A politicised event

Yesterday to the QEH to hear the Jerusalem Quartet do Mozart's K.387 (aka 'Spring'), Janácek's 'Intimate Letters' and Schubert's 'Death and the Maiden'.

It being a Friday there was some free event in the antechamber, a free event which overran, which made getting started even worse than usual. Then a rather officious steward made us deposit our jackets in the cloakroom before he would let us into the auditorium, to find, having done this, that the stewards on the other door were not interested in jackets at all. All rather annoying. Particularly as the same officious steward went on to admit a couple to the front stalls during the proceedings, something which would never have been allowed in the olden days.

We understood that something was needed as concerts of this quartet had been disturbed in the past and as I recall one had been disturbed shortly before the first time we heard them at reference 1. But whatever was done should be sensible - and in any event we doubted if one would be able to stop shouters, short of vetting the entire audience. As it turned out, we did have some shouters who rather disrupted the Mozart at one point. They were smothered after, I would think, less than a minute and the quartet played on through the noise. But it was all a bit unsettling, both for them and for us in the audience. The business left me a bit uneasy: Israel is making a bad fist of managing its Palestinian problem and it is hard to know how far protest might reasonably go. But I think where I get to this morning is that there is plenty of public awareness of the issue and crude disruption of this sort is inappropriate and probably unproductive. Peaceful protest outside would have been more effective. Perhaps the problem the disrupters had was that they did not have the manpower to mount a conventional, decent protest, just enough to shout.

Disruption apart, the quartet were on fine form and sounded very good indeed from row G. Real ensemble playing, with this programme giving everybody a go, with the first violin not completely dominating the proceedings. To the point where I thought that, at one or two places, the first violin was too self-effacing. I also think I am getting to like raked seating, I am getting to like the better view than that afforded by the Wigmore Hall.

Furthermore, the Schubert has regained its place in my personal hall of fame, following its rather unsatisfactory outing at reference 2. So I was pleased about that - although the knowledgeable sounding chap next to us found it a trifle fast. A party of senior medical folk behind us, possibly associated with St. Peter's at Chertsey (the place with which there was once talk of our Epsom hospital merging. Perhaps part of the same parcel which has our police coming from Staines) and one of whom seemed to be sucking very smelly boiled sweets through the entire proceedings. But at least she, I assume she for some reason, was not rattling sweet papers.

Quartet's seating unusual with first and second violin on cheap seats, then cello on a high piano stool, then viola on a low piano stool. We liked their rather formal, dark suits, not being keen on the relaxed style for evening concerts. No idea whether they are political or what, if anything apart from coming from Israel and the name of their quartet, draws the protesters.

No encore - which would have been, to my mind anyway, inappropriate - and we just managed to get the 2154 out of Waterloo. On the way, having not bought the programme on the grounds that it would be one of those portmanteau affairs complained about previously, we picked one up on the way out to find that it was not. A picking up which was unusual in that concert goers, having stumped up their fiver, are usually careful to take their programmes out with them. But nothing fantastic on the train in the way of Friday evening party outfits on this occasion.

Google can still muster plenty of lurid images to go with the Schubert, one of which was offered at reference 3, just about a year ago. Some of the less lurid look to have been taken from the 1992 production of the much played Dorfman play of the same name at the Duke of York's. A production which, as it happened, we attended.

PS: I feel sure that we have heard this quartet on more than one occasion, but the record fails on this occasion.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/schubert.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/dante-at-dorking.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=grien.