Endellion

Ten days or so ago to the Wigmore Hall to hear the Endellion Quartet, according to the blog the first time for about a year. But very much the same sort of programme as on that occasion with, on this occasion, Haydn (Op.54 No.1), Bartók (No.6) and Beethoven (Op.127).

It was a long time ago that Andrew Watkinson explained to us, at a concert in the Dorking Halls, a venue which can no longer afford them, that Haydn, Beethoven and Bartók were the three master of the string quartet. On this occasion, he explained that there had been a glitch with the programme and while, for our money, we had been given all the pages, they were not in the right order - it being a quirk of the Endellion that they produce their own programme, rather than leaving it to the people at the Wigmore. Perhaps they hire the hall and do the whole thing, rather than being hired out as common or garden artistes? I am fairly sure that this option is available. But we did get lots of glossy musical advertisements, now largely dropped from the regular Wigmore issue programmes (for which see reference 4). Including an advertisement for the lunch time concerts at St. Luke's, but excluding the widely used picture of Wuja Yang thumping the ivories in a skimpy red dress. Google knows all about it.

The Endellion are also the only quartet we know who wear cummerbands. Very smart they look too.

Concert excellent, audience enthusiastic, but we slipped out before the encore, nicely catching an early train at Waterloo. Confirmed in our good opinion of this sort of programme.

Dark enough now on arrival at Cavendish Square for the square to have been shut up for the night and we were reduced to take our picnic leaning on the wall. But that worked well enough.

PS: the Beethoven was last heard a few months ago and noticed at reference 2. 'Haydn 54' returns far too many hits from the blog archive for me to check whether or not we had heard it before. More luck with 'Bartok No.6' which turned up reference 3, although this would not necessarily be the most recent occasion.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/endellion.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/smith-square.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/jerusalem.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/wigmore-one.html.