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Leamington Letters #41: Whither goest thou?

11/3/2013

7 Comments

 
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Gareth Brynmor John
How was your week-end? We had a great time, thank you. We went to London. 

My nephew Gareth was singing at the Wigmore Hall and his grandmother was coming down to see and hear him and meet up with other family members at a Mothering Sunday lunch before the gig.

Jill and I used the opportunity to do a number of things which we had left undone: in other words, wine tastings, restaurant meals, and gallery visits.

We started at the home of Karl Marx in Dean Street. This is now, and has been since the year of the General Strike, a restaurant called Quo Vadis. It is, in a familiar phrase, something of a Soho institution, and has had its gastronomic ups and downs over the years, but has reinvented itself in the last 12 months by giving a free hand to Chef Jeremy Lee, who was poached from the Blueprint.

The food is a sensational combination of technical accomplishment and no nonsense. I indulged recklessly with a starter of rabbit livers and a main of ox liver – both sublime. But the highlight was Jill’s hare pie: not a ramekin with a puff pastry top, but a pudding bowl with real pastry, and inside, a huge quantity of the most delicious jugged hare. Jill allowed me only a single tasting mouthful, but it was enough to make me regret my organic choice, although not the choice of restaurant. Quo Vadis is first-class, even down to the half bottles on the wine list (such circumspection necessary because we had sampled apéros at Vinoteca on Beak Street on the way and I had a wine tasting at Berry Brothers in St James scheduled for later in the afternoon).

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In short, a great start.

And the weekend continued in the same vein. The Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy, a tasting of 2011 Rhones at BBR, the early Picasso exhibition at the Courtauld, and an extraordinary show of paintings of Cornish fishermen at No 2 Temple Place, a late Victorian arts and crafts house on Embankment, which belonged to the Astors in the ‘20s, and now restored is worth a visit even if there is no exhibition on display. The Picasso was under-whelming, serving to illustrate how derivative was the 20 year old; but the Courtauld also has in its permanent exhibition many of those iconic paintings which one knows so well but, in my case, had never actually seen before. Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Renoir … each room, each wall, is a surprise, a delight, an education.

But the highlight of the weekend, surely, was the Wigmore Hall on Sunday afternoon. My sister’s boy Gareth Brynmor John was the choral scholar at St John’s Cambridge and is currently at the Royal Academy of Music, where he is completing the Opera course whilst forging a serious reputation in the musical world and winning countless competitions.

On Sunday, he performed a great deal of Britten, and a little of Britten usually goes a long way.

But yesterday, Britten’s settings of Songs and Proverbs of William Blake did not go far enough. The power of Gareth’s voice, combined with the ability to convey the subtlest of nuances of meaning and emphasis, bestowing gravitas even where there was none originally, made us want for more. 

And I will long remember the beauty, in the setting of the Tyger, of that final couplet:

What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame they fearful symmetry?


Today's listening: It should be Britten, I guess, but thanks to links from Rick Hough in Boston and Michael Gray in the south of France, it's ABB - the Allman Brothers Band.

 

7 Comments
William link
11/3/2013 11:32:23

And how did the 11's taste?

Reply
Max
13/3/2013 02:39:58

Universally good. But the most interesting 'Rhone' I drank over the weekend was from the Drome. Philippe + Vincent Jaboulet. And bag-in-box! This at Vinoteca. Lovely people, passionate about wine. Unfortunately, they import it themselves and are running out. Shame.

Reply
CJ
12/3/2013 06:07:37

You should persevere with Britten. It's better than it sounds. But meantime your time with Duane will be well spent.

Reply
Max
13/3/2013 02:42:32

Lol. That was Beecham on Wagner, wasn't it? At Rick Hough's instigation, Duane focus has been on the difference between the 1970 Atlanta Pop Festival and Fillmore later in the year. Rewarding and fascinating.

Reply
Max
13/3/2013 02:51:53

... and serendipitously, Michael Gray posted a link to an ABB gig last week at the Beacon Theatre with a brilliant performance of Tears of Rage. It's on YouTube and it's extraordinarily fine.

Ed
13/3/2013 01:13:33

The Courtauld is so beautiful. One can understand why Sir Anthony was so reluctant to leave. The collection of Manet is far better than the much trumpeted show at the RA. And you're right about the Picasso. I left amazed that the man responsible for these works went on to create such stunning works for another 60 years.

Reply
max
13/3/2013 02:48:15

I'm ashamed to say this was my first time. I always thought it was an academic centre rather than a public gallery. I need to go again soon because I had no time to see the Rubens and Renaissance stuff.Do you know 2 Temple Place, just down the road on the river? It's an astonishing building and the current exhibition is wondrous.

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     Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father. and grandfather. Resident in Warwick, England.

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