Dvořák

To the Wigmore on Saturday to hear the Ivo Kahánek do Janáček's 'In the mists', the Pavel Haas Quartet Smetena's String Quartet No, 2 and then all of them do Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2. With Ivo Kahánek being flown in from Prague at more or less the last minute.

As it happens, we heard the Pavel Haas Quartet a couple of times last year, on the second occasion giving us the Shostakovich Piano Quintet. I wonder now if having both quintets in one sitting would work - and I suspect not.

Entertained on the tube to Oxford Circus by a tall young woman in full war paint, that is to say full makeup and a backless, black evening gown, long enough to trail along the platform when she got off. She was carrying a pair of very high heeled shoes to put on later, but, oddly had no wrap or coat. It seemed likely that she was going to get cold later in the evening if she was bold enough to want to use late night public transport. Was she doing it for a dare? Was she a young woman at all? If not, she was not given away by the size of her hands.

And then in the hall itself by another young woman. more soberly dressed, who seemed to be a jack of all trades. She had both to know her piano well enough to turn the pages and to move furniture, including the piano, on the stage between pieces.

The introductory pieces, which I had not heard before, went well enough. And then, to my pleasure & surprise and despite some lapses of balance between piano & string sections, the quintet regained quite a lot of the original magic from the QEH, which had become somewhat attenuated in subsequent hearings. This notwithstanding Visser remarks about no repeats noticed at reference 1; perhaps not having heard it for a while helped. I had forgotten what a large part the piano had in the quintet, with the pianist not getting much rest at all. And we got a little extra in that a first violin string broke along the way, necessitating a movement restart. Perhaps they ought to have done an ultrasound test on all their strings before the off to detect imminent ruptures. But perhaps one cannot do that without taking the strings off the instruments, which would be apt to cause more trouble than the test would be worth.

Minor irritation in that there was a lady in the basement bar who reminded me of one of my boss's boss's (see yahoo answers for placement of apostrophes and esses) at the Treasury, but I could not remember her name, despite the relationship in question being good for some years. It is in my mind that her surname starts with a 'C', but such notions, despite their nagging persistence, have often proved wrong in the past.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=festive+nibbles.