We went to the nicest possible concert at the Wigmore Hall, where Melvyn Tan was performing Erich Korngold’s Piano Quintet with the Škampa Quartet, as well as Janáček’s Kreutzer Sonata. I love the Wigmore Hall, so eastern European in character, with its murals by Gerald Moira, who was the son of a Portuguese diplomat who became an English miniature painter. He was trained at the Royal Academy Schools where he received financial help from Queen Victoria, owing to work done for the crown by his father. He made his reputation with the murals of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in the Trocadero restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue and, in 1900, became Professor of Mural and Decorative Painting at the Royal College of Art. Just the place for Janáček.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
a wonderful concert, Korngold rather UNfamiliar and terrificallly OTT, and such a charming encore (Dvorak, can never remember but SO familiar) only sadness hall not full for such a delightful experience; such a quartet and what a pianist at the top of their game and having it seems it seems as good a time as the audience.
Oh dear, oh dear, we missed the encore as we had a taxi to catch. Charles
PS cannot resist terrific thanks to C SS for all the pertinent and fascinating facts you give us; deeply enjoyable. Those Wigmore Hall murals are both grand and ludicrous, and such period pieces.
Marina is right to pay tribute to CSS’s Blog. Not only does it rival (and with its photographs, surpass, Pevsner) but it is crammed with fascinating detail. Thames and Hudson, please get on and produce more books based on it – especially if they are designed by Pentagram.
Charles is also right to praise Melvyn Tan, at present the best pianist around, especially for Mozart, Schubert, Czerny and, his great love, Ravel.