A Day of Surprises

A Day of Surprises, Friday 3/17. [photo: after touring the Burlington Arcade, Chuck has a premonition of doom as he approaches High Tea at Brown’s.] First surprise – it’s St. Patrick’s Day and we didn’t see any drunks.

It’s our last day and we started at the V&A to look at England 1760-1900. We were hoping to see some Regency furniture but surprise – just as Chippendale was ending and the display cards were saying things were getting more classical and simpler, the exhibits skipped right into Gothic revival. When we looked in on Europe 1800-1900 it was the same thing – all carvings and marble inlays and no Biedermeier. Obviously the V&A really likes the ornate stuff.

We walked up the street and stopped at a couple of antique dealers to look around. Then in the Burlington arcade I saw a cute little pin of a Cardigan Corgi (the kind with a tail), a perfect gift for Nancy. It was 15 karat gold and we gulped and got ready for a $100 price tag. Surprise! It was ₤800!! Sorry Nancy. We continued in the arcade and saw a pearl bracelet with five strands of small pearls for a mere ₤7,650 and we knew we had strayed into the Twilight Zone of the Rich and Famous. These were prices that made Rodeo Drive look like Woolworth’s.

Just two blocks from the arcade is Brown’s Hotel, one of the four places in the londontourist.org site recommended as a good place for a traditional English tea. They said the dress code was coat-and-tie, and prices began at a semi-reasonable ₤12. Throughout our trip this guide had been reliable. When I called on the phone they said dress code was now a shirt with collar – no t-shirts. I didn’t ask the price. Surprise! When we got there, and were committed to eating there, the menu said, well, I can’t even print the price. It was twice as much as Fortnum & Mason. People who buy ₤800 Corgi pins probably have tea here all the time. But, we had planned this stop and we went through with it. It was a good tea: sandwiches with the crusts cut off, fruit scones, clotted cream, strawberry jam, cakes (all you can eat) and seven kinds of tea. We ate all we possibly could, probably about $10 worth. Oy.

Our last event of the trip was to go to Wigmore Hall, probably the premier recital hall in town. There is a program almost every night, so we went everywhere else first and took potluck for this night. When we arrived we asked for the senior citizen discount and got really good seats for ₤10. It was a piano recital by Francois Killian and it was marvelous. He played Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Paul Juon (1872-1940), a name we had not heard. Well, we hadn’t heard of Mr. Killian either, and one of his trophies is the International Chopin competition.

Nothing could have been more different from our other piano concert. Mr. Killian had technique, touch and taste. Of course taste was not required for the Liszt, but that was the last part of the program, and by then he was in the clear. ‘Kakteen’ (Cactuses) by Juon was the most interesting. In his time he was called “the Russian Brahms” and “the missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky,” and if you add Ravel into the mix you get an idea of what we heard. You could hear these influences but it was not derivative. At the same time I could not tell you just what the unique voice of Juon is. It’s very dense, and these pieces were all over the place, so more listening is required.

After the concert we took the tube and bus back to the flat and had our last night walk on the Thames path. Man was it cold. Back in the flat the windows rattled from the wind. We’re sorry to leave with so many things undone, but we will be glad to get back to a little warmth and sun.