March winterreise

The programme

Last Thursday to the Wigmore Hall to hear an unusual arrangement of the Winterreise, almost as unusual as that offered by Bostridge and others around three years ago and noticed at reference 1. Unusual being the replacement of the piano by an accordion (Joseph Petric) and a wind quintet (Pentaèdre). On the other hand we did have a tenor (Christoph Prégardien) doing the singer rather than a bass, a baritone or, even, a mezzo-soprano.

Just before the off, the Wigmore sent me an email suggesting that I tune in to the live streaming, this proving that the ticketing part of their operation was not fully integrated with the advertising part.

We were entertained on the way to the station by the sight of a small child hurtling down West Hill on his scooter, on the other side from us, with Mum and a pushchair trying hard to catch up. Small child stopped, very properly at the junction, but Mum did look a touch flustered just the same. I am sure we would have been even more so.

Rather a squalid nest of cardboard (from brown boxes), newspapers and litter outside the entrance to the station, presumably the leavings of the homeless person who had taken up residence, but was not there on this occasion. Perhaps someone, somehow, had wangled him a bed somewhere.

Offered a seat by a young man on the tube from Vauxhall to Oxford Circus. Accepted on this occasion.

While someone had taken our seat in the northwestern corner of Cavendish Square so we had to take our picnic on the perimeter wall of the garden in the middle.

Took a spot of white downstairs, then made our way into the hall, about three quarters full by the time the performance started. Flowers in three kinds of red, backed up by white and foliage. Very smart. Higher grade music stands. Kit for streaming hanging off the wall brackets, presumably installed for the purpose.

The accordion dress was smart casual, the quintet dress was smart while the tenor was very smartly turned out in a black frockcoat. He was also rather a big man, with dominating presence and voice.

The band according to bing

The translation of the piano accompaniment to the six instruments was very clever and achieved some striking effects. We learned, for example, that trills were possible on an accordion. It also struck us that this last was a big heavy thing to be working for an hour or so, even allowing for breaks. And I rather liked the slightly fairground effect, which seemed to me to accord with the Bostridge line that there was an element of irony, of self consciousness about all these maudlin poems and songs about lost love & life.

But the six instruments were also a bit distracting, possibly because they were new, and it was a good thing that Prégardien did have such a big presence and voice.

Usual form in that I watched and listened, while BH read and listened. But I still vote for the wheeze we saw quite recently (where?) of projecting (some of?) the words onto the back of the hall, not too loud, but in the line of sight so that one doesn't have to swivel to see them.

Much kissing all round at the end.

PS: a pentaèdre is a polyhedron with five faces, for example an Egyptian pyramid. not to be confused with a pentangle, also the name of a 1970's folk group, a band whom we once heard in the QEH, this being before accessibility had been invented, a time when popular music only rarely made it to the Southbank.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/05/winterreises-old-and-new.html.

Reference 2: https://josephpetric.com/.

Reference 3: http://pentaedre.com/en/. From Canada. Not the same line-up here as we had in London.

Reference 4: https://www.pregardien.com/en/.