#wigmore hall

[tfblovesmusic]

Also in memory of my late granduncle.

[thesobsister]

Great program of string quartets by Weinberg and Shostakovich by the Quatuor Danel at Wigmore Hall. Wigmore is kind enough to share many of its concerts on its YT channel, and I recommend it to any classical music heads in this here place. Weinberg and Shosty were friends and colleagues, so it's a congenial pairing of some great chamber music, and the Quatuor Danel has recorded the complete Weinberg and Shostakovich string quartets, so they know their onions.

[antigonegone]

Last but not least ou plutôt last sur la liste, un concert du dimanche matin au Wigmore Hall. Rdv à 11h30 pour de la musique de chambre “easy” : Mozart et Dvorak, du sûr, du beau, et de la diversité musicale. Si hier, l’essentiel du public me semblait jeune, today c’est normal qu’il y en ait peu, because pas d’incitations dans la gamme de prix des billets ! Enfin, je ne crois pas que ce soit tout à fait la raison…

[velvetarmchairsessions]

[fanchonmoreau]

French Soprano Sabine Devieilhe sings Fauré's Après un rêve with pianist Alexandre Tharaud. 

In sleep made sweet by a vision of you I dreamed of happiness, fervent illusion, Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and ringing, You shone like a sky that was lit by the dawn... (x)

[theodoradove]

.

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison turns his amp back on after police attempt to stop the rooftop performance. (Get Back, 2021)

George Harrison v.s. the police

“In Cleveland, without asking us, two senior police officers marched on stage and stopped our show completely because they said the crowd was getting out of hand. The safety curtain was pulled down, and we were ordered to our cars. With the cops shouting, ‘The show’s over, fellows, this is where we take over.’ It’s never happened to us before. But that’s the trouble with American cops – they’re over-enthusiastic, whether it’s for stopping shows, hurling us into cars, baton charging the crowd or just asking 30 autographs at a time." - George's column in The Daily Express (1964) [x]

"We've been and played here in Sydney, and it was the biggest drag of all time. The stage revolves every three minutes and we have to walk right down the aisles like boxers to get to the stage. At the first house I punched a policeman because he was shoving me like mad and some kids had a hold of me all at once and I was trying to get off the stage. I was swearing my head off at one policeman (sorry), and later the chief came and apologised to me." - George in a letter to his parents (1964)

“I noticed a police car. It says, written on the door, ‘To serve and to protect’, and that really sort of buzzed me. I was starting to wonder like, who are they serving, and who are they protecting? I mean that’s where it’s really at because maybe they do serve and protect, but you know…themselves or? Like, who? […] That’s the trick you see. They say, ‘It’s not me. It’s somebody up there telling me what to do,.’ and you can never find like, who is the guy at the top? Because they shift the load, you know? Take a load off Annie.” - George interviewed by Don Hall and Charles Laquidara (1968)

“George arrived home, with Mal Evans and Derek Taylor in tow. All the detectives instantly leaped from George’s settees to converge upon their quarry as he stormed, ranting and raving, into his kitchen. 'The foxes have got their lairs,' George shouted, 'and the birds have their fucking nests, but man doesn’t have anywhere he can fucking go without people breaking into his house!' Ignoring this tirade, the Drug Squad, charging him with possession of cannabis, produced two pieces of incriminating evidence. 'That one’s mine!' George snapped. 'But I’ve never seen this one before in me fucking life! You don’t have to bring your own dope to me house, I’ve got plenty meself! And you didn’t have to turn this whole fucking place upside down, I could have shown you where the stuff was if you’d asked me!' Their only response was to ask George to accompany them to the police station. 'Well, I don’t care where the fuck we go,' George retorted, 'just so long as you get all these fuckers out of my house!'" - Pete Shotton on the 1969 drug bust at Kinfauns [x]

"The prosecution had stated then that Harrison drove his car on to the busy junction of Wigmore Street and Orchard Street blocking traffic. When stopped by the Pc, Stephen Gardner he drove the car forward with the constable walking alongside and twice refused a requestion to drive to the offside of the road. Pc Gardner walked forward and stood in front of the car and Harrison advanced the car slowly and it hit the officer's knee. He drove against the officer three times. Police spent 15 minutes trying to get his name and address, but Harrison, who was heavily bearded, was finally recognized. Mr. Polden told the magistrate yesterday that Harrison was trapped in the boxed area. He was driving his wife's Mercedes, and drove slowly forward. He heard a hammering on the car roof. ‘Mr. Harrison's lot has been to find people hammering on the roof of his car and he did not associate it initially with police action.’

