Hagenned

To the Wigmore on Tuesday to hear the Hagen Quartet again, the first time, it turns out, for getting on for three years (see November 1st 2010 in the other place. My comments on that occasion stand the test of time well). The draw on this occasion was Beethoven's early quartet 18.4, which I have been fond of for some years, say between 5 and 10 years. Inspection of both this and the other place reveals that we have heard it on a number of occasions but which does not reveal the start of the interest. Which included, for example, a trip to a church in Cambridge to hear some students do it, an occasion when I had a chat to a Canadian bar owner who smoked and who was quite full of how the smoking ban would hit small bars like hers disproportionately. I forget the line of her reasoning.

My liking for 18.4 continues, despite sniffy remarks past and present. On this occasion, for example, there were two ladies in the queue down the stairs in the interval explaining how eminently forgettable the two quartets before the interval were - that is to say 18.2 and 18.4.

After the interval we had Op. 131, which did everything it says on the tin, although I failed to keep a proper count of the seven movements. Hopefully the unenthusiastic ladies got enthusiastic. An excellent concert although it left us a little drained; the quartet must have a lot more puff than us as they were doing another, similar concert the evening following.

Back home via Vauxhall, where, for once in a while, there were two scruffy if not scrofulous young males fighting, or at least appearing to be fighting, on the steps leading up to the entrance to the overground station. Sundry friends, male and female, stood around  making unintelligible comments, unintelligible at least when one was in walk past fast mode. What struck me most about them all was their smell, which was very rank. I guess that is what being homeless does for you.

It may have been the music which prompted the rather unusual anxiety dream I had last night. Unusual in the first place because I had it twice, once when waking at around 0100 and again when waking again at 0700. Unusual in the second place because of the content, nothing like any dream I remember having before.

The dream took place in St. Paul's Cathedral on the occasion of some important but unspecified occasion. All the great and the good were to be there, no doubt royalty as well although they did not get a mention in either dream. I was in some management area in the chancel, responsible for introducing and then playing (on a gramophone, if you please. Nothing like as slick as the Wesley system they have in crematoria) a movement from Schubert's Octet, this last being no more than a name with nothing of the flavour of the piece getting into the dream. This was to happen shortly after the beginning of the unspecified occasion and I was getting very anxious because I had not made time to test out the gramophone or rehearse my introductory spiel. Nor had I been able to consult with anybody about what exactly the spiel was supposed to be about. There was a double column list of names which maybe belonged in it but I was not sure. Was I suppose to be saying something about Schubert or about the Octet? Was I supposed to be saying something about the somebody for whom the unspecified occasion was being mounted? Perhaps I did not need to say hardly anything at all, which would be much better.

Eventually I was able to patch the gramophone into the cathedral sound system but then the problem was that I could not hear what the punters in the nave were going to hear while I was fiddling with knobs in the management area in the chancel.  It did not sound too clever from there but what could one do about it?

And I was not confident, partly because the management area in the chancel was rather dimly lit, that I would manage to lower the needle onto the right groove when the time came. Was there no end to my problems? Fortunately, at that point I woke up, could leave St. Paul's behind and move into the early morning tea ceremony.