Rather a damp evening, so we were pleased to get to Epsom Station without needing to unfurl umbrellas (folding variety for concert convenience). On the other hand, BH only just stopped me from buying tickets to Waterloo, rather than the travelcards which I should have been buying. The third reasonably serious senior error in as many days.
On the tube between Vauxhall and Oxford Circus we had a young man who was trying to interact and to be pleasant, but who was clearly not quite right, who did not seem to have a very strong grip on the tube map and who managed to frighten off a young lady in the course of offering her a seat. All of which demonstrated how hard I find it to respond to such people - with part of one probably worrying far too much about mental patients shoved out into the community to fend for themselves, perhaps with a little help from the chemist. In any event, fairly sure that we have not yet found the right way - although there is not going to be a right way until we throw a bit more money at the problem.
Hall full, and BH was pleased to find that with the diagonal view offered from seats 1 and 2, that she could actually see the whole quartet, more or less throughout the performance. Takács as good as we have come to expect - with, as it turned out, the order being spot on, with Op.18.4 second rather than first. With the point of notice on this occasion being their management of tension, which I thought they got spot on. We also had the famous third movement of Op.132 - 'Molto Adagio – Andante – Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart. Molto adagio – Neue Kraft fühlend. Andante – Molto adagio – Andante – Molto adagio. Mit innigster Empfindung in F Lydian', the first time that we have heard it for real for a while, more than 2 years as it turned out.
All helped along, in my case, from the monkey's shoulder. See reference 4.
The record suggests that the last occasion that we had heard the quartet was just about two years ago, an occasion noticed at reference 1. Which I found surprising, having been fairly sure that we would have heard them at some point during 2016. So wondering how good the record was, I thought I would ask my google mailbox which confirmed the 2015 date - a reminder of the power of being able both to keep and to search all one's email. From where I associate to all the fretting in my world of work about how best to replace paper filing systems - this at a time when neither storage nor search were anything like as cheap as they are now. A awkward time, a time, perhaps, of transition, a transition which might well, by now, have been accomplished.
It also says that we heard them do this very same Op.132 back in May 2014, an occasion noticed at reference 2. As it happened I had turned up the book of the quartet again when we got home - Huxley's 'Point Counter Point' - and came to the same conclusion as last time. I was not moved to re-read it, despite its importance to people of my parents' tastes and generation. Not that it is that long since I did re-read it - probably less than 10 years. I will ponder on what sort of search term might tell me over the buttered toast to come shortly. Might tell me without too many false positives. In the meantime we have reference 3, which at least tells us something of what Huxley wrote about in this connection.
PS: wikipedia suggests that Takács is a common name in Hungarian, listing lots and lots of them eminent enough to rate an entry.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/tuition.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/takacs-quartet.html.
Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=132+rampion.
Reference 4: https://www.monkeyshoulder.com/.
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