The 1346 from Epsom was crowded, which surprised me, but I did get a free Sun on exit. The first time I have picked up a paying-for paper on a train for a while - to be reminded the following morning what a sleazy rag it is. Perhaps I am getting too old for it.
Pulled a Bullingdon off the second position on the ramp for a gentle pedal up Kingsway, a road I must have cycled up hundreds of times in the past, on the way from St. Catherine's House (then the home of OPCS, long since absorbed into the ONS) to one of our various homes in north London. I particularly remember cycling up the middle of Camden High Street on wet winter evenings, not something I would care to do now. Watched a rickshaw pull across the junction at the end of Waterloo Bridge without any regard to the traffic lights, while I contented myself with turning right out of Upper Woburn Place into Euston Road, also not permitted. No sign in Woburn Place proper of the tobacconist where I used to buy my Boar's Head of a Monday morning or of the tailor who made me my first made to measure suit, from the then fashionable dark blue mohair. Not terribly suitable as it turned out. While the old-style boozer called the 'Rising Sun' in Euston Road which we used to frequent for its bar billiards is now called the 'Rocket' and sports high stools and small high tables. While the strip pub at the bottom of York Way seems to have gone awol altogether. Or maybe I have got in a muddle about exactly where it was. In fact, once I got into York Way, I did not recognise any of the buildings at all, although there were still some which dated from the time when I knew the area quite well.
And so arrived at the shiny new Kings Place with its multi-level art space, including two concert halls, various meeting and rehearsal rooms, several art galleries, at least two eateries and a bar. I made the mistake of buying a beef, cheese and pickle roll and declining to have it heated up. The roll bit was OK, but the filling was not. Undercooked beef smothered in cheap cheese and worse pickle. On the up side, disregarding direction of flight, I scored six aeroplanes at one point. The building behind me aside, viewing conditions ideal.
Onto the the small hall, somewhere underground, to hear Steven Devine give us the 'Art of Fugue' (Die Kunst der Fuge to cognoscenti) on a harpsichord which was made in Norwich in 1995. While it did not look to be anything like as grandly made as a Steinway, the underside of the lid had been painted with an Italianate landscape while the sides of the green case were decorated with an elaborate golden pattern. While the instrument appeared to be sat on a trestle of quite different tone and colour. See reference 3 for the maker - where I was not able to find a picture which combined all the necessary ingredients in one instrument.
The music was good, although I could have done without the chatty introduction, and would have probably have been better had I done a bit of preparation. As it was, it was hard to credit that it was the same music as I had last heard on a small organ, getting on for ten years ago now, a concert noticed at reference 2.
Unusually, the harpsichordist did his own tuning during the interval, and then a bit more after the first fugue of the second half. He had also done a DIY job on the score and appeared to have broken up at least two scores to make up the one that he played from, cunningly organised to reduce the amount of page turning needed during fugues and to make it easier to move from one fugue to the next.
The chatty introduction included talk of a couple of the fugues being more or less impossible to play with two hands, but I failed to notice any problems during their performance. There was also talk of the set not having been intended for performance as a whole and of there not being a canonical order. But given that the programme lists the fugues in the published order and that my knowledge of such matters is very limited, I now have no idea in what order they were played. It was also claimed that while there is a good deal of theory about the work, the theory was not necessary. I am not so sure, mindful of my mother's dictum in another connection that what you got out was a function of what you put in. Not always true as there is plenty of stuff about that you can happily consume from a state of innocence - but not Die Kunst der Fuge.
The pleasantly talkative lady next to me was pleased to be told about the Walden Hall in Essex (actually the Saffron Hall, but she should be able to find it OK if she is really interested), but she did not appear to know her fugue from her stretti either, although she did look suitably impressed by my ancient copy of the score, the Tovey version from OUP, so old that there is no date in it. Maybe she and her husband we actually opera buffs, as she did seem to know all about Snape Maltings - which gave me an opening to air what I think to be a family connection with the place.
I think the next step is to have a go at the Tovey essay that accompanies the Tovey score, then to crack out one of my various recordings of the music. Not including, as it happens, a harpsichord version.
Collected the penultimate Bullingdon from the stand outside, to find that its pedals had been bent slightly, giving them an odd feel as they went around. Oddly, an odd feel which vanished after a hundred yards or so. Managed not to get lost in the one-way system which led me back onto the Euston Road and was able to pedal gently back to Waterloo without further incident.
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue.
Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=organ+qeh.
Reference 3: http://www.dsn.co.uk/agotto/.
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