May 072017
 

i must have seen something about barbara thompson earlier this week and forgotten it, because the other day, there was a search for barbara thompson & also her homepage, inexplicably open in my browser.  some mid-spring fugue perhaps. it all ended with me listening to this.  with a lot of kurt weill, you know it started well for me, and so it also ends up here.  incidentally, this performance was not long after the release of the kurt weill tribute barbara song, and features most of the songs from the album.

www.temple-music.com
www.barbara-thompson.co.uk


barbara thompson with the medici quartet and the bbc singers
queen elizabeth hall, london, england uk
17 november 1995

weill – songs arranged for saxophone & string quartet
love songs in age – music for the poetry of philip larkin

barbara thompson – saxophones
pete lemer – piano
paul westwood – bass
simone rebello – drums

medici quartet
paul robertson – violin
cathy thompson – violin
ivo jan von derver – viola
anthony lewis – cello

bbc singers
conducted by bo holgren
penny vickers, judith bingham – soloists

set one / disc 1 [40:47]

weill – songs arranged for saxophone & string quartet

01. speak low (arr, john dankworth) [6:20]
02. surabaya johnny (arr, geoffrey bergen) [6:08]
03. zuhälterballade (arr, barry guy) [8:24]
04. it never was you (arr, richard rodney bennett) [6:31]
05. september song (arr, mike westbrook) [6:46]
06. theme and variations on mack the knife (arr, barbara thompson) [6:38]

set two / disc 2 [53:38]

love songs in age – music for the poetry of philip larkin

01. the horns of the morning [8:28]
02. ugly sister [5:34]
03. the dance [7:30]
04. love songs in age [8:16]
05. like the train’s beat [7:57]
06. this is the first thing [3:23]
07. poor sidney bechet [12:30]

source: bbc radio 3 fm > denon tu-400l tuner > vhs > vhs lp > archos gmini 120
> audition > flac. recorded off air and transferred by ‘psykies’ 19th november 2010

notes from original taper ‘psykies’
“recorded by me off air direct from the original live broadcast to a panasonic hi-fi vhs video recorder in sp audio only mode. sometime in the mid to late 1990’s i misguidedly transferred all my radio recordings to vhs lp audio mode. this combined with the age of the tapes has resulted in some evident distortion throughout.”

i think psykies is a bit of a perfectionist. – pete


sample:
d1 t04 it never was you.mp3
d2 t02 ugly sister.mp3
download: BarbaraThompson_1995-11-17_QEH_LondonUK.zip

cd covers by pete.  design is cropped from a screenshot of “the testament of dr mabuse” (fritz lang, 1933),
at approx. 42:34 into the movie, from the version issued by eureka video (eka40071).


  5 Responses to “barbara thompson & medici quartet – 17 nov 1995, queen elizabeth hall, london uk”

  1. !q07roReubbZAH0-yCR0Vs6YDJv_FvZ8vU8AUiOaOFYo

  2. fantastic!…
    BIG THX!…

  3. Many thanks. Incredible music.

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