Johann Baptist Mayrhofer

On Saturday to the Wigmore Hall to hear some of Mayrhofer's poems set to music by Schubert, all new to us, usually sticking to the better known song cycles such as the Winterreise. Interpreted (as the French say) by Wolfgang Holzmair and Imogen Cooper. Probably the last performance by Holzmair at the Wigmore Hall and possibly the end of his long partnership with Imogen Cooper.

Altogether something of an occasion, and I suspect that at least some of the audience were at his first performance at the Hall in 1989, about, as it happens, the time that we moved back to London, but I don't think we ever went to any of his 35 or so performances since then. Along the way we learned that the director of the Hall has a discretely regional accent.

But these songs were tremendous, even though we had not heard them before and even though we were not able to follow the words in English as they went along. Too much of a bother with older eyes and the head bobbing up and down, not to mention the irritation that the bobbing might cause behind. Only having the most general of ideas of what the songs were about seemed to be enough - the title of one of them 'Journey to Hades' gives the general idea - and it might even be that knowing the words would have distracted.

On the point of clapping, Holzmair had that completely under control, without needing to give us any direction on the point. Clapping at the pause, the interval and the end - and not elsewhere, which is how I like it.

Took in the Christmas lights in Oxford Street and Regent Street on the way home, which we thought rather good, albeit fairly low key. Special mention for John Lewis. Evening wrapped up by the enthusiastic offering by a group of young people of seats on the tube, declined.

And today I learn from Wikipedia that as well as being a poet, Mayrhofer was a middle aged suicide with a taste for much younger women. Also a hypochondriac.

PS: Imogen Cooper was born approximately 30 days before I was. And still going strong!