London, Dec 2, 2007
London, on a Sunday by a rainy and windy day…
The Arcanto Quartet at Wigmore Hall, part of the “Wigmore Hall Sunday Morning Café” series. Perfect way to start a free-willing day – the only one for me on that short stay in London. Eclectic program: the melodious Puccini’s Crisantemi; the classic Beethoven string quartet in F minor, opus 95, and the celebrated string quartet No 6 of Béla Bartok. Sherry served after the concert! Very civilized, in this turn-of-the-century (that is the previous one!) built concert hall, in the Renaissance style, with this beautiful cupola over the stage – the painting we are told symbolizes the 'striving of humanity after the elusiveness of music in its great abstraction.” It is a large hall but still rather intimate. I read somewhere that it was constructed by a German piano manufacturer who had to sell it, along with its business next door, practically for nothing during the first world war. It has been the venue of great performers and performances over the years, and remains a very select place to perform for well-known and up-and-rising classical musicians. The Arcanto Quartet is a good example, made of an ensemble of young East-European and German soloists who came together a few years ago.
Cynthia can’t resist getting acquainted with this lady sitting in the seat before her, because of her wonderful scarf, which Cynthia suspects is a product of her dear Laos. Sure enough, the lady is Laotian, living for many years now in London. Goes back there regularly; they know some of the same people; exchanges of experiences, and business cards…
http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/about-us
http://www.jeanguihenqueyras.com/arcanto.shtml
And now for something totally different, we are on our way to the Barbican, an art gallery in East London, part of a large residential complex which I suspect was built in the 60’s or 70’s as means to keep people in the city, rather than to see them move to the suburbs… For a very special exhibition – “Seduced : Art and Sex from the Antiquity to Now”, a major undertaking to bring together sex artifacts from all times and all places, starting with the Greeks and the Romans, but also from the East - the Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians – to finish off with modern things, including Kinsey’s collection of sex educational and very explicit photos, videos projected on upper walls from the likes of Andy Warhol’s “young man’s facial expressions while getting a blow job” and erotic readings coming off the walls! Very well visited – this is a rainy Sunday afternoon after all! – well-put together, I thought, some parts better than the others; the collection of Japanese mangas is particularly good. Hesitate to buy the exhibition book: the weight! Lots of reviews in the local press, pros and cons. Follow the link below.
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=5625
Finished the day with dinner at Le Boudin Blanc, a bistrot-like place not to far from the hotel, with Andre and Sylvia …
http://www.boudinblanc.co.uk/
