Beethoven

Carry On Culture

After my slightly odd Valentine’s weekend I plunged into a fortnight of amazing cultural activity. Keeping on keeping on will, I hope, hold dementia at bay. Another life motto has always been ‘Do it while you can’. I don’t usually write about this stuff but the blog is partly for me to reminisce with when I can get out anymore. So ignore if you just like my travels not my opinions.

So here’s how it all kept coming. Monday 17 February East is South at Hampstead Theatre courtesy of Frances’ patronage. Company, canapes, networking first class play not so much. It was a semi sci-fi thriller/Line of Duty style interrogation about data leaks from a world changing computer programme Logos. Written by Beau Willimon the creator of the US version of House of Cards, its subject matter was highly apposite with the march of AI. However it sometimes felt as if the script had been written by AI with strange diatribes, a virtually unused character and rather cliched and confusing flashbacks.

The next night made up for any disappointment. Following my previous exploration of Sadler’s Wells East Tuesday saw me heading for the Rosebery Avenue Sadler’s for Pina Bausch’s Vollmond. Need Es to lift your spirits? Well they were here aplenty! Entertaining, exquisite, energetic, enthralling. It was one of the last things Bausch choreographed and it a lot lighter in mood than some of her work.

We had dancers flirting, arguing, courting and conversing often soaked in torrential water flowing from the flies. I got talking in the interval to a couple of professional classical musicians – she harpist, he oboe – which was an interesting precursor to Wednesday. We all absolutely loved the performance and my only regret was that two friends who would have loved it couldn’t be with me.

Wednesday evening saw me accompanied by local resident Frances to the launch of the 2025-26 season of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment of which I’ve been a long-time supporter and occasional contributor of blogs, scripts and articles. It was help in the wonderful brutalist hexagonal hall of their home Acland Burghley School in Tufnell Park. Alongside the exciting reveal of Fantastic Symphonies to be played between October and March at the Southbank Centre and on tour, we were treated to a recital by the mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston accompanied on the harpsichord by Satako Doi-Luck. Helen benefitted from the OAE’s rising stars scheme and now has a stellar recital career covering baroque, classical and contemporary repertoire. However she will find it hard to stop being asked about singing Dido’s Lament backwards in an OAE video. Satako is part of Ensemble Moliere that specialises in exploring the world of Baroque music. I’ve been to a couple of their concerts too. But the plans for celebrating OAE’s 40th anniversary are exciting with the return of early supporter Sir Simon Rattle who contributed a splendid video interview to the evening, alongside many other familiar figures in OAE history. Check out the programme here and let me know if you fancy joining me to hear this fantastic group of players and lovely people.

I stayed home on Thursday and on Friday joined my friend Opu Islam at the launch of an exciting heritage project in the Bengali community in the East End. It’s an initiative from the Season of Bangla Drama to which the British Bilingual Poetry Collective (of which I am a gtrustee) contributes each year. There were discussions with producers and poetry recitals as well. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome in the 2026 festival.

What a treat on Saturday with Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig both on stage at the Donmar Warehouse in Backstroke! Two superb actors trading mother daughter love and insults in equal measure in a fascinating if slightly baggy play. It made me wonder if writers are always the best people to direct their own work. Still a hugely enjoyable evening.

I woke on Sunday at 10:15 after finally falling asleep at six after a horrendous night with acute toothache. This was too late for me to get to Watford to see our arch rivals Luton beaten 2-0 some revenge for our defeat in the reverse fixture. It was on the telly and the house was filled with shouting best left on the terraces.

I’d arranged to visit a friend Nuala O’Sullivan on Monday afternoon before going to join Frances at the Orange Tree in Richmond. Nuala was a BBC World Service colleague back in 2009 and then co-wrote on of my ELT series with me in 2014-15, She has subsequently founded and runs the highly successful Women Over Fifty Film Festival so it was great to talk film, literature and life with her. Walthamstow to Richmond is not the most straightforward journey but I’m glad I made it. Frances had been invited to a special staging of the play in the hope (successful) of luring her back as a patron. At a reception we had an opportunity to talk with Tom Littler the artistic director of the Orange and also the director of the play we were about to see. Both very impressive.

I’ve long been a fan of Howard Brenton from the controversy over The Romans in Britain back in 1980, through plays like Pravda at the National, The Arrest of Ai Wei Wei and Drawing the Line at Hampstead. This new work Churchill in Moscow in which two would-be world leaders slugged it out in negotiations could not be more timely. Dramatically it was frightening, funny and fascinating with wonderful supporting roles for the two interpreters who put their own palliative gloss on what Churchill and Stalin were saying to each other. In the compact space of the Orange Tree you really felt part of the action.

The rest of the week was calmer just on Thursday a pre-concert talk about and an electrifying performance of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Vilde Frang and the Eroica Symphony in which Maxim Emelyanychev conducted the OAE in a rousing performance with no residual hint of Napoleon.

