St. Luke's

First St. Luke's of the autumn season last week, attracted by Brahms' clarinet quintet, earlier concerts having been well outside my comfort zone. Far too old for that sort of thing.

The cold noticed at reference 1 still being up and running, I decided that I was not up and running and would walk from Waterloo to Old Street. A walk which, while only 45 minutes or so, seemed an age when compared with the 15 on a Bullingdon.

But an upside was passing the handsome building snapped above, at the bottom of Golden Lane. Now, seemingly, an outpost of the UBS empire, once Cripplegate Free Library, from the days when the wards and boroughs of London and philanthropic businessmen (like Mr Tate) went in for that sort of thing. One can get a good idea of the building as a whole by panning around in Street View, in which one can also see the plaque for the library. I wonder whether it was all library, all six or seven floors of it.

Whitecross Street very busy, as was the Market Restaurant. I was amused that the former was full of white collar types, eager to buy their lunch standing up from shacks and caravans, while the latter was full of blue collar types who liked to sit down and natter over their lunch. Bacon sandwich up to its usual standard. And price, which has always struck me as very reasonable.

And with entertainment provided by a young lady passing outside with outsize rips in her jeans, rips which left little to the imagination, but fig-leafed by what might have been built-in fishnet tights. The whole thing coming as a one piece package, ready made.

On into St. Luke's where the talkative Fiona Talkington was first up. She was followed by Michael Collins and the Heath Quartet giving us Howells' Rhapsodic Quintet Op.31 and Brahms' rather better known Clarinet Quintet Op.113.

The first was satisfactory, interesting even, while the latter fully justified its position as a family favourite. And despite my thinking that I knew the work fairly well, there were lots of bits which were new to me. The mark, perhaps, of a serious work; a work which always has both something old and something new to offer.

We were sat at the front, further forward than is my custom, next to the clarinet, which meant that the clarinet rather dominated the proceedings during the first piece, a loss rather than a gain. For some reason this was not the case during the second piece. But while being very close meant that one heard lots of detail that one missed further back, I also missed the blending which one got further back. And the fact that one's field of vision did not include the whole ensemble, to see which one would have to move one's head around, to the annoyance of those sitting behind.

Spot of light lunch downstairs. Pale vegetable soup not bad, but rather highly spiced for my taste. Roll clearly fresh out of fridge or freezer.

Back down Whitecross Street to take a quick look at the interesting charity shop there, a place where I have bought interesting stuff - books and DVDs over the years. On this occasion they were offering a pile of 78s, with sleeves a bit worn but the records themselves looking fine. Some of them from a store in Walworth High Road, some from a store in Clapham High Road. Maybe there are still retro shops which would sell one vinyl in both places. I believe aficionados of Jamaican music are particularly into such, with there being odd pressings of bits of music, rather in the way that you get odd barrels of Irish whisky. I don't have 78 capable equipment since I got rid of my Hacker, quite a few years ago now, so I passed. Possibly the Hacker GP42 which fetches more on ebay now than the £40 I paid for mine, back in the late 1960's.

Strolled through the market to Farringdon Road, chancing on the way to pay a visit to what used to be Charterhouse School and before that a Carthusian priory. At some point a graveyard that was put together at the time of the Black Death emergency. Small but interesting museum and an interesting trusty, who was also a brother, that is to say a resident of the almshouse side of things. One of forty or so brothers, under the leadership of a master. Arrangements not unlike those in, for example, Abbeyfield, with flatlets for living and communal areas for community and dining. Also a handsome chapel which reminded me of the very roughly contemporary chapel at Hampton Court.

Passed on art deco at 'The Blackfriar' and on wine at 'El Vino', and so sober to Waterloo.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/beethoven.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/bacon-hunt.html. For Fiona.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/clarinet-collins.html. Seemingly, the last time I heard Collins, out in the sticks, just about two years ago.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/widmann-and-others.html. Heath Quartet rather more recently, coincidentally collaborating very successfully in another quintet, that is to say Shostakovich's piano quintet.

Reference 5: http://www.thecharterhouse.org/.

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