A European Christmas
Dec. 4th, 2019 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiWe headed in to London on Sunday afternoon for an early evening concert by The Bach Players at St John's Smith Square. The venue was certainly seasonally chilly. The first half, as the programme was announced, comprised music for Christmas from the Catholic tradition of Austria and Italy: Biber, Tarquinio Merula, Claudio Merulo, Giacomo Carissimi, and Corelli. Most of the names and almost all of the music was new to me - only Corelli's Christmas Concerto was vaguely familiar. The Merulo, an organ solo Toccata ottava, perhaps sounded reminiscent of the Gabrieli family. For the second half the programme switched to Lutheran Germany, and two cantatas by J S Bach: most appropriately, the second part of the Cantata for the first Sunday in Advent, BWV36, and Cantata for the second day of Christmas, BWV57.
In search of necessary sustenance, we retired to the Red Lion on Whitehall, a haunt for MPs with its own division bell (which we failed to spot). Now a chain pub, the food was decent but standard, and it was disappointing that they were out of Corporal Jones Toad in the Hole, making me wonder what "adequate" food supplies await in the coming months.
In search of necessary sustenance, we retired to the Red Lion on Whitehall, a haunt for MPs with its own division bell (which we failed to spot). Now a chain pub, the food was decent but standard, and it was disappointing that they were out of Corporal Jones Toad in the Hole, making me wonder what "adequate" food supplies await in the coming months.