Dudok String Quartet -Stamford Arts Centre

 Saturday 4th March 2023

A varied programme, superbly performed and beautifully presented by a string quartet from Amsterdam.

The programme began with Mozart’s String Quartet in F major, K590. 

Then Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet in D major, Op 11. The 2nd movement is well-known and wonderful.

After the interval, they played Shostakovich’s String Quartet No 5 in B flat major.

My musical education and knowledge is pretty basic, but I loved this concert.

The Cunning Little Vixen, Opera North at the Grand in Leeds

 

The Cunning Little Vixen, Leos Janacek

A thoroughly enjoyable evening - brilliant music, athletic and acrobatic dancing and wonderful singing.  Fabulous stage set, great costumes. Comedy and pathos, what more could you want?

A folk/fairy tale, ‘totally bonkers’, the Night Garden with a darker side but a delicate touch. It’s a wow from me. 

Of gaps and time and missed out posts….

 Luckily we have developed the habit of hanging on to programmes from performances, theatrical and musical, so, with luck, I shall be able to refresh my memory as I write brief accounts of some of our cultural activities post 2020’s lockdown.

And after that I shall catch up on some of the books I have read.

Castalian Quartet at Thurlby church

A longish drive - about 45 minutes each way, but well worth it for a magical evening.

A  brilliant concert at St Firmin's church, Thurlby, near Bourne. 

The first piece the Castalian Quartet played was Haydn's Quartet in D minor, op.76 no 2, a lively playful and very modern sounding piece.

This was followed by Janacek's  Kreutzer Sonata, and Britten's Quartet no 2 in C op.36.

Perfect surroundings, a light airy church, with the evening sunlight streaming through the clerestory windows. 

The organisers provided delicious refreshments in the interval, and there was a lovely atmosphere among the audience. 

It was still light as we left at about 9.30 pm.

More info about the church, and St Firmin:

http://www.greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/thurlby.html

Thurlby 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurlby,_South_Kesteven

National Gallery exhibition - Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light

We went to see Sorolla:Spanish Master of Light on Tuesday 28 June. 

Stunning paintings, and difficult to choose a favourite. One of our friends always asks "Which is your favourite?"

In this case my answer was almost always "The last painting I looked at."

A few days afterwards, the ones which have stayed in my memory are two of his social commentary ones - Otra Margarita!  (Another Marguerite) from1892, and Triste Herencia (Sad Inheritance) from 1899. And then there was !Aún dicen que el pescado es caro! (And still they say fish is expensive), and the portrait of the young fisherman , Pescador, Valencia, which is also full of the sea and the light on the water, and children playing.

I loved the family portraits,  from the portrait of his wife, Clotilde with a newborn baby,  to a couple where the facial expressions beg for captions - Clotilde con traje negro (Clotilde in a black dress)- where she looks as though she's saying, "Let me out of this corset!" and Mis hijos (My children, where the girl on the right is clearly saying "Do I have to sit here much longer, dad?"

And of course the wonderful shining pictures of children at the seaside, glistening with sunlight on wet skin, running along the beach, playing in the sea, and the women in glowing white dresses, and a family sewing a fishing boat sail (Cosiendo la Vela).

A knock-out exhibition.

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford

We watched Feud, the TV series about the rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, which was entertaining and also presented one of the basic problems both women faced as they aged - the lack of good roles for older women, and their general lack of power within Hollywood.
Joan Crawford was played by Jessica Lange and Bette Davis by Susan Sarandon. I knew little about either woman and had seen none of their films.

Since then we've watched All About Eve(1950), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) and Jezebel (1938). I'm impressed.

Back to the crime novels . . .

First of all a couple of books by Graeme Macrae Burnet.  Both The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau  and The Accident on the A35 are set in the small town of Saint-Louis in Alsace and they feature local police chief Georges Gorski - almost an anti-Maigret figure.
The atmosphere and vivid depiction of local places and people is reminiscent of Simenon's work. Not at all feminist - most of the women are objectified or background figures.
Both books are presented as translations from the French, adding an extra layer of playful mystification to the stories. There are mysteries and crimes to solve, but not always in the way the reader is led to expect.
I thoroughly enjoyed both, and will probably re-read them.

Then as a contrast I decided it was time to tackle something by Val McDermid, and as Splinter the Silence was on offer on Amazon, this was the one.
This is definitely feminist, not only in the fact that the chief police character is a woman, as is the genius cyber investigator, but also the nature of the crime. The victims are chosen because they are vocal about women's rights and won't be shut up. The perpetrator has an almost religious zeal to return women to their proper place - at home with the children.  The deaths are copycat versions of the suicides of famous female authors.  It's right up to date with internet trolls and cyber investigations too. I shall read more.