Then there was a trip to Watford as part of a consulting group helping plan the move of the Watford Museum from the old site in what was Benskin’s Brewery into the Town Hall later this year. Lots of interesting ideas with fellow supporters and friends. I also foolishly decided to have an occasional away-day trip to our game at Stoke on Saturday which proved beyond all doubt that we go for the people not the football – excruciatingly dull match – adjudged a bore draw by colleague Frances in her blog, but great beer and conversation.

And the next week was pretty similar …

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Music, markets and Moritz

I’ve managed to do a few things I wanted to experience while in Barcelona but a combination of occasional hip gyp (osteoarthritis quite advanced) and less breath from the lingering flu, I’ve not been roaring about the place as I maybe would have in the past. I love the fact that the city is so well supplied with benches so I can sit and take a rest when necessary. Isabel Allende has a fine quote in her book I just read A Long Petal of the Sea: ‘Pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional’. As I set out on Christmas Eve to enjoy the guided tour of the Palau de la Musica, I was able to have a coffee, perch on a bench and contemplate life at a slower pace.

Benches and cafes on the Rambla de Catalunya.

It also gives me a chance to look around and see elegant buildings like this. There have been some rather (imho) unsuitable replacements and refurbishments to the classy streets of the Eixample, the area into which the wealthy of the city expanded in the early twentieth century with its grid of vertical and horizontal streets so it’s hard to get lost. Enough rambling – on to the Palau.

At the Palau, I join a group of two Americans, one Hungarian and eight Chinese – probably statistically representative of relative populations. Our guide is Marta who is Catalan and a pianist with the organisation who also used to play cello but gave it up as too difficult. As often, the tour begins with a ten minute video of the history and diverse nature of music played at the hall – Montserrat Caballe and Pablo Casals of course but also Ute Lemper and Herbie Hancock. Marta returns and asks if any of us has ever been so I can show off with my attendance two nights ago. I can also answer her enquiry as to whether anyone knows the architect. I do – it was Lluis Domenech i Muntaner, another of the famous group of modernista artists, which included Gaudi. Together they designed the Catalan equivalent of art nouveau or Jugendstil elsewhere in Europe. What I couldn’t answer was how long it took to build – a staggering two and a half years. My guess would have been ten. There were obviously lots of wealthy merchants investing their profits from the Americas in a cultural centre of some magnificence in Barcelona.

A ticket window, roof detail and the main entrances wide and high enough for horse-drawn carriages to enter.

The interior is just breathtaking. Every surface is decorated with trencadis, there are thousands of plaster roses – the flower of Catalunya – and sculpture and plasterwork of great significance. There are lots of red and white cross flags which are familiar in England especially around football tournaments. St Jordi (George) is the patron saint of Catalunya too. Lluis certainly thought about what he was building. Alongside the name of the Palau are the words Orfeo Catalana reflecting the origins of the hall as a place for choirs to practice and sing – well they couldn’t watch Strictly or The Voice so they had – and still have – lots of local choirs. I’m hoping to see some of them at the special Sant Esteve (Boxing Day) concert which is said by some I’ve spoken to to rival New Year’s Day in Vienna. As with the exterior a few photos won’t do the venue justice but let’s just say a bust of Beethoven surmounted by horse-riding Valkyries on one side of the stage and sculptures of all the muses behind the performers on stage make this a very special place. The glass sunburst at the centre of the ceiling which allows natural light through is a masterpiece of both design and engineering.

Some of the muses and another flying horse.

After a coffee in the cafeteria, I set off through the old city centre towards the cathedral – I’ve never seen it without works going on, maybe one day. Then I just have to stop for a beer in Plaza Reial a long-time favourite. One of the limited advantages of travelling alone is that I’m doing far more reading than usual. Instead of chatting over a beer, out comes the kindle. So far I’ve read William Boyd’s rambunctious The Romantic in which we meet Byron in Italy and discover the source of the Nile. This was followed by Kate Atkinson’s fabulous Shrines of Gaiety featuring the dodgy world of nightclubs in interwar London. And as mentioned before, Isabel Allende’s epic Long Petal of the Sea which begins with the horrors of the Spanish Civil War in Catalunya and escape to France and from there to new lives in Chile only to become involved in another coup there. And now I’m enjoying Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa – another tantalising excursion into the strange world of Japanese fiction. And the Mcs are lined up next Ian McEwan and two from Cormac McCarthy.

From here it’s a short step along the Rambla to the Liceu opera house which sadly had nothing I wanted to see this trip and then for a walk through the fabulous Boqueria market. I’ve probably rambled on about my love of local markets and my regrets at living in a hotel – maybe an apartment next time. The colour, the noise, the camaraderie of the market is infectious. No room at the market bars though so I found a small bar in a side street for some gambas al ajillo and esparragos.

El Liceu, entrance to and interior of the Boqueria market.

I have another short stroll to my next destination MACBA the museum of contemporary art in Barcelona. It’s new to me although it opened in 1995 so we must have missed it on previous trips. It’s a great white palace with a warning to watch out for skateboarders on the approach – what is it about art centres and skaters? One attractive aspect is that it has slopes not steps to link the various levels – reminding me a bit of the XXI gallery in Rome I visited in 2017. My appreciation of cutting-edge contemporary artwork is somewhat unrefined but I found two of the artists exhibiting here quite affecting. The Colombian Maria Teresa Hinchcapie which involved performance art, exploration of every day objects and photography gave me plenty to think about. Cynthia Marcelle is a Brazilian artist who had given a number of collaborators some materials to arrange as they wished. The result reminded me of a Cornelia Parker explosion of objects. There was another exhibit based on a Mexican Mixe myth which I found impressive in scale and impenetrable in meaning.

