16 - 25 August, 2014
There was a fair bit of
music to this visit to London, starting with Evensong at St Paul’s
Cathedral on the day I arrived. (Is religion culture?) I also went to
Evensong at Southwark Cathedral, then back to St Paul’s again. I
love Evensong!
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| Shakespeare memorial at Southwark Cathedral |
There was the sung Latin
Mass at St James, Spanish Place (with an excellent sermon, as it
happens) and crossover music of a different sort, a concert at St
Martin-in-the-Fields: Vivaldi’s Gloria, a cello concerto by JC Bach
and, best of all, Faure’s Requiem, so moving it brought tears to my
eyes.
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| Before the concert - at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square |
I’d wanted to hear the
Requiem live for a very long time and thought it was going to be “it”
when I recently went to a concert in Melbourne given by the Choir of
King’s College, Cambridge. I was all set to buy the CD after the
concert but …. the performance was seriously underwhelming,
sounding tired and lacklustre, shown up all the more by the
performance at SMitF by the Locrian singers and orchestra.
And there was my Proms
concert experience, to say I’d been to a Proms concert, chosen
because the date suited rather than for the music, although that too
was good. I bought cheap seats, to the side and back of the
orchestra, interesting watching the TV cameras in action. I was
sitting there minding my own business just before interval when, at a
very quiet spot in the music, with audience silent so you could hear
a pin drop, I got a tickle in my throat. I almost killed myself
trying not to cough. What an embarrassment. My throat took all of 24
hours to feel normal again.
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| Waiting for Prom 42 to begin - at Royal Albert Hall |
