Not Only Opera

Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Beethoven and Mozart
Kings Place
unreserved, £24.50
22 October 2020
ASMF page

Programme
Beethoven Septet in E flat, Op.20
Mozart Horn Quintet in E-flat major, K. 407

Unaccountably I have never seen the Academy of St Martin in the Fields live. This gentle programme – solid music, solidly played, in a solidly sound acoustic – seemed a no-brainer, and in other circumstances it might have been. However, with the audience far more tightly packed in Kings Place than at the Wigmore and given the numbers in the news, I found myself worrying that to come had been the wrong decision. Sadly I find my primary souvenir of the evening is the shock of physical contact with a stranger as a young man made an early exit by brushing past me in the seat row, rather than anything musical.