchschlager and Drake. She may not have gone in for the physical expressiveness (or the tattoo) of Prina (see reference 4), but she was expressive and had a fine voice. We preferred her more restrained style. She wound up with 'Abshied von der Erde', rather strange and wonderful, declaimed, rather than sung, to the piano accompaniment. Described in the programme by Downes as a piano-accompanied melodrama and with a nicely annotated version by Fischer-Dieskau being offered by YouTube at reference 5. Then a winding down encore, possibly from Schumann rather than Schubert.

Interesting, large hair do, rather effective. Unfortunately, I got it into my head that it was mostly fake, and that her face would look quite old without it. But if it is fake, she is consistent about it, with most of the shots I came across in Bing sporting the same sort of hair do.

While Drake sported a complicated arrangement of music, presumably designed to reduce the need for turning the pages. Which the page turner got wrong a couple of times. Must be hard just sitting there, waiting for the right moment to do your 10 second numbers. In any event, a lot of the time Drake did not appear to be using the music at all, giving most of his attention to the singer, rather effective from my point of view, with my eyes on the performance rather than on the words. Kirchschlager managed without any music at all.

As it turned out, while the hall was very full, the gala occasion turned out not to be. No bouquets or booze for the artists, no speech from the director.

On the other hand, we did spot five of the bright red coats presently considered fashionable among the young ladies of London. Not counting sports wear. And we did notice a lot of beggars, particularly around Vauxhall Station. Are they on the up and up again?

PS: in the course of this post, the 455th 5lb batch of (mainly wholemeal) bread has been put to rise in the airing cupboard.

Reference 1: http://jeanmeiklemusictrust.org/.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/trouser-roles.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/emerson.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/aria-punk.html.

Reference 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjuXsnnS9H8.