The policeman believed the driver was taking no notice of his signal. Harrison had the car radio on and did not hear the officer speak to him. When the policeman ran in front of the car Harrison realized for the first time he was being requested to stop ‘for reasons quite obscure to him.’ He decided to pull in to the near side and started to turn not realising he was being discourteous. ‘He should have stopped, but it stemmed from a misunderstanding. That is why he pleaded guilty.’ ‘Mr. Harrison's nature is such that the arrogant level of driving does not really enter into it. As far as a man in his position can have, he has a sense of humility. He is not capable of deliberately driving into a police officer, causing him to hurt. He took the whole business impassively rather than arrogantly.’” - Guy Rais, Ban on Harrison (1971) [x]

"George gives me a souvenir as I leave -- a baton belonging to the Chief Constable of Liverpool, which GH took off him at the Liverpool premiere of A Hard Day’s Night!" - Michael Palin, Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980–1988

"I was 15 and then uh...had some little run-in with some policemen, and he told the policemen to fuck off. And that was when I realised he was actually cool, on my side, and not just a scary dad, y'know?" - Dhani Harrison, Living in the Material World

[ginandoldlace]

Britain's most enduring harpist Sidonie Goossens and Dame Gwyneth Jones sings the Last Rose of Summer at the Last Night of the Proms 1991

Sidonie first made her professional debut at the proms in 1921

And was a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and went on to play for more than half a century until her retirement in 1981.

She was born in Liscard, Wallasey, Cheshire, a member of the famous Goossens family that had emigrated to Britain from Belgium in the 19th century. Her father and grandfather were both conductors, both called Eugène. Her brother Sir Eugene Goossens made an international conducting career in the mid-20th century and was also a composer. He spent many years working in Australia as the director of the NSW Conservatorium of Music and chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony. Her brother Léon was an eminent oboist and her sister Marie was also a distinguished harpist. In 1916, her brother Adolphe, a gifted French horn player was killed in action.

She was honoured with a MBE in 1974, and later an OBE in 1980. She was recommended for a Damehood, but this was allegedly vetoed by Margaret Thatcher, who said: 'We can't give a DBE to an orchestral musician'. She retired officially from the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1980, the year of the orchestra's Golden Jubilee. Her final performance was in 1991 during the Last Night of the Proms when she accompanied Dame Gwyneth Jones in her own arrangement of "The Last Rose of Summer". There were celebratory concerts for her 100th birthday at London's Wigmore and Royal Festival Halls. She died in Reigate, Surrey, on 15 December 2004 aged 105.

[darling]

“Being alone is not the most awful thing in the world. You visit your museums and cultivate your interests and remind yourself how lucky you are not to be one of those spindly Sudanese children with flies beading their mouths. You make out To Do lists - reorganise linen cupboard, learn two sonnets. You dole out little treats to yourself - slices of ice-cream cake, concerts at Wigmore Hall. And then, every once in a while, you wake up and gaze out of the window at another bloody daybreak, and think, I cannot do this anymore. 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘵𝘰𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘺. People like Sheba think that they know what it's like to be lonely. They cast their minds back to the time they broke up with a boyfriend in 1975 and endured a whole month before meeting someone new. Or the week they spent in a Bavarian steel town when they were fifteen years old, visiting their greasy-haired German pen pal and discovering that her hand-writing was the best thing about her. But about the drip drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. They don't know what it is to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the laundrette. Or to sit in a darkened flat on Halloween night, because you can't bear to expose your bleak evening to a crowd of jeering trick-or-treaters. Or to have the librarian smile pityingly and say, ‘Goodness, you're a quick reader!’ when you bring back seven books, read from cover to cover, a week after taking them out. They don't know what it is to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. I have sat on park benches and trains and schoolroom chairs, feeling the great store of unused, objectless love sitting in my belly like a stone until I was sure I would cry out and fall, flailing, to the ground. About all of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.” ― Zoë Heller, What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]

