Dorking two

Last Sunday to Dorking for the second of our two concerts there this year. Barbican Quartet again, with Haydn Op.77, No.2; Bartók String Quartet No.5; and, Schumann Op.41, No.1. All, as it occasionally happens, with my being rather conservative when it comes to selecting concert programmes, new to us. And all of which we rather liked, despite the first two not seeming to us to be much like other works in the relevant oeuvre.

Rather more conscious than usual of the rickety stairs to our chairs, contrived on scaffolding at the back of what had been an open hall. Possibly called bleachers, an indoor version of the seats from Alabama turned up by Bing on the search term 'bleachers'. We got cushioning on our seats.

Which perhaps made us more conscious than usual of the slightly scruffy curtaining, curtaining off the otherwise distracting white screen used for showing films.

All of this, I am pleased to say, faded away once the Barbican's got going.

The Haydn was roughly contemporary with Beethoven's Op.18 set of quartets, from which I am rather keen on No.4, and perhaps the musically educated could compare and contrast. While I thought that the cello rather drowned out a tricky violin part at one point; perhaps lack of experience on the part of the cello. It was not as if we were particularly sat on the cello side.

The Bartók was nicely introduced by the cellist from Bulgaria, who knew all about the folk tunes which Bartók used to collect in his travels. Including something about 9/8 dance rhythms which she knew from her girlhood, something else for the musically educated.

We were both slightly surprised by liking the Schumann, about whom we knew more or less nothing, apart from the tragedy of his later life. Perhaps something to be included on our travels.

The lady sat next to BH was something to do with the Oxshott & Cobham music society (reference 2), which sounded and now looks like something similar to the Dorking Concertgoers, with the difference that they look to put on monthly concerts, rather than a winter season, and that they focus on chamber music. Venue, what looks like a large, brick built, twin towered, Victorian church in Claygate, the one at reference 3. We will be drawn in?

All of which, for some reason, led me to puzzle, once again, about the extent to which all major scales are the same and all minor scales are the same, given modern equal temperament tuning. How can they be different in anything other than absolute pitch, which only a few people are particularly sensitive to? One day I shall find something which explains these matters in accessible language.

We took tea and cake afterwards, in my case a giant, almond flavoured croissant. Rather good. Only slightly marred by a flickering if silent television on one side and canned music on the other. A television which, I might say, had a much better quality screen than the one we are used to at home.

Home to find the moon very high in the early evening sky. Without going to the bother of attempting to check, I though 70 degrees or more. Although thinking with my fingers, it would not be difficult to knock up an astrolabe out of cardboard, or even a thin sheet of plywood. I shall have to have a poke around the garage.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/dorking.html. Dorking one.

Reference 2: http://www.ocms-music.org.uk/.

Reference 3: https://www.htclaygate.org/. Hare and Hounds round the corner and a church of Christ the Scientist a little further off for those who don't do Church of England.

Reference 4: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=18.4. Beethoven's Op.18, No.4.