Nielsen's Wind Quintet

There is a new development near King's Cross station, called Kings Place.  It's a combination of offices, restaurants, art galleries and music halls.  It feels quite different to the busy station next door, and you reach it by walking a long way down a deserted street.  Then suddenly you appear in this flash new building.  It's where the guardian has moved, so on the way in you can pop up to the guardian's reception, see a room where a bunch of journalists may work (it was the weekend, so there wasn't anyone to see).  I have to say they look after their workers, their office chairs were an awful lot better than mine.  We were there to see (listen?) to Nielsen's wind quintet.  There was some vote on people's favourite chamber music pieces and then throughout the year they will perform the top 50 at Kings Place.  This was number 50.

The slight problem is that the ensemble chosen to play the piece also gets to choose the whole program for the evening (you don't just get the piece you have paid to see).  I really don't understand the passion for contemporary classical music (is there such a thing?).  Though to be fair I think the contemporary pieces they played that night were possibly the more melodic of contemporary music, but that's not saying much really.  The issue seems to be that the composers are trying to be too clever, I guess there is a large body of work to live up to.  So rather than just having a nice theme that they repeat throughout the work, they try and cram as much technically difficult stuff in at one go.  You hear a fragment that you quite like and would like to hear again, but that's it, you only get one go and then it's on to the next bit.  I just don't quite understand it.  They also pulled the same trick as they did at Mozart's Requiem concert, playing the piece everyone was there to hear last.  I get why they do it, sure save it for the second half, but could we have it before we all get so tired we can't enjoy it as much?

Sitting in front of us was a family of 4, they were in the middle in the front row, so everyone in the hall could see them.  In fact the players on stage could probably see them.  And it looked like only the father was into the music.  You could see that the 2 kids and the mother were dying, the kids were shuffling all over the place, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, and the mother was getting lower and lower down in her seat throughout the performance.  And yet the father was in raptures after each piece.  It was pretty funny, I mean it's nice to try and interest your family in things you like doing, but perhaps you should take them to see one of the classics first.  I think there are a lot of performances containing a lot more melodic pieces than that one.  You don't want to turn it into some sort of torture for your children, surely you want them to enjoy it as much as you do?

They have a restaurant and bar on the premises as well, I didn't quite appreciate that it was literally above the concert hall.  But it was actually a really nice meal.  The service was super efficient, but still charming, the food was really good, triple-cooked chips are a wonder to behold and the wine was delicious.  I will definitely be back for another meal + performance combo, it's a really pleasant way to spend an evening.  Good work Kings Place! And lucky for me there are another 49 for me to choose from this year.