[grandmaster-anne]

27 January 2020

HRH Birgitte, Duchess of Gloucester, HRH Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester and HRH Princess Alexandra, The Hon. Lady Ogilvy attended a concert at Wigmore Hall in celebration of Mozart’s birthday

[opera-ghosts]

Louise Kirkby Lunn - O don fatale [Don Carlo] - 1911

Louise Kirkby Lunn (1873 – 1930) was a leading contralto who had trained in her native Manchester and studied at the Royal College of Music in 1890 for three years. In 1895 she appeared in the first of Henry Wood’s Promenade concerts and then began her stage appearances, including small roles at Covent Garden.  Then in 1896 she joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company as principal mezzo-soprano until her marriage in 1899 to William Pearson.  In the 1901 census they are living at Hyde Park Mansions, with a year old son named  Louis Kirkby and her aunt Anne living with them. They later lived in St Johns Wood Park. She sang many roles at Covent Garden during the first two decades of the 20th century and first appeared at  the Bechstein (later Wigmore) Hall in 1902, giving her first full recital (with pianist Percy Pitt) on 3 November 1906, followed by many others in subsequent years when her husband was manager there.

She also performed in a charity concert in aid of the Italian Hospital in London in July 1906 and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society for her rare combination of personal artistic achievement added to a richly endowed nature.   She was famous for her Delilah in Samson and Delilah, and for Gluck’s Orfeo. In 1909, she sang Elgar’s Sea Pictures with Elgar conducting  the orchestra. She often toured Europe and made trips to New York and Australia. In 1922 she made her farewell to Covent Garden with her celebrated part of Kundry but continued for some years to appear in concerts and recitals. Sir Henry Wood said she was a singer with a glorious voice and an even tone throughout a compass of well over two octaves, a singer with whom I never found fault in so much as a quaver all the years I worked with her, and who never sang out of tune.

[antigonegone]

La musique, ce midi, lorgnait du côté du répertoire français du début du 20ème siècle, des oeuvres pour trio avec piano de Lili Boulanger et de Gabriel Fauré mais aussi des sonates pour piano et cor d’harmonie de compositeurs(trices) belge, autrichien, allemand et polonais, peu connu(e)s du grand public [pour plus de détail cf. fin de l’article]. Les 5 musiciens, des gamins entre 20 et 30 ans, étaient plus que doués, et heureux de jouer sous emprise de la musique. Je n’ai pas vu le travail, uniquement la qualité de l’interprétation et la joie du partage. Quelle chance que d’éprouver le virus contagieux de la musique avec des inconnus du monde entier dans cette salle magnifique du Wigmore Hall, inaugurée en 1901. Son architecte Edward Colcutt l’a réalisée à côté de la manufacture de pianos allemands Bechstein. La salle s’appelait alors le Bechstein Hall et du fait de la victoire des alliés sur l’Allemagne pendant la grande guerre, la salle a été réquisitionnée par les Anglais et rebaptisée du nom de la rue où elle se situe. C’est le même architecte qui a conçu le célèbre hôtel du Savoy sur le strand. Promis, la prochaine fois, je vais y boire une bière ! Le concert dans cet écrin m’a semblé comme suspendu, hors du temps, me faisant oublier la vie frénétique du dehors, celle d’une mégalopole de près de 10 millions d’habitants au 21ème siècle. Et, comme le soleil a décidé de s’installer durablement pendant mon séjour, j’ai marché dans Hyde Park puis dans Kensington Park, où je n’ai pas vu l’ombre de Peter Pan, mais sous les feux de la rampe, des canes et leurs canetons. J’ai assisté au festival improvisé de bipèdes palmés à plumes, un avant-goût de celui qui se tient plus tard, sur la Riviera sauf qu’aujourd’hui la scène se déroulait sans star ni paillette, aucun roulement de tambour, mais côté trempette, c’était la fête ! Le printemps glacial oublié, voilà l’été, ben oui, y a plus de saison ma bonne dame, et c’est comme ça, nia ! Kensington Park Hyde Park Derrière Wigmore street c’est truffé de pub, de restos Ma salle de concert, un écrin pour les oreilles Mon pub préféré Les belles propriétés ci-dessus se situent dans Notting Hill Un lieu légendaire pour qui aime la soupe maison et les bons sandwichs

