BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS

14/8/10, Cadogan Hall (Proms)

A double concert, 1 hr 10 mins starting at 11.30, and then another 1 hr 10 mins at 1.30. We had a sandwich in Sloane Square in G and J in between. All the Brandenburgs played by the English Baroque Soloists with/under John Eliot Gardner, who actually conducted only three of the six, sitting out the others at the side of the stage with the Radio 3 announcer Violet Elizabeth Bott, and entertaining both audiences (on the radio and in the hall) with his witty apercus in between each concerto.

I learnt a lot about music which is (some of it, at any rate) almost tediously familiar. They weren't played in order, presumably because there's no evidence of the order in which they were written, only the order in the manuscript in which they were found in 1849. Bach presented them to a member of an obscure branch of the Hohenzollerns, the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, although they hadn't been written for him and his household lacked the musicians to play them.

We started with No 1, which begins with two horns (up in the Cadogan Hall balcony) playing what sounds like completely different music to the rest of the band: an extraordinarily discordant row. After the opening allegro they came down into the body of the kirk and played much more harmoniously in a subsequent movement. I thought it was just me, so was relieved to hear Eliot Gardiner remark on how discordant the opening is.

Then we had No 6, for strings alone (but no violins), followed by No 4, which JEG returned to conduct.

The second concert started with No 3, which has just two movements separated by a cadenza which Bach didn't write but (if memory serves) the principal violinist played at length.

No 5 is extraordinary, according to JEG, because it's arguably the first "modern" keyboard concerto in which the harpsichord goes beyond its conventional continuo role at the start of the piece to become a true solo instrument in the middle... and then lapsing back to continuo in the final movement. It was very effective -- and all the more so because we'd been primed to look out for it.

We ended with No 2 conducted by JEG, the only one of the six to feature a trumpet, and very stirring it is too.

I enjoyed this greatly, possible because it was the middle of the day and I was wide awake. Should we have more concerts in the mornings?

SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE

5/2/10, Cadogan Hall

A Martinu piano quartet. A Smetana piano trio. A Dvorak piano quintet.

The Martinu was spiky, well on the way towards the unlistenable-to range of 20th century music, with random phrases apparently strung together in a disconnected fashion. At the end of the first movement, which went at a tremendous lick and was urgent and percussive, the man behind me let out a low whistle of admiration. In the slow movement one particular passage had the Chinese girl student who turned the pages for the pianist looking absolutely crestfallen: the only time I saw her impassivity flicker. The last movement had a lovely song-like theme which floated above choppy, jagged playing by the strings (violin, viola and cello).

The Smetana was bombastic. I fell asleep. But recall enough to conclude that it was agreeably characterful.

The Dvorak was infinitely preferable. It had tunes. And conventional harmonies. It was plangent. There were four movements. An hour later that's all I could remember.

The men wore grey suits and purple shirts without ties which made them look like Anglican bishops. Except for the second violinist who joined for the Dvorak, whose shirt was blue and who seemed younger and more enthusiastic than the rest. The (female) cellist had a fine red skirt. The viola-player's socks were too short. He had a rather coarse countryman's appearance, red-faced and block-shaped: I was told afterwards that in real life he's a farmer. I spent much time watching the players watching one another: first one would lead, then another, like passing the baton between runners.

MESSIAH

2/12/09, Cadogan Hall

English Chamber Orchestra, Howard Williams and "Choir of the 21st Century" which someone said was born, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the Tallis Choir and which numbers my old friend A's university friend DL among its basses. We met him in the bar beforehand where he'd just met a man he knew who turned out to know Dr T. Then during the interval I met a man I knew at university. Small world.

First-class tenor, Nicholas Mulroy. Under-powered mezzo, Mae Heydorn. A bass called Hakan Vramsmo I thought was also underpowered until The Trumpet Shall Sound which he did jolly well. A very showy soprano called Ida Falk Winland who shoved in loads of decoration (is this appropriate in one of Handel's more religious items?) and wore a backless almost-strapless dress (it had a strap over one shoulder but was cut right down to the panty line) only held up by her bony shoulders ("flat as a washboard," said D) and what Kate calls tit-tape. She made a big impression on me, anyway, and could sing. Her biog shows she did Cleopatra in a Swedish Giulio Cesare; I'd like to see her as Semele.

It started indifferently. It got better as it went on. It dipped, as usual, in part two, but you really can't go wrong with part three and the end.

Vramsmo and Winland are both Swedish, Heydorn is Swedish-German. They looked amused/bemused when we all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus (I don't and didn't, a fact noted by DL).

We were in the balcony round to the side and may not have had the best of the acoustic: the band (22 players, plus two trumpets and timps) often seemed to drown the soloists.