London, Part 2
The first (and only certain) item on our agenda today was to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum.
K and I've been to London umpty time but somehow never stopped in at the V&A. A few months ago we read that the V&A had a special exhibit on medieval glass, so we were all set. Sadly, the special glass exhibit was long over, but there was still plenty of medieval stuff and plenty of glass as well, just in different places. Here's a photo of a glass pitcher from the glass exhibit to show you what K wanted to see.
The next special exhibit is about quilts from 1700-2000, from March 20-4 July. Judging from the publicity materials, it should be pretty good. The V&A also has seminars, lectures and study days (where you concentrate on one topic for 4-5 hours), so if you're going to be in London, I recommend you check the schedule to see if there's something you like.
One of the places in the museum that we both enjoyed was the Casting Court. This is a courtyard-sized room with a 50 foot ceiling that contains life-sized plaster casts of large famous things, like the Michelangelo's David, the Trajan Column and the doors of the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. It also has casts of the recumbent statues of Henry 2, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Lionheart and Isabella Angouleme that I, pardon me for some snobbery of coincidence, had recently seen in the Abbey of Fontevard (see previous posts). England has asked for those statues and sarcophagi back, but France said No Way, so I guess England felt that a life sized plaster copy was the best they could hope for.
We all met for lunch in the cafeteria in the museum. The food and price are OK, but the real winner is the setting: 3 recently renovated Victorian rooms, complete with fancy ceilings and fully decorated walls. It would be worth a stroll through them just to see the decor.
After lunch I wandered through the history of British furnishings. It might sound dry but was extremely interesting, showing room interiors and furniture as it has changed through the ages. I especially appreciated seeing how beds have changed (or not) over the centuries. One very fancy bed was decorated in red velvet and was recently restored, and there's a little video where you can see how it all comes apart and was reassembled after restoration. And of course, the famous Great Bed of Ware. Built in 1590, the literature says it can sleep over 15 people. Well. It was big, all right but 15? You'd be pretty crowded!
K spent the rest of the day in the V&A, but after a while my eyes started to cross. When I had my fill of museums, I walked up to Hyde Park and walked along the greenery. London is well ahead of Landstuhl in spring-ness. Fields of purple and yellow crocuses, daffodil stalks just ready to burst into flower, rose bushes with new branches pushing out, even some of the flowering trees are covered with buds. Gives me hope for Frühling in Deutschland!
We met in the Crypt of St. Martin in the Fields for what was billed as a Candlelight Dinner before a concert. Yes, there were candles on some of the tables, but the general ambiance was formica tables under the curving brick ceilings of the former church crypt. The food was good enough, though, and reasonably priced for London. S finally got her fish and chips with mushy peas (they look like green mashed potatoes but are just mushed up fresh peas).
There was a special exhibit in the crypt of the Last Supper painted in 2009 by Lorna May Wadsworth (which she writes with a lower case L, then upper case MW, so it was easy to squint and pretend we were related). As with Da Vinci's version, there were the apostles seated along the side of a long dinner table, but all these guys were definitely masculine (no hints at Mary Magdalene). There was a mix of races but the ages were all about 20-30, very realistic and sort of gritty. It seemed .... real.
We had purchased tickets to the so-called Mozart concert at the church of SMITF, so after dinner we hauled ourselves up the stairs to the main sanctuary. Where, btw, restoration work has finally been completed. It's a little jewel of a church, all Baroque and yellow and white, except for the dark wood pews and gilding around the column tops. We sat in a reserved seat on a hard wooden pew. This was our view straight up:
I regret to tell you that the concert had only 2 pieces by Mozart (the rest were Brahms, Gershwin, Bizet; not a single English composer!) and that, frankly, the orchestra lacked musicality. The soloists were acceptable, but the violins weren't quite in tune, with sloppy fingering and a general lack of crispness in the runs. They were enthusiastic enough, but enthusiasm doesn't make up for the lack of skill. This was the LMA orchestra, so I suggest that if you're interested in a concert, you make sure you see the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Orchestra, which has an international reputation and has made many a recording under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner.
Then the 45 minute ride back to the hotel, and we had tea in our room with the equipment thoughtfully provided by The Management!