Belcea 30

Last week to the Queen Elizabeth Hall to hear the Belcea Quartet give us Haydn's Op.33 No.5 and Janáček's Intimate Letters for the first half. Joined by Piotr Anderszewski to give us Shostakovich's Op.57 piano quintet for the second half.

A pleasant evening, which was just as well as we were both still convalescent from nasty colds. The trains were semi-spouted, something to do with points failure on the town side of Clapham Junction earlier in the day, and while our train started on time, it ran rather slow from Raynes Park. It was not crowded, so we elected to take our picnic on the train, rather than on the embankment, as planned.

Trying the count the cranes standing around Battersea Power Station, I decided that perhaps there was some construction action after all. It was more than cranes just standing there and stuff was starting to appear above the turbine hall. Clearly need to keep an eye on it. Maybe a Bullingdon assisted site visit at some point?

Served by an efficient company of cooks manageress at the bar of the hall. That is to say a barmaid sufficiently senior that she did not have to wear the uniform.

While the service by the hall attendants was rather amateurish. I was particularly unimpressed by their trying to do ticket upgrades on the steps down into the chamber. A chamber which was not very full, despite what was for us a very good programme. The lady next to us, something of a Anderszewski groupie, thought that people were put off by the Shostakovich word. Which I thought was rather odd, but there was no denying that the chamber was not very full. While the gentleman on the other side was the brother-in-law of someone who went to music school with someone in the quartet. So near celebrity.

A really good concert. Excellent programme, well delivered. And once again, plenty that seemed fresh and new in the piano quintet. BH continued to be critical of the dress sense of the first violinist; not the red dress on this occasion, but something equally expensive looking.

All the members of the quartet, unusually, elected to sit on piano stools and they still had their foot operated iPads. While the pianist had a page turner whom I thought managed the turning very efficiently, with less fuss than is usual.

We were pleased that the chamber managed without the visual aids that the Wigmore Hall has sunk to, not so pleased at the amount of stuff coming out of the loud-hailer in the ante-chamber. But pleased that we did not have musical entertainment there, pleased that that custom seems to have fallen away with the refurbishment. Something that I used to moan about on a regular basis.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=penderecki+belcea. The most recent of the two previous Belcea's. This one graced by the presence of K. Penderecki himself. For some reason I had assumed this morning that he was spelt 'Pendereski', but perhaps I just think that all Poles should end in 'eski' - or 'ewski', as the case may be.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=belcea. A programme not unlike that on the present occasion. But what BH remembered was the red dress.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/quintet.html. The most recent Shostakovich. Seemingly one of my reliable favourite's.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/11/bacon-hunt.html. The penultimate Shostakovich.

Reference 5: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=queen+elizabeth+hall. Remarks above notwithstanding, the nearest I could get to irritating ante-chamber entertainment. But I remain sure that it is not just moaning: it did actually used to happen from time to time.