Back to the Wiggers

It was the start of the 2013-2014 season at the Wigmore Hall for us yesterday evening, with a Vivaldi concert given to us by the Europa Galante (http://www.europagalante.com/), a mainly string ensemble, with us getting 14 of the 15 musicians logged on the web site.

Started the proceedings by catching the maestro, Fabio Biondo, catching a quick fag outside the front door with one of his colleagues; clearly the Wigmore does not run to a servants' entrance for such purposes. We learned later that one of the marks of the maestro was a special bow, rather more bowed than those of his colleagues and held well away from the end, maybe six inches. Furthermore, the direction of bow was out, away from the hair, rather than the more usual (to me anyway) in, towards the hair.

Each half was a sinfonia followed by three concerti, the 6 concerti being said to be the publishing collection known as 'La Stravaganza'. Mainly cheerful, playful stuff, very easy listening compared with that of a 100 years or so later to which we are far more accustomed. I was reminded of a point made by Fred Hoyle in one of his science fiction books about how we have forgotten the beauty of pure sound in our enthusiasm for complexity - despite some of what we were hearing, particularly the solo parts, being quite tricky. In any event, I was impressed by the range of sound that the ensemble, with the help of Vivaldi but without the help of wind, brass or percussion could conjure up. With a jolly little dance by Gluck, played entirely in pizzicato, for an encore. We shall be back if the ensemble come back.

Dimly remembering a past interest in the tricky business of temperament, I asked the girl on the door how the harpsichord had been tuned, a query which she treated with admirable seriousness and found me someone who knew someone who knew the answer - which was 40-40 equal temperament, a  modern tuning with which the tuner did not agree.

Home on the 2148 or so from Vauxhall, strangely empty with us being the only occupants bar one in our carriage by the time we got to Epsom.

This morning start to poke around in Chambers on violins and temperament, to realise how much there is to know about both topics, far too much for me to come to a nice digestible summary before breakfast. But maybe I will try to find out how the violin family came to splat the viol family (with the exception of the double bass, a large viol rather than a large violin). Maybe also I will open up some of my 'Edizione Vivaldi' - of which I have volumes 5, 8 and 10. Had them for more than thirty years and possibly never opened them, never mind played any of the many discs. Sadly the 'La Stavaganza', here 12 concerti rather than the 6 claimed by the maestro, is in the absent volume 3.