Outside the box

Last week we broke new ground, listened outside the box by attending one of the sessions at the Wigmore Hall put on to celebrate the Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg. Also part of the celebrations of the centenary of the Poles regaining their independence after centuries of subordination to one or other neighbouring power. A composer who died in exile in what had become Russia, having been roughly handled there in Stalin's time, as is explained at reference 1. Sonata No.2 for solo violin, Op.95; sonata for two violins; Op.69; and, Jewish Songs, Op.17. So in reverse order of composition, starting in 1944.

Victorian pile?

But the day started in Worcester Park, in a rather odd road called 'The Avenue', a road last visited in the course of a heritage outing in 2012, as is explained at reference 2, a post recording a piano captured on this second visit. A road which might well once have been lined with great brick piles like the survivors snapped above, now mostly demolished in favour of blocks of flats. Who were the people who could afford to build and run such places? Did the maids have to carry coals up from the cellar to the servants' rooms at the top?

Commemorative tablet

We only got as far as the church hall of the church of St. Mary the Virgin on this occasion - a useful multi-purpose community space - but we did find the commemorative tablet on the outside of the east end, telling us that the place had been opened by my Lord Bishop of Winchester in 1894, presumably before the Bishop of Guildford was invented? Does the latter, as a new creation, rate all the 'my lord bishop' business?

Not a pile

Church hall left, church right

Not sure what the more humble building, more or less opposite the church was for. A workshop for mending the carriages of the gentry up the road? Unfortunately, the Google cameramen have been down the road since demolition started, so that easy route to the original building is blocked.

Back to Worcester Park station to use the car park there, to find that the ticket machines only work during the week and that the ticket office was closed as the early morning clerk was doing the handover to the late morning clerk. Eventually we got through to the late morning clerk, who turned out to be a black cab driver when she was not a ticket clerk, helpful and informative. Both car and person tickets bought.

Gable end holes

On the way in, intrigued by whole appeared to be rows of holes let into the gable end of this building, possibly somewhere near Clapham Junction, certainly on the western side of the train. Was it some sort of urban pigeon loft? Must try and mark it down for closer inspection.

The programme

Broke our journey at the bar at the Langham Hotel at the top of Regent Street. A handy and comfortable place for such a purpose. Service good, to the extent of going off somewhere else to find some Sancerre not to hand at the bar itself - where the barman seemed to be busy most of the time that we were there making cocktails. Rather different clientele, including ladies that lunch, than I remember from visits during the week, when it is mainly business people.

Downstairs, they were running some heats for a competition for front of house hotel staff (nothing particularly to do with this particular hotel), with prizes for the winners, called scholars, including things like a visit to a famous hotel school at Lausanne (of reference 5) and working Buckingham House during a state banquet. The chap who seemed to be in charge seemed very happy to take the time to tell us about all this, perhaps by way of a demonstration of his front of house skills. BH got the idea that we could easily have slipped into being guinea pigs for the contestants had we shown much more interest.

Out to find some sort of middle east flavoured demonstration going on across the road. The doorman did try to explain, but I did not catch his explanation. And so onto the Beckstein Room at the Wigmore Hall, where we were able to finish our picnic, started on the train (not something I usually like to do, perhaps the train was running late) along with various other pensioner couples.

The Weinberg turned out to be rather good, with the songs, sung by one Ilona Domnich from St. Petersburg, having a tremendous impact. Impact perhaps derived from the singer being Russian and the songs being songs from the Great Patriotic War, facts which only got to me after the event, continuing the prefer to watch the action than read the words.

The cruise

The chap sitting in front of us was taking in the whole day, and he thought this second session was better, more interesting than the first, so perhaps we had made the right choice. In any event, whole days of this sort of thing have never been our thing. Not for us the tasteful musical cruises and weekends put on by the likes of Kirker Music Holidays, for which see reference 4. Regular advertisers in Wigmore Hall programmes, so there must be a good bit of customer overlap, if not these particular customers.

Decided that the way ahead was to take fish and chips at the Wetherspoon's at Raynes Park. Rather wet by the time that we got there and there were a couple of well-established beggars in the tunnel, but Wetherspoon's was up and running, with not too much evidence of Saturday afternoon excesses (apart from the state of the toilets - unusual for a Wetherspoon's, usually fairly careful about such matters). Fish and chips entirely satisfactory and very satisfactorily priced. Either Mr. Wetherspoon tapped into some huge unmet demand for cheap food - or he pushed a lot of other providers out of business. Or perhaps it is a bit of both. Whatever the case, he has set the standard for the cheaper end of pub food, with his menus - and his menu cards - being copied up and down the land.

Still wet on exit.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczysław_Weinberg.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/piano-32.html.

Reference 3: http://www.jewhistory.ort.spb.ru/eng/main/sprav.php?id=1199. Bing not much use on this occasion, but Google turned up this short note about the writer of the poems of the songs, Schmuel Galkin. In Yiddish.

Reference 4: https://www.kirkerholidays.com/cultural-tours-and-music-holidays.

Reference 5: https://www.ehl.edu/.