Back to the Temple last week for what was billed as 'Die schhöne Müllerin' and the Alehouse Sessions. For what may be BH's last evening outing for a while, having been rather put off by the poor standard of mask wearing in London in the dark.
Two entertainments on the train. First, four very important people - both men and women - with suits and briefcases, possibly returning from some expedition to the interior, carried on a rather loud conversation all the way to Waterloo. All I can remember of it is the lady explaining that despite starting at 06:00 or some such hour, was proposing to dine in Mayfair at 20:00. Long time since I was good for that sort of day. Second, three ladies, one older, possibly the mother of one of them. A long rather than loud conversation about cuddling dogs or not. Do you let them sleep on your bed at night? I associated to the couple noticed at reference 3. While, when we had got home, BH explained that if you wanted to be in charge of your dog, rather than the other way around, letting the dog upstairs was a very bad plan.
Got off at the right stop in Fleet Street, that is to say the Royal Courts of Justice, and found our way to the Temple quite quickly on this second occasion - having armed ourselves both with the map reproduced at reference 1 and a print of the surrounding roads and alleys from gmaps.
While we picnic'd outside, we admired the old-style lights, which on closer inspection each contained four small gas mantles - or at least that was what they looked like. The trusty in the hall - I think a uniformed porter in the way of some universities - explained that they were the real thing, they really were gas lights. While I am sure I remember from a P. D. James novel about dodgy lawyers that they had been discontinued. Perhaps it was the lighting up man that had been discontinued, in favour of something electrical, rather than the lights themselves.
Some of the newer brown wood to be found inside. In other parts of the building, some of it was a good deal older, maybe 500 years older. And a good deal browner. Plus some of the giant hinges you get at Hampton Court Palace.
The hall was crowded, mostly with people who wouldn't bother with the Wigmore Hall but who would turn out for what turned out to be a folk group rather than a chamber ensemble. There may well have been a Lewisham connection. Standard of mask wearing poor.
So for the Schubert, we had a folk band instead of a piano, a narrator, various additions and a large puppet. The baritone assisted with the puppet at the same time as singing. All very clever, and it did bring out the narrative line but much of the magic of the version we know was lost. But it was good to be reminded of the beginnings of these songs, with Viennese salons being rather more free and easy places than the solemn concert halls we have got used to since.
With this particular song cycle being built on a story which had a long and varied history in Central Europe. A story which might be played out in parts in said salons. With the author of the present poems, Müller, given his name, generally getting lumbered with the role of the miller's apprentice.
The production included parallel text surtitles projected onto the black cloth behind the stage. I thought that this worked rather well, but probably would not play at the Wigmore where the stage is in light, rather than in dark.
The second half included some good bits, but went on for far too long and would have been much better suited to a public house. The sort of thing that used, for example, to play in the back bar in the Devonshire on Balham High Road. I remember that quite a few houses in that part of London have large back bars, well adapted to that sort of thing.
To the point that by the time we got out I was rather cross. Quite surprised at myself really. I had tried playing the alphabet game with countries, but that had not done any good. Nor could we have left early without making a bit of a disturbance. Which would not have been fair: I should have been more careful about the programme and there were plenty of people there who thought it was all great.
The half moon was high in the clear night sky. My first London evening sighting of the moon for some years.
A young lady gave up her seat on the No.76 so that we could sit together while the bus went round the Aldwych what seemed the wrong way. Plenty of road works in progress, so perhaps the southern leg is being pedestrianised.
Few masks and some young ladies in full war paint at Waterloo. I consoled myself with half a bottle of Bells from Whistletop (by Platform 1) - rather expensive but it did calm me down, starting with a covert swig behind the bike shed, followed by a couple of not so covert swigs on the train. There was even some left to polish off over the next few days.
As it turned out, we were sat next to our three ladies again. Who had been to the Lloyd Webber version of Cinderella, which they thought was great. And as is all too often the case with me, I got on with them far better than I had thought likely at the outset. A source of much error over the years.
I think at a place called the Gillian Lynne Theatre in Drury Lane, possibly owned and operated by the Lloyd Webber vehicles Really Useful Theatre Company and LW Theatres. A place which we learned included revolving stage, with the revolving including some of the seats, which seemed odd. A place which I last past on the occasion noticed at reference 4.
For the first time in a long time, fifth in the queue for taxis on arrival at Epsom. And the chap behind us had one shoe falling apart, and in the absence of a roll of duct tape, he would not be walking home. So we did, several taxis coming down station approach as we went up. But we needed the walk and we got a further sighting of the moon, which now seemed to be more or less overhead.
It being a breading baking day, fresh bread on arrival, by way of a snack. Batch No.632. Maybe another swig. Then cracked out our record of Fischer-Dieskau and Moore doing the miller's daughter - a phrase which does not fit nearly as well as müllerin - to hear what the café flavoured effort matured into. To bed well past midnight, most unusual for me.
We thought afterwards that this was all part of the accessibility drive, also visible at the Wigmore Hall. A rather desperate effort to involve younger people in the fading world of classical music. Fading, that is, in so far as getting audiences to live performances is concerned. Think how the South Bank used to do classical in three halls, more or less seven nights a week. At least that is how I remember it from fifty years ago. Perhaps I exaggerate.
Programme notes by our baritone, Thomas Guthrie, included for future reference. More likely to be able to find them here than popped into a bookcase somewhere.
Hopefully he wouldn't mind if he knew.
PS: while playing the alphabet game with countries in the Hall, I varied thing a bit by trying to vary the countries, easy enough as most letters are represented by two or more countries. But I got stuck on Honduras for 'H'. Nothing else would come to mind. But I was pleased the following morning when Haiti and Hungary turned up.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/to-temple.html. The first temple.
Reference 2: https://www.barokksolistene.com/barokksolistene-2/. The band.
Reference 3: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2012/05/up-north.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/penalty-fare.html.
Reference 5: http://www.thomasguthrie.com/about/. The baritone.
