Hagens

The programme

Just over a week ago to QEH to hear the Hagen Quartet, a concert which had been held over from early December due to illness. Which would have been just about a year since we last heard them, as noticed at reference 1. A rather different programme this time, with Beethoven Op.132 for the first half, Op.131 for the second. Also rather different from the more usual offering of one heavy Beethoven, one light Beethoven and a stocking filler.

Burns Night as it happened, and quite cold it was too, despite having been a mild day.

A trolley in station approach, with its front wheels down a hole, which I thought quite a good way of stopping people falling down the hole. Another trolley a bit further on, but it does not look as if I captured it the following day. Perhaps someone had moved it on.

The small Southern lady in charge of the gates on this occasion was having a bit of trouble with a band of youth, probably from Sutton, both mixed race and mixed sex. I think the upshot was that they boys did not pay. Glad I don't have to spend my evening dealing with such people. BH, at least, went and commiserated with her.

Trains to Waterloo not working for some reason, but we were able to get a crowded Victoria train at the same time that our train was supposed to have gone, in which we were sat next to some ladies who took their football very seriously. One of them was some sort of wannabee journalist and one was a Mum chaperoning her talented boy - who looked quite small to be a footballer to me, even if we was the goalkeeper.

New to me livery for a South Western train set

Trains to Waterloo from Clapham Junction not too bright either, and we were reduced to platforms 3 and 4. But did get first class seats, the tables to which appeared to be mobile air charge capable - of no interest to me as my mobile is too old for that sort of thing.

The side of the shop

We thought to picnic in the Festival Hall and went up to level 2 or 3 to be firmly told that whichever level it was was for ticket holders only, and our tickets were for the other place. Back downstairs to scrape up a couple of chairs which we moved under a staircase, which kept the crowds away. We also took a peek at the programme and were surprised to read a claim that the Southbank Centre was the centre of classical music in London. Which might have been true when we were little, and the three halls there all did classical more or less seven days a week, but it is certainly not true now, occasional big name concerts notwithstanding.

We then admired the side of the shop, just a few feet from where we were sitting. It was almost scorable as a fake, with ridiculously heavy duty steel and glass, given the job to be done. Although despite being heavy duty, the glass came in lots of pieces and I don't suppose the fastenings were anything like as strong as the glass.

After all this excitement, BH found a very quick route to get us to QEH - which would have been a very long route had she followed my lead.

There was a piano in the foyer, mercifully shut, covered and therefore silent. But the cover was fairly heavy duty and I chickened out of lifting it off the keyboard far enough to be able to score the piano, feeling sure that some attendant would rush across to tell me that interfering with the piano was strictly forbidden.

Hall pretty full. Due to the date having been changed, we were both there but sat a few seats apart - which meant the BH got a very good view of the proceedings from an aisle seat in row C, which she liked, while I was in the middle of row F which I liked. Usually we compromise! And the Hagens sported three piano stools for the small strings, proper bows for the small strings and one computer. Otherwise conventional. They were also very good and we managed the two heavy Beethovens without any trouble at all.

Just caught a train to Winchester at Waterloo, and just caught a train to Epsom at Clapham Junction. Which knocked out further beverages until we got home. We also heard that the Island Line on the Isle of Wight was caught up in engineering works, which was good, as it means that the line is not about to shut. Brading would not be the same without it - not for us, anyway.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/hagen.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/birthday-boys.html. What looks like the last time we heard Op.131.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/12/belcea.html. What looks like the last time I heard Op.132, just about a month previous. The 'Point Counter Point' quartet.