Travel Date: Saturday, April 27, 2024
Prince Albert was the Prince Consort from 1857 until his death four years later. He had married his first cousin, Queen Victoria of England, in 1840, three years after her ascent to the throne. Born in Coborg, Germany, Albert died when he was only 42, but he made an impressive number and range of contributions to the arts and sciences in England during his tenure there. Following his death, his widow and her subjects continued to honour his memory by naming things after him, and since Victoria reigned for 63 years, seven months and two days (a record until Elizabeth II’s nearly 72 years), it is no surprise that everywhere you turn in London, you are running into a bridge or a building or a street or a hotel named after Victoria or Albert, or – as in the case of the Victoria and Albert Museum – both. In fact, the neighbourhood in which the V&A is located is known as “Albertopolis” because of the number of edifices and institutions in the area that are associated with him one way or another (including Royal Albert Hall, which we’d be visiting later this same day.)
We’d been intrigued by the signs promoting a photography exhibition when we’d visited the V&A’s South Kensington location earlier in the week, but the gallery had closed before we’d had a chance to explore it. So on Saturday, we decided to go back just to look at the Photography Centre, a series of seven galleries on the third level of the museum. The Centre includes about 800,000 photographs dating back as far as 1820. One of the large display rooms is sponsored by Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish. (A show featuring photographs from their collection, Fragile Beauty , which opened after we had left, is on display until early 2025.)
An interesting multi-shelf display at the entrance to the Centre features hundreds of different kinds of cameras, and it is tempting to try to find a camera you once owned somewhere in that display. (My first was a Brownie box camera with a viewfinder on top. I found cameras like it in the display, but I didn’t find it.)
(Please click on an image to see them in gallery format)
The Photography Centre explores the whole field of photography from a range of viewpoints, from the technical (types of cameras, processes and techniques including black and white, printmaking, vintage 3D, etc.) through the historical, artistic, political, and beyond. Fascinating stuff.
I was particularly interested in the photos of the coal miners, as my father’s forebears also worked in the coal mines. The V&A photos were taken in Durham, England and my father’s family was from Abertillery in Wales, but I’m sure that they had lots in common when they emerged from below the ground at the end of a shift.
My father died when I was two, and one of the few physical connections I had with him as I grew up was a record from 1963 called Five Thousand Voices: A Nation Sings, recorded on May 3, 1963. That record is worn out now, although I still have it, but imagine my delight when I learned that a concert of “Massed Male Choirs” from Wales would take place at the Royal Albert Hall while we were there.
We walked through more of “Albertopolis” on our way to the concert, checking out the lovely neighbourhood where Royal Albert Hall is located and then the Albert Memorial, which stands a few hundred feet in front of the Hall in Hyde Park, not far from Buckingham Palace.
After an outstanding dinner at Verdi, which is located in Royal Albert Hall, we made our way to our (swivel) seats, and were properly overwhelmed. Almost like Stonehenge, I feel like I’ve been aware of Royal Albert Hall for my entire life, particularly because it is such a plum for artists to add the venue to their resumes. (In regard to The Beatles’ line, “Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall,” I just found this: “Papers newly discovered deep under the Royal Albert Hall have revealed that the iconic London venue wrote to the Beatles in 1967 to object ‘in the strongest conceivable terms’ to being named in the Fab Four’s song A Day in the Life.”)
The album of Welsh hymn singing that I own is called “Five Thousand Voices,” and the concert we attended on April 27, “A Festival of Male Welsh Voices” indicates that “more than 500 choristers” were on stage. However, several additional groups joined the event now and then, including a number of female voices, and since the entire audience (except for Arnie and me) seemed to be from Wales and to know the songs, I expect we heard 5000 voices that night too.
It was splendid.
After the concert, we took some time to enjoy the collage/mural by Sir Peter Blake entitled “Appearing at the Royal Albert Hall” which is in the lobby of the building. Unveiled in 2014, it features more than 400 of the singers, dancers and other performers (not to mention scientists, a prime minister, a sumo wrestler and Muhammed Ali) who have appeared at the Hall since it opened in 1871. You can see an interactive version here.
And here are three videos from the concert. Enjoy!
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