[bernardovalle]

Those were the first three drafts for the assignment about the concert poster we had to do. I chose to do about Gin Wigmore, a indie rock singer from New Zealand. In those poster, I was announcing her first gig in Europe, which would take place in London, at the Royal Albert Hall, one of the most important places to play in the capital. In all of them, her name and the place are the most important information we can see, followed by the date and the quotes.

[rudyardcunt]

The Things That Were Fear: A collection of songs that remind me of The Entities, in no specific order

Thousand Eyes - Of Monsters and Men // Reptilia - Andrew Combs // You Might Be Caught in Tarantella - Bryan Scary // The Fire-Tree Bird - Bryan Scary and The Shredding Tears // Arsonist's Lullabye - Hozier // Rabbit Will Run - Iron & Wine // Saddam - AlicebanD // Falling - Florence + The Machine // Vacant Lot - The Growlers // Kill Of The Night - Gin Wigmore // Skeleton Appreciation Day in Vestal, NY (Bones) - Will Wood and the Tapeworms // Moths in the Darkness // Gun - Emiliana Torrini // In a Week - Hozier, Karen Cowley // Cable Through Your Heart - Bryan Scary // My Game - Zella Day // Choke - I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME // An Unhealthy Obsession - The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra // Eat Your Young - Hozier // Killer - The Hoosiers // The Dismemberment Song - Blue Kid // & - Tally Hall // Fire Walk With Me - The Black Keys // Leave Me Alone - IDKHOW // Gonna Lose Your Mind - Maybird // Who Needs Friends - Royal Blood // Feeling Kind Of Anxious - Franz Ferdinand // Agoraphobia - Autoheart // Puppet Loosely Strung - The Correspondents // 40' - Franz Ferdinand // Great Vacation - Dirt Poor Robins // Gun - CHVRCHES // Decency - Balthasar // Ocean - Alice Phoebe Lou // JFK'S LSD - Hot Hot Heat // Under My Skin - Jukebox The Ghost // Lonely Mess - Laundry // Indescriminate Murder is Counter-Productive - Machine Supremacy // Girl With One Eye - Florence + The Machine // Survival - Muse // Terry's Taxidermy - Teddy Hyde // The Therapist - Foreign Air // Here Comes The Night Time - Arcade Fire // Sarah - Bat For Lashes // Solar Waltz - Cosmo Sheldrake // Subway - Yeah Yeah Yeahs // Caves - CLANN // Welcome to the Circus - Skittish Bloodsuckers - Johnny Hollow // Tie Me Up - Micky James // Red Wine - Follies & Vices // Animal Skin - Bryan Dunn // Hooked (Addicted You Might Say) - Eleisha Eagle // Eat You - Caravan of Thieves // Everybody's Watching Me (Uh Oh) - The Neighbourhood // My Ugly - The Correspondents // Weight of the World - Shayfer James // Mr. Malum - The Dear Hunter // Sick On Seventh Street - Sarah and the Safe Word // Concertina Ballerina - Alternative Radio // Esmeralda - Adriel Genet // Body Terror Song - AJJ // Dance While The Sky Crashes Down - Jason Webley

Listen on Spotify ♫

[cf63]

Wigmore Hall, London.

[korlieblog]

'Pièces De Clavecin, Livre IV, Ordre 25, II. La Misterieuse' by Dustin Gledhill - A Beautiful Piano Masterpiece

Internationally recognized pianist Dustin Gledhill’s latest single, “La Misterieuse” (The Mysterious One), is a captivating rendition of François Couperin’s Baroque masterpiece. Recorded live at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. Gledhill’s interpretation of Couperin’s original harpsichord composition is remarkable. He skillfully adapts the piece to the piano, preserving its somber, elusive, and…