Another Sunday morning concert at Wigmore Hall. As I arrived, it occurred to me, as it has before, how
unprepossessing it is from outside. It’s almost easy to miss among the porticos and fancy fronts of the buildings nearby. The world inside, especially for these morning concerts, though, reminds me of how special it is.
This Sunday’s performers were the Zemlinsky Quartet. They are a Czech quartet who met as students in
Prague. Their website explains their name with these words, “Zemlinsky Quartet is named after the Austrian composer, conductor and teacher Alexander Zemlinsky (1871-1942), whose enormous contribution to Czech, German and Jewish culture during his 16-year residence in Prague had been underrated until recently. His four string quartets (the second one being dedicated to his student and brother-in-law Arnold Schönberg) belong to the basic repertoire of the ensemble. Since 2005, the quartet has maintained a special relationship with the Alexander Zemlinsky Foundation in Vienna.”
The program on Sunday was Mozart’s String Quartet No. 18 in C and Dvořák’s String Quartet in E flat. Each work was performed to perfection. The Mozart was more familiar to me and so it was easier to get lost in the music and enjoy the flow of stringed instruments. The Dvořák work was great. It was new to me, but I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
It was a chilly day and surprisingly cooler after the concert than before. I did catch up with two of my local friends in the afternoon at Caffe Tropea. One of my luckiest accomplishments this trip has been connecting with this group of folks of regulars. These two ladies are delightfully forthright and love to tease me about American views. I love to tease them about the outlandish things that the British press say about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka Harry and Megan). The more we talked and laughed, the more I learned about our similarities and differences. Their country is a constitutional monarchy with its unwritten constitution and its social democracy that has been controlled by the Conservative Party (the Tories) for much of the last 50 years. We live in a democratic republic with a written constitution and a capitalist economy with aspects of social welfare programs at a much lower level of coverage than theirs. Our national government has been split between the two major political parties for much of the last 50 years and the 50 State governments are split, as well. I don’t think it is easy for either Americans or British to fully appreciate how different our two societies are in terms of how basic rights of citizenship are defined, exercised and accepted. The postwar generations also encountered vastly different lives. We in America were not rebuilding a bomb-ravaged infrastructure or playing in bomb craters or bombed out buildings for years after the war. We were living a different life. As I found in my years with Sister Cities in Alexandria, Virginia and Caen, France, there is no better way to understand people’s lives than to spend time with them in their own space. It is always time well-spent.
Monday was another chance for me to learn more about the United Kingdom from other friends and then to see a preview performance of a wonderful new musical play. But the day started with a quick Tube trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. I’ve mentioned it before as my favorite museum and sometimes a just need a little “V&A” fix. It never fails. Upon entering the Exhibition Road Entrance, I was looking over the schematic layout on the wall. One of the outstanding volunteers asked if I needed help and we ended up having a delightful ten-minute chat covering the recent funeral of Her Late Majesty to favorite pieces in the museum and, of course, the perennial topic, the London weather. I then spent some time enjoying some galleries before going to my “happy place,” the Cast Courts that, as Wikipedia describes them, contain “reproductions of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. Most of the copies were made in the 19th century and in many cases, they have better resisted the ravages of time, 20th-century pollution and over-zealous conservation than the originals.” Afterwords, I returned home and caught up with two other friends for coffee at Caffe Tropea. These two, are politically aware and astute and gave me a great tutorial on The Labour Party from the second half of the 20th to now, and the beginning of their annual conference. We have had many great discussions on the subject of our two political systems over these two months. What a great addition, they too have made to my life.
The evening took me to a great theatre in Covent Garden, the Donmar Warehouse. Where the audience sits around three sides of the stage and there is no proscenium arch or curtain. I joke that this is the theatre where I made my West End debut. I was asked to hold up one end of a banner unfurled by an
an actor during a production of a Shakespeare play here. The preview I was here to see was “The Band’s Visit.” It is a simple sounding story of an Egyptian police department’s concert band, invited to play at the opening of an Arab cultural center in an Israeli city. A miscommunication causes them to travel to a tiny desert town with a name one letter different from the big city. The cast was wonderful, the music was incredible.
Alon Moni Aboutboul and Miri Mesika lead a cast that turn the stage into that tiny desert village. Ms. Mesika, an Israeli singer and actor has a voice that evokes the mood of the songs in a way that is heartbreaking and bittersweet. Mr. Aboutboul is the leader of this group of musicians, but also a police officer first, conflicted in his roles, and shows it perfectly as his performance continues. The musicians who are on stage much of time must, and do, have some acting talent and some of the actors must play instruments. The success of all is a credit to them. This was a truly delightful evening at the theater. The Donmar also always manages to have a very friendly and personable staff which adds to the ambience of the evening. I understand this show started as a movie. Definitely worth seeing.
Mark In London 