Zemlinsky

About a fortnight ago to hear a quartet from Czechoslovakia, named for a composer from Vienna and unheard by us in the near 30 years they have been around. At least, that is, according to the archive. Mozart K465 and Dvořák Op.51; the former of which we know reasonably well, the latter possibly new. As it turned out, I think it might have worked better for us had they done the Dvořák first and the Mozart second. Do the new while one is still fresh.

Bright, cool morning, but not so cool that sitting on a bench on the platform, facing the sun, was not very pleasant. Failed to spot any figs across the tracks when we turned around to face the arriving train. For which see, for example, reference 3.

Oxford Circus quiet when we arrived, while All Bar One was busy, although a bit light on staff. But reinforcements soon arrived. They gave me hot milk for my tea. I didn't complain and rather to my surprise it didn't seem to matter - I don't think I would have known had I not known. Smarties for BH were on.

A non-scoring trolley outside the Wigmore Street Pret, hard by the forthcoming Bechstein Hall.

Hall pretty full. Handsome floral displays based on white anthuriums, something pink, something black and a lot of green. No computers for the musicians.

Mozart well down as well as ever, but as hinted above, I struggled a bit with the Dvořák. Somehow, not quite what I was expecting. Checking today, I find that I don't have a plastic version, but the YouTube version at reference 4 sounds well enough. Perhaps I was having a bad day for Dvořák, a composer I usually get on with pretty well.

Quick shot of the sherry offered after the concert and down to Ponti's, where we took a very similar meal to that on our last visit, also noticed at reference 3. Amused by our cheerful waiter who explained that no-one had ever asked before for the wine - Fiano di Avelino I Favati - that we were asking for. Assured Italian recovery when we explained that we had had it a couple of weeks previously. They managed the pizza without the chilli, which was good enough, but a touch bland without it. Maybe the next trick is to ask for a little chilli on the side, in the way of gravy in other establishments, for example Wetherspoon's.

Interested to see that the knife supplied to carve the pizza came from Brazil, where the word for stainless - inox - is the same as the French. Perhaps they are made for the Francophone and Anglophone markets.

Bread good, vegetables good. Sicilian cheesecake off, so I settled for their tiramisu, the format of which I am sure changes from time to time, with the ebbs and flows of foodie fashions. Mainly white on this occasion and served in a sundae glass. Not brown and brick shaped at all. We wondered whether they were assembled to order - which seemed quite possible. Snapped above towards the end of the proceedings.

Entertained on the Raynes Park - Epsom leg of the journey home by a children's word book in Lithuanian, manufactured in the Czech Republic. There were no clues, but the matter was resolved by getting my telephone to tell me where slaugė came from, the word in the unknown language for a nurse. Checking today, Lithuanian still seems good, but there is doubt about the number of dots above the terminal 'e'. There also seems to be some doubt about the proper ending for shopping trolley. Maybe Lithuanian is a trickily inflected language. Described by Ruhlen (see reference 7 at reference 6) as one of a very small number of extant east Baltic languages - which does not help much, but my guess would be that it is a very old language which is heavily inflected, not all worn away in the way of English, which is hardly, these days, inflected at all. 

Maybe it will entertain the grandchildren when they are a little older, a little beyond such books on their own account.

And when that failed, we had a ten year old number of 'Railways Illustrated', rather more interesting than one might have thought, despite being aimed at enthusiasts - not to say train spotters - rather than professionals. Although that said, my belief is that there is quite a lot of overlap between the two categories.

And, there was a further communication from the god botherer (a phrase I think I picked up from Lewis on the television). See reference 7 for something more elaborate.

To close, we had a cheerful Irish girl with a flashy but heavy looking Trek cycle, maybe as heavy as mine, on which she had been doing something in town, or perhaps further afield.

References

Reference 1: http://www.zemlinskyquartet.cz/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Zemlinsky.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/d956.html.

Reference 4: https://youtu.be/q5yGzooHnoI.

Reference 5: http://www.pontis.co.uk/.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/marshgull.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/09/moral-health.html.