Among other things, I've listened to some Handel over the past week.
It's been all of twenty years since I last heard Handel's Messiah performed live in an excellent historically informed rendering conducted by Harry Bicket. I said then that the music struck me as being more spiritual and meditative than I had been prepared for and I can only concur with those views twenty years later.
Clemens Schuldt gave us another example of an historically informed performance. It was lithe and dramatic with the chorus the crowning glory of the evening. I went specifically to hear Benjamin Appl sing. I heard him with the Phil just before first lockdown and I'm due to hear him twice more this season - in Mozart's Requiem and Schubert's Winterreise. His is a glorious baritone voice but he was more than matched by mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany and tenor Caspar Singh. I was less taken by the stage presence of soprano Dorothee Mields who seemed to slink about the platform.
Nevertheless, it was a tonic to be in the auditorium and to begin the new year with such music making.
A few days' later, Colin and I took advantage of the Royal Opera House's streaming service to catch last year's production of Handel's Theodora directed by Katie Mitchell. Musically, I thought it had wonderful moments but was overly long. Theatrically, it was very trademark Katie Mitchell and, whilst intermittently arresting, was distractingly busy.
Colin couldn't stomach the presentation. The story concerns an early Christian martyr and so his knowledge of the practices and prevailing spirituality of that period rather got in the way. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure as to how much Handel or Thomas Morell (his librettist) knew of the subject either.
We could both agree though that the singing - Julia Bullock (Theodora), Joyce DiDonato (Irene), Jakub Józef Orlinski (Didymus) - was stonkingly good. Harry Bicket conducted a very trimmed down orchestra.
I don't want to make too much of an issue about the publication of the book Spare. All media streams have been totally obsessed by the event over the past four days or so. I personally am indifferent and, I suspect, so are the vast majority of the inhabitants of these benighted isles.
I did, however, absolutely love the way that the world's media crowded the Waterstones outlet in Piccadilly to capture the moment for the maw of the news cycle. It's fair to say there were a "few" more journalists than customers present. Caroline Lennon became the sacrificial poster girl for the event. According to Waterstones, the book has received their biggest pre-order for a decade but that just goes to show how much of their trade is online these days.
Wags have managed to link in the subject of paedophilia with Harry's book release.
I spent a Thursday morning at Storyhouse, Ross's and my local coffee shop of choice. As well as providing refreshments on the ground floor, they have a meeting room on the first floor. I joined a group named Jelly there to work on this journal. The group is operates as a joint working space and networking arena for people who are working in isolation. I used it as a different venue to concentrate on typing.
I also managed to sample my first Cortado.
We've had the unusual occurrence of a former Pope dying during the lifetime of his successor - the last time was back in the Medieval period and was organised for the purely political requirements of putting a stop to having French and Italian Popes reigning simultaneously. Ratzinger stood down because of ill health but more because of his collusion over accommodations with paedophile priests. Hence, the comment below.
Sadiq Khan has joined the ranks of those prepared to speak out publicly about the collective amnesia being suffered by the government and mainstream media when it comes to the detrimental effects of Brexit on the national economy. He made the speech at the London Government Dinner, an annual gathering of the capital’s political, business and media leaders. He went on to talk about the necessity for having a rational debate about rejoining the Single Market. His words were greeted with loud applause.
This was immediately picked up by the Mail as letting the cat out of the bag on Labour's real intentions with regards to the EU.
The Reform Party saw this as an immediate opportunity to proclaim their Brexit purity.
Brendan May didn't hold back in denouncing the whole Brexit Project.
