I went to London today, and had a very nice time apart from the fact that I wasn't expecting it to rain all day and ended up with soggy feet, having worn a pair of suede boots from Cotton Traders with a remarkable ability to wick water straight through to the sock, and which I fear are now salt marked for evermore.
It was the last in LSO St Lukes series of lunchtime concerts featuring the music of Georgian London, with a Netherlands ensemble called Musica ad Rhenum. I'd never heard of them, but bought tickets for a couple of the series as I am very fond of Haydn and his fellow composers of the well-mannered, cheerful, twinkly Baroque. Today we heard music by Haydn plus Clementi, J C Bach, and Graf. I hadn't heard of Friedrich Hartmann Graf either, but was happy to make his acquaintance. Musica ad Rhenum are a trio consisting of flautist, cellist and keyboard player. Today he was playing an eighteenth century forte piano borrowed specially for the occasion, but I gather it's often a harpsichord.
As the musicians took to the stage wearing dark grey suits I realised I'd already seen two of them, since they had been queuing for their lunch like ordinary concert goers down in the crypt cafe. Not at all starry behaviour from a group which according to the programme notes has released more than thirty CDs and played around the world to major critical acclaim. LSO St Lukes does not permit photography, and I am no photographer and don't travel with a camera, but there was a moment when I wished I did, as the forte piano player held the stage alone for a sonata by J C Bach while his fellows sat at the edge of the room. Sitting straight backed in their neat suits, their attention fixed on the stage which would have been to the side of the photograph, the flautist holding his instrument upright, the stripped brick wall of the church and simple black chairs providing an almost stark background, it would have made a great picture.
It was a lovely concert, and I was sorry that it wasn't better attended. The management had done a good job of disguising the fact that it was by no means a sell-out by moving the stage forwards from the back wall, and setting out only two rows of chairs between the stage and the raked seating, so that the musicians wouldn't be looking out over half a dozen dispiriting rows of mostly empty chairs. The Colchester Arts Centre performs the same visual trick for less popular folk artists by setting up cafe style tables and chairs just in front of the stage. I'm afraid Baroque music is a minority taste even within the minority interest world of classical music, which is a shame.
From Old Street I squelched my way to the British Museum to see Drawing in Silver and Gold, their exhibition about metalpoint drawing. It is only on until 6 December, so I knew that if I didn't go today I was unlikely to go at all. It took some mental juggling, looking at what else was on and where and for how long, to work out how many trips to London I was likely to make during that time, and whether I'd be able to see all of them or was going to have to prioritise, but in the end I decided I would like to learn more about metalpoint and would probably just about manage to cram everything else in, unless this Saturday's forecast snow was the prelude to two months of train-stopping snow, in which case all bets are off.
Metalpoint is beautiful, subtle, and laborious. It works on the principle that silver and gold are soft metals that will leave a mark when drawn across a rough surface. You take paper or vellum, prepare the surface so that it is rough enough, traditionally done with crushed roasted bones and glue, equip yourself with a metal stylus, and draw. Each individual line is fine and soft, allowing the creation of marvellous shading and visual texture. Peak metalpoint was in the latter fifteenth to seventeenth century, with something of a renaissance in the nineteenth.
One reason why I nearly didn't go was concern about whether I'd be able to see properly. It was hard enough seeing some of the exhibits in the Celts exhibition, and knowing that strong contrast is not a feature of metalpoint I wondered whether in the dim light the British Museum might deem necessary in order to preserve the drawings I'd be able to see anything at all. But in fact everything was brightly lit enough for middle aged eyes, though the detail is so fine one could do with a magnifying glass. It's a shame the BBC aren't doing a documentary about it, then we could see some of the pictures expanded and wonder at every last little piece of cross hatching and how from a distance it marvellously blends into the contours of a face, or the texture of a fur hat.
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