Mozart sonatas

Over the years we have had a lot of pleasure from violin sonatas, first those of Mozart, then those of Beethoven. With quite of lot of them a year or so ago. With reference 1 being a Beethoven concert from last year, and reference 2 being a Mozart concert from the year before that.

So it was a pleasure to be back at the Wigmore Hall last Sunday morning to hear Faust and Melnikov give us some Mozart. I had forgotten that I had heard and liked Faust at the concert noticed at reference 3, but I had not forgotten that I had heard and liked Melnikov doing Shostakovich preludes and fuges, noticed at references 4 and 5.

But to start at the beginning, I started the journey by needing to thump the new touch-screen ticket machine just inside the doors into Epsom Station to get it to perform. But it did, and the trains behaved, a first on a Sunday for a while. To the extent of including two ladies of middle years sporting loud tee-shirts proclaiming their membership of the rock choir. I thought about asking them about it and about where they were going but did not quite work myself up to it. See reference 6.

Oxford Circus quiet on our arrival and we made our way to the All-Bar-One north of the tube station, to find that they had run out of smarties. Otherwise satisfactory. And, on the way we had passed an impressive six axled mobile crane from Ainscough, with the new-to-me feature of a spool of hose which could unwind to deliver hydraulic fluid or other power to the extending tip of the jib. Sadly it moved off down Regent Street before I could flash the telephone.

Wigmore Hall more or less full and the concert was very good, as expected. K305, K376, K303 and K378, although rather to my surprise I only seemed to know the last of them at all well.

There was also what sounded like the odd wrong note from the violin and I was reminded of the chap at the cello occasion noticed at reference 8 telling us about the tendency of cellos to deliver wolf notes at odd places, with one customer complaining about one between B and B flat - or something of that sort - with his response being 'if it's in between, what's the problem?'. The story seems to be that the planks with which the back of such instruments are made are going to have the odd resonance which you don't want. Part and parcel of the family, which you are not going to get rid of altogether. So I wondered if it was such an odd resonance which Faust was bumping into.

Our first thought had been to lunch at the new pub in the corner of the Langham Hotel (which turns out to have been the branch of a bank until recently), noticed at reference 9, but checking revealed lack of opening on a Sunday. So our thoughts turned to the rather nice café in the sub-ground of Debenhams, a place we have used and liked several times in the past. Quiet, good quality staff, licensed, light meals and cakes. Fine views of rich foreign ladies working the shoe department. Sadly, the space has been handed over to Patisserie Valerie and is now rather loud and vulgar, not the café which we used to like at all.

On the day, we could not think of anything better than going up to the fifth floor restaurant which turned out to be very like a National Trust canteen, rather than the table cloth affair we had been expecting, with the difference that all the staff of were people of colour from Africa or the Indian sub-continent. With the young lady who was working the cash desk starting off rather sulky but turning very pleasant when poked in the right way. With a very efficient looking manageress patrolling her premises, making sure that all was well. Which it was not quite, because while it was pleasant, airy and quiet, there was a rather odd lady sitting in a corner, overweight and showing a good deal too much thigh. We thought a lady with a problem, a lady which the luckless manageress might have to deal with at some point. Furthermore, the grub was adequate rather than good. Altogether a bit of a downer, having expected the place on the sub-ground.

But at least the fine public art still graced the exterior walls.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/boxed-set.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/violin-sonatas.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/faust.html.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=melnikov+coriander.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/second-half.html.

Reference 6: http://www.rockchoir.com/.

Reference 7: http://www.ainscough.co.uk/.

Reference 8: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/cello.html.

Reference 9: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/wigmore-two.html.