MACBA exterior, Hinchcapie video, Mixe myth and Marcelle room.

In the permanent collection were a number of pieces I really enjoyed – a Tapies bed and a series of pages taken from a book as if they had been typed without a ribbon so that light projected the text onto the wall. It’s by Mar Arza and is called Nada reiterada (nothing repeated). Most enjoyable for a bibliophile.

The evening was rounded off in a convenient microbrewery Moritz opposite the hotel which was one of the few places open on Christmas Eve. It has a fine selection of house beers – lagers, IPAs a red IPA and a porter style Moritz Negra (black beer). Oh and it had a perfectly fine food menu too.

News

Tourist or traveller?

Excuse the philosophical start to my Barcelona trip but my friend Frances has just come back from a guided tour in Vietnam and Cambodia which she thoroughly enjoyed. Over a few beers with Graham in Liverpool last weekend we talked about the difference between travelling and touring. As my family and late wife will attest Raggett holidays were always travelling. Planned by me, booked by me and executed, however badly, by me. But as age creeps on it made us all wonder the time for a bit of organisation by others might be timely. Graham’s fear was that he’d find himself in a group of Daily Mail reading Brexiters and be most uncomfortable. Fran’s tour was happily free of such companions and Graham was a little reassured.

But as I set off for Stansted to begin this latest venture I had a rare sense of unease. Could I still do it? Should I be with Tui rather than intuition? Hey I’ve done Rome, Lisbon, Malaga and Cadiz and Mallorca – with Covid tests – so why the worry? I’ve had real, not man flu for a week – three lots of Benyllin at home and a trip to the pharmacy for Mucosan (better I would say after two doses) and cancelled a Barbican concert on Sunday because I didn’t want Rattle’s baton picking out the cougher in the stalls. So maybe confidence is down a bit through illness. There was a moment during the miles of steps through Stansted that I thought there must be a better way to do this. But hey, if you buy and fly Ryanair you know what to expect. Everybody chooses Priority so that queue is longer the the Other Q, but at lest you do get on first.

Flight was fine, great snow over the Pyrenees and a wonderful descent into Barcelona along the coast. Then the traveller took over. I’d booked a Barcelona 5 day card for unlimited travel and free entry to 20-30 museums several of which I intended to visit. However Terminal 2 is huge and the Tourist Office is at the other end, the best part of a kilometre away. I get my card and set off back to where I started to get the train into town when I realise I’ve left my second bag on the floor while sorting out the card. So steps are retraced, bag retrieved and the trudge to the train is on again.

It’s a nice train, with diverting behaviour from two young ladies, whose black suitcase rolled towards me as the train pulled out. I rescued and returned it amid great giggling. The journey was initially through industrial suburbs and just as it got interesting it went underground, But it delivers me to Passeig de Gracia station five minutes from the hotel – if you come out the correct entrance. So fifteen minutes later I rock up at the hotel where they let me check in early which is a relief as I need to sit down for a bit. It is an OK hotel in a modernisme building but sadly my room does not have one of those nice balconies overlooking the street. There is a swimming pool on the roof but not open in December. Great views over the city though.

Refreshed, I was soon in proper holiday mode with a beer and tapas in a local bar on the Rambla de Catalunya. The eagle has landed!

The evening’s plan, cough permitting, is to go to the Palau de la Musica Catalana to hear Philippe Herreweghe, the Belgian conductor doing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. I knew vaguely where it was – no Google maps with roaming charges back – and I was on the verge of asking a waiting taxi driver for directions when I spied the exterior. Almost as embarrassing as one day in a market when I pointed to a cauliflower and asked ‘come se llama?’ To be told with an uproarious laugh ‘coliflor’. I’d booked my ticket online and was shown to my seat in the magnificent auditorium – the absolute epitome of modernisme design and execution.

Soon after I was seated I was hissed at by a lady of some few years younger than me I would estimate, indicating that I was occupying her seat. My neighbour explained that a group of them usually sat together but there had clearly been an “error” at the box office. She didn’t seem that bothered and despite my offer to swap several times I was told ‘no pasa nada’ – it doesn’t matter. Maybe my limited Spanish kept her from an earbashing.

The orchestra, choir and soloists arrived followed by the rather ancient-looking conductor – he’s four years younger than me but you wouldn’t guess it. He also had to take a couple of comfort breaks between segments – unusual in this work – but pee breaks are something I sympathise with for anyone. I love the Missa and this was an enthusiatic rendition but not the best I’ve heard although the soloists were outstanding.

It was exceptional to hear a great piece of music on my first night in town and my companion recommended a guided tour and the cafeteria in the basement. ‘Cafeteria si,’ she said ‘restaurante no – es muy caro!’.