Sonatas

Last week to the Wigmore Hall hear Leon McCawley give us three Beethoven piano sonatas, Op.109, Op.110 and Op.111. Considering their central place in the repertoire, not things that seems to be done that often, at least we don't seem to get to them, with the last occasion being rather more than a year ago (reference 1) and with this very same programme, but from Igor Levit around eighteen months ago (reference 2). McCawley, seemingly, never.

The Levit concert was a gala occasion involving Radio 3, while on this occasion we had some of the trappings of live streaming first noticed at reference 3. But nothing at all on the Wigmore Hall website, so perhaps the pianist wanted a recording for his own use in his day job as a professor at a school of music.

But back on our journey in, instead of loud conversation from a neighbouring seat, we had a large gum chewer. Full on mastication all the way, from one of those gentlemen who manage to take up rather more space than they should. A large gentleman in every sense of the word. Clearly people who do this have no idea how bovine they look to people who do not.

Then on the tube we had opposite us a pretty and petite Asian girl in some sort of uniform, which could have been that of a carer. And a few seats down from her a large and rather battered old lady who could easily have been one of her patients. Very unfair world that such a pretty girl should wind tending to old people who are apt to be both bad to look at and bad to smell. But I suppose I should not tempt fate in that department.

Moon very high in the south again, weather mild and dry, so we were able to picnic on the solitary bench at the top left hand side of the square - which was just as well as the Bechstein Room turned out to be shut, presumably for patrons with a higher grade of membership than ourselves.

BH thought that MacCawley rather loud, while I thought the right hand half of the piano sounded a touch harsh. But very good just the same, and I was very much reminded of why these sonatas have the place in the repertoire that they do.

Tuner rushed on stage at the very start of the interval, while we rushed down to a crowded Cock & Lion.

We got a nice bit of Schumann by way of encore after Op.111. If you are going to have an encore, this one struck just the right note after the Beethoven.

A reasonably skilled busker, a middle aged man, on the violin somewhere in the region of John Lewis. A very loud band just outside one of the exits to the tube at Oxford Circus; as luck would have it not the exit we were about to enter.

Just managed to catch the 2143 from Vauxhall, which got us home around 2300. Quite late enough!

I was reminded during the course of the proceedings at how irritating Cortana can be when she tries to second-guess what I put into OneNote, not always giving up on my second attempt to put in whatever it is that she has taken exception to. I dare say there is some way to calm her down, but I have not yet got around to looking, despite the regular irritation.

While this afternoon, the snap of the programme above reminded me how distorting her lens is, with the two bold lines well off parallel.

PS: a late addition: the picnic was notable for BH taking a couple of chocolate brownies which had been left on our bench in their clear plastic lidded box. Most unlikely that they were anything other than as they had left the shop, but the first time I recall our grazing in this particular way.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/beethoven.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/06/ultimate.html. As it happens, another example of muddle arising from gaps or not between things.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/quatuor-ebene.html.