Dorking one

The Dorking season opened last weekend with a Sunday afternoon concert from the Piatti String Quartet. Haydn Op.76 No.3, Mozart Clarinet Quintet (with Anna Hashimoto) and Brahms Quartet No.1, Op.51 No.1. We get the other two Brahms quartets in the two concerts to come.

While waiting we wondered about of the chairs, a tubular steel affair with the two back legs propped up a couple of inches with neat wooden blocks, holes cut in the top to take the legs. Wondering in particular whether such blocks were something that concert halls carried for the convenience of performers, perhaps in a range of sizes, or whether performers carried such things about with them. The performer in question turned out to be the viola, a stand in for the damaged regular.

I usually like Haydn string quartets, but I was not very keen on this one, perhaps best known for its invention of the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem. See reference 1. Haydn, it seems, had been impressed in a London theatre by the audience standing to sing our national anthem and thought that it would be a good idea if the Germans had one too.

Mozart as good as ever, given to us with a very long clarinet by a very short clarinetist. I had quite forgotten about the length of the A clarinet.

Brahms good - also quite noisy & bouncy - which served to muffle the air conditioning which had been a bit intrusive for the first two pieces. And also provided a better home for a quite noisy & bouncy cellist.

Following the wood blocks, I also puzzled about the grain of the wood from which the viola was made. The sides were strongly striped in the short direction, which I imagine corresponded with the grain. But these stripes were matched with stripes on the back, which I imagine crossed the grain; certainly the grain on the front went the long way, not the short way. Were these back stripes painted on, under the varnish? Seemed like a lot of bother to go to. Then there were muted stripes on the neck which were certainly across the grain. Looking around I could see short direction stripes on the sides of some of the others, but I was not close enough to see more. Clearly something to keep an eye on.

Home in under half an hour. So maybe not quite west end quality, but not west end traveling time either.

PS: quality more a function of the space rather than the performers, usually people we subsequently come across in the west end. While Dorking Halls shows its age a bit.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandlied.