Cadogan Hall

This to notice what has become a rare visit to the Cadogan Hall at Sloane Square, with the last visit, more than four years ago now, noticed at reference 4. This one was advertised by email and I picked up on it as an afternoon concert, so suitable for us.

Mozart, including a symphony (No.38) and two piano concertos (No.23 and No.27 (the last of the series)). The concertos, at last had probably been heard before, quite possibly with Dame Mitsuko Uchida in the chair. On this occasion we had Elizabeth Sombart whom we have not come across before, and I rather liked her subdued platform style and I rather liked having the piano and its direction separated, having found conflation with Uchida slightly distracting. For Sombart see reference 6.

On the day in question, a Sunday, we had to drive to Sutton to get a train, spotting various new-to-me Wellingtonia on the way, but not having time to score them. Left for another day. Got to the station to grapple with the younger persons' parking machinery, as noticed at reference 7. Slightly surprised to have to pay £9.15 for our senior discounted return tickets to Victoria, only a very small discount on what a senior Travelcard would have cost from Epsom, now £11.15. I might say that senior shows here too, with getting the last receipt out of my wallet being a lot faster than trying to extract the same information from my laptop, albeit in a different room.

Passed this building at one point. Clocking the rather ugly corner jointing, I wondered how long ago it was that a builder would buy special bricks to fit the case, or perhaps have them made up especially. Maybe that never was a reasonable option: you just had to keep your buildings on the square. I associate to the Ashey Down sea mark of reference 9, built in 1735 without any ugly corner jointing - but then that was probably stone rather than brick. Different process.

Several planes spotted on the flight path to Heathrow while the train was stopped at Clapham Junction.

The off at Victoria to stroll through to Sloane Square, that is to say to stroll through my stomping ground as a second year undergraduate. Regular memory lane job, something I do from time to time, but too many hits on the archive to check up on the last occasion.

The form back in 1969 or so was that you got off the train with your suitcase at Victoria and took a stroll to find a newsagent with cards in the window where you could select somewhere suitable to live. I think the newsagent in question used to occupy the premises above, complete with a lady of middle years who might easily have had her curlers in, Coronation Street fashion. The sort of newsagent which sold papers, cigarettes, tobacco, sweets and stationary. No doubt other odds and ends. The name Cullen's comes to mind, but neither Bing nor Google offer any comfort on that front. The lady of middle years sends me off to nearby Elizabeth Street where I am able to move in, with my suitcase, on the spot. I remember that the young lady friend of the lady in charge (who lived in the basement flat), was able to make up my bed with hospital corners. No parental vans full of belongings in those days. I might also say that the suitcase involved was pretty cheap and cheerful compared with the sort of thing that people lug about these days. No zips! No extra pockets! No straps and buckles! No wheels! No anything much.

But the street opposite, the one with the blue blinds, along with other streets round about, did have a good sprinkling of rather louche hotels where one (if so inclined) could take one's lady of the night - of whom plenty used to hang around Victoria Station, particularly in and around the passage leading out to Buckingham Palace Road. Both hotels and ladies now gone. But the passage survives in a slightly altered form.

A house I used occasionally during my time in Elizabeth Street, at the time a rather tired place catering for taxi drivers, bus drivers, builders and people of that sort. I think a Watney's house under a different name to that above. The posh people - frocks, blazers, accents, the lot - used the Wellington down the road. A place which has slipped badly downhill in the intervening years.

There is still a dentist occupying the ground floor of the house in question in Elizabeth Street. I suppose that once you have tooled a place up, there is every incentive to pass it on as a going concern. I had a first floor room, at the back, with a blind made of thin split cane. I thought it very cool. Nothing like it at home.

Round the corner into Eaton Square where we came across a chap wearing a very smart bowler hat. Clearly the subject of a first class brushing. We agreed that many years ago such a hat had been the mark of foremen on building sites. He did not appear to mind the connection.

Into the cafeteria at Peter Jones, called a food hall on their website, but actually much the same as the cafeteria in the (John Lewis) store in Oxford Street. Except that here we had a bag lady, complete with bags, who could just about run to a portion of chips. I only thought about offering something more after the event - but perhaps it was just as well not to get involved.

We looked down on the tree snapped above and from where we were sitting we did not work out that we had an entire tree. But I suppose, given that we were in uber-fashionable Chelsea, we should have worked it out. The sort of thing that Tate Real used to go in for at Christmas - but I think they have something more advanced these days. Probably involving used cardboard boxes or something of that sort.

The concert went down very well. I had forgotten that the Cadogan Hall is rather a good venue, a handsome building, once a church, with tiered seats so everyone gets to see what is going on. Reasonably full and a rather more democratic audience than you usually get in the Wigmore Hall.

I am reminded by reference 8 that it was a Church of Christ the Scientist, so not a regular church. And also that, when the church audience fell away, Mohamed Fayed, the one-time arms dealer, then the owner of Harrods, failed to get permission to turn it into a palace, so it has survived as a concert hall.

We passed plenty of flash cars on the way back to Victoria. Ferrari, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Maserati and Porsche. The odd slum dweller's Range Rover. Several fancy registrations.

A good day out.

PS: no rotational loss of definition problems with the programme snapped above, despite being taken in artificial light late this gloomy afternoon. See reference 5 for more.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/piano-67.html. Capture 1.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/piano-66.html. Capture 2.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/fake-155.html. Capture 3.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/chelsea.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/carducci-two.html.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Sombart.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/03/more-privatisation.html.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadogan_Hall.

Reference 9: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/sea-mark.html.