Chiaroscuro

Last Sunday, back to Kings Cross to hear the Chiaroscuro Quartet, led by Alina Ibragimova, once a child prodigy from Russia with a Tatar flavour - a flavour which showed in her face. A flavour confused by the Wikipedia page of substance talking about Bashkir while its index page talks about Tatar, these being two different brands of Turkic. Later, not for the first time, I wondered about the merits of devoting one's life to music from such an early age. Does one pay a price in other ways?

In any event, heard twice back in 2015, doing Mozart Violin Sonatas with Cédric Tiberghien, with this last, last heard, as it happens, just a few days ago.

While chiaroscuro is a word used five times in blog posts in the last ten years or so, mostly in connection with music rather than painting, and not in connection with the quartet at all.

Noticed an advertisement for Jeffrey Archer's new book 'Tell Tale' on the platform at Epsom, which prompted me to wonder how or why someone who must be near eighty keeps at it, keeps at this sort of stuff. I don't suppose he is short of a bob or two - and if pushed can always sell his swanky flat on the embankment. Inspection of reference 5 this afternoon, suggests a working over, into new short stories, of old jottings. I don't think I have ever read any of his oeuvre and I don't suppose I shall be reading this one - but I do remember a chap I used to know, a railwayman from Kampala, on a course here, who thought that Archer was the greatest writer in English of the last century. A chap who once told me that old fashioned men in his country expected the wife to be kneeling at the gate when they turned up from work (or the pub, or the football or whatever).

Arriving a little early and noticing that the café at Kings Place, like many other places like it, charged much the same for a small meal as a large sandwich, so, I opted, for a change, for the former, in this case a dollop of yellow rice with a dollop of red vegetable stew, of the chilli con carne variety. Served in a bowl with a handy handle on the bottom, handy when one was not sitting at a table. Rather more substantial than the sandwich would have been and washed down with a spot of the monkey's shoulder.

The hall was pretty full, including the gallery. Also fairly learned, with quite a few of them up for commentaries far above anything which I can  understand, never mind manage on my own account.

The quartet go in for old instruments and smart clothes, with the three ladies being smartly turned out in black trousers and graduated heels, going down from left to right. Contrariwise, Ibragimova on first violin managed with a chin sponge held on by a rubber band, rather than the more elaborate contraption that one usually sees, while the cello managed without a prong at all. All bar the cello stood, and all bar the first violin used old-style paper scores.

Stunning opening with Contrapunctus I from the Art of Fugue. Old instruments not just an affectation. Not the best outing for Beethoven's 18.4 quartet, from where I associate to the third postscript of reference 4. Schubert's D.804 quartet not new to me, but not very well known either. I think I would like to know it better.

When convenient, I tried the new-to-me listening technique of focusing on the cello line, which seemed to serve to bring out all four lines rather well. I shall repeat the experiment.

The programme tells me that the concert was put on by the London Chamber Music Society, perhaps a grander version of the Dorking Concertgoers Society with which we are associated. A quick glance at reference 3 suggests about the same number of concerts per years, but spread out rather than concentrated in the winter half of the year.

Must have been tired on the way home, as I made it 74 steps up at Vauxhall, rather than the usual 67.

Changed at Earlsfield where there was a cold wind from the north east. Luckily, sheltering in the lee of an advertising hoarding did not get in the way of aeroplanes. Or, to be more precise, it would not have got in the way, had there been any. As it was, the best I did was the possible sound of one. On the up side, I saw nothing of the forecast heavy rain either.

PS 1: the new camera mentioned earlier today is just presently delivering snaps to my PC in minutes. Almost as quick as walking downstairs to use the scanner.

PS 2: for searching in the future: Bach, Art of Fugue; Beethoven Op.18.4, Schubert D.804, Op.29 No.1.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/violin-sonatas.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/mozart.html.

Reference 3: http://www.londonchambermusic.org.uk/.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/serious-songs.html.

Reference 5: http://www.jeffreyarcherbooks.com/tell-tale/.