Spaniards

A fortnight ago, on what is now a rare evening outing, to the church at Spanish Place for some Palestrina. A sold-out concert given by the Sixteen, to be found at references 6 and 7 below.

Baked fish for lunch and then a snooze in the afternoon by way of preparation. Then off to Ewell West, where the birds in the hedges, previously alleged to be starlings, were singing loud and clear.

I found that if I kept still, from the vantage point snapped above, I did get occasional glimpses of birds. Plenty of rustles and flickerings. But the occasional decent glimpse was not very starling-like.

As it turned out, I might have done better with the holes in the bus shelter, visible right in the first snap. More like what you get in a bird hide.

We still had the jitter on the in-carriage overhead displays, previously noticed. And plenty of repetitive, irritating announcements from the ceiling. 

The tube was crowded, but I was entertained by a tight white blouse made of a curious soft leather-like material. I don't suppose it actually was leather, but whatever it was, somehow it had the effect of making the occupant look rather naked. Almost more so, oxymoronically, than if she had been naked.

An impressive looking fan at Bond Street tube station. Could one stand in front of it in any comfort if it was turned on? Where is the volume control?

Google Images' first effort. Not convinced by talk of air. But I am not the first person to notice these fans and there are plenty of snaps out there.

Plus this post from Facebook.

Google Image's second effort. Once again, one needs to have a care with these AI assistants.

Onto Olle & Steen for a slightly bigger snack than we take on a Sunday morning. BH went for a toastie, but for some reason I did not fancy hot cheese on this occasion and went for an entirely satisfactory pastrami salad baguette instead. Plus, instead of black coffee (the stuff of the recent mishap, already noticed), some fancy orange juice, which had a much longer shelf life than I was expecting. When these fancy orange juices first appeared, some years ago now, pressed the previous day was all the thing.

It was just as well that we arrived at the church a little early, as it was indeed crowded and the seats, while graded, were not numbered. Plus it gave me time to take in the small ring hanging over the chancel, a smaller version of those noticed at reference 3. In the round, a very handsome church, surprisingly big inside given the very urban setting.

We were given something of a Palestrina medley, but featuring what I now know to be a famous medieval chanson, 'L'homme armé', to be found at the various references 8 below. The two very different versions picked off YouTube serve to show what a catchy tune it was and it seems that it was used as a theme (cantus firmus at reference 12) for more than 40 masses of the time - including more than one by Palestrina. It is still used today.

A fine choir, 18 voices rather than 16, plus the conductor. I liked the use of adult sopranos in the place of the boy trebles of the church choirs past and present. There did not appear to be any accompaniment, although there may have been a discrete giving of the note at the beginning of each section.

Sadly, the concert was rather spoiled by a spotlight from the chancel which seemed to be trained full in our faces. I had assumed that it would be turned off when the choir started, but it was not to be. Luckily I had my sun hat which, church notwithstanding, held off some of the glare. When I complained to an usher afterwards, he told me that it was there at the specific request of the choir, for some purpose of their own. I thought it was rather poor: one can do better with lights there days.

It was raining outside and we scuttled for rest and recreation into the unusual establishment called 'The angel in the fields'. Unusual in that it has a lot of brown wood, a lot of stained glass and a real fire in the hearth. Plus entirely respectable warm beer. It might be a listed building and it did not feel like a pubco. Last visited three years previously, as noticed at reference 10.

Outside again, the rain hitting the puddles made an effect very similar to that of my dancing water bowl. Must give it another try.

Some of the new Arterio trains do have names, remarks of a driver on the Epsom line notwithstanding.

RPPL closed when we went through.

Home, tired but pleased that we had gone the distance.

PS 1: not for the first time, I was struck how the Catholic Church, which we tried hard to exterminate in the 16th and 17th centuries, seemed to have had lots of money to build extravagant churches in the 19th century.

PS 2: I find this morning that I own just one Palestrina disc, the work of King's College Chapel in Cambridge. Missa Papae Marcelli and Missa Brevis. Not the same in the morning light in my study as in the church. Sleeve notes informative, but a bit full of themselves, by one Alec Robinson, in a style that reminds me of the 'Economist'. Bought by my mother in 1975, probably at a time when she frequented choral evensong on Saturdays (as I recall).

I learn that it was not at all clear that the popular chanson mentioned above started life out in the world. It may well have started in the church and gone full circle.

PS 3: at reference 2, Wikipedia suggests that you cannot do faith on HP and that a church has to be free of debt before it can be consecrated. Or put another way, you cannot give it to God if it is already in hock to someone else. Gemini explains that it is all rather more fuzzy than the rather bald statement in Wikipedia suggests and, if I had ever troubled to become a Wikipedia editor, I might have suggested an edit. As it is, I might think about trying to check Gemini.

In the meantime, I wondered about Muslims. He explains that they are not keen on debt either, but things are a bit different because of their bar on interest and the absence of a rite of dedication. 

Asking a question is so much easier than thinking about the answer to the previous one -- something which hard pressed bureaucrats everywhere know all about...

PS 4: Gemini seems to have been instructed in the right way to organise a response, rather as if he had been sent on a course on the structured methods which were favoured in the IT industry in the 1980s and 1990s. The methods which it was thought would bring order and method and would do away with the need for flair and talent. Pros and cons of forcing responses into a straightjacket of this sort?

References

Reference 1: https://www.sjrcc.org.uk/. The church.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_James%27s,_Spanish_Place.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/golden-rings.html. An entry point to posts about the Buckfast replica of the Aachen Barbarossaleuchter.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-hunt-for-red-january.html. An early mention of the church in George Street.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/three-churches.html. I made it inside three years later.

Reference 6: https://thesixteen.com/.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Christophers. The main man.

Reference 8a: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27homme_arm%C3%A9.

Reference 8b: https://youtu.be/Iy_Cqzffwbk. A lute version.

Reference 8c: https://youtu.be/t-E2_iNmYOE. A choir version.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thayer_Street,_London.

Reference 10: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-brasserie.html.

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/09/dancing-water.html.

Reference 12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantus_firmus.