Culture ancient and modern

Pleasant evening in London yesterday.  My alma mater was doing one of its periodical exercises in keeping potential legacies warm.  (One wonders if they might improve cash flow by adding a spot of strychnine to the wine, but I seem to have made it through the night.)  The main theme was music and the arts in the town and the university, and the new Director of Music told us individually and later collectively about his hopes and plans to build a new music centre with soundproofed practice rooms.  It wasn't quite 'would you hurry the #*%$ up and croak!', though such behaviour would doubtless oblige.  It was nice to know that the university will be lighting up the Byre theatre in the town again for music and drama productions, and making it available also to local companies and bands. 

We were treated to a recital by two recent alumni: piano works by Bach played by Maeve Martin, who went on to accompany Laurie Slavin in a couple of tenor operatic arias by Handel and Donizetti.  Laurie finished with two well-known and loved Burns songs a capella.  His is a name to watch, I'd say.  He hits the high notes smack in the middle, but has a pretty remarkable range too.  Now studying postgrad at Guildhall.

And we had a nice chat with the Chancellor as were were leaving.  What a likeable fellow he is: one of the legion of newly ex-Lib Dem MPs, though he did not stand in the recent rout.  All in the pleasant setting of the Caledonian Club in Belgravia.

Oh, the way, we got to London in plenty of time, so spent a pleasant half hour in the National Gallery before hopping on a Boris bus to Hyde Park Corner.  Neither of us having been there for many years, it was a surprise to enter via the Sainsbury wing and to leave by the black marble clad Annenberg/Getty staircase.  Both complement the ancient fabric very well.  I don't think I was aware of 16th century Northern Italian portraitist Giovanni Battista Moroni before yesterday: his portraits are remarkable, capturing expressions of surprise or haughty superiority among others.

But of course my main target was Seurat's Grande Jatte and Asnières paintings and sketches, and the extensive collection of Monet.  Having lived for a privileged couple of years in the Allée Claude Monet on the Ile de la Grande Jatte, one feels a certain affinity, after all.  Favourite, though, was Coastal Scene, about 1892, Théo van Rysselberghe.

I admit to stationing myself whenever possible between the paintings and the innumerable mobile phone cameras.  And on the train on the way home there were no fewer that seven mobiles in use at the eight seats in our bay of the carriage, though the kid next to me appeared to be reading a book on his.  Neither of us was using one.  Reminds me of our Venice experience last year, when we encountered a fellow chatting on one telefonino while texting on another.  I guess I ought to master the smartphone, but am not rushing to get it out of its drawer.