We took another walk to the Old Town in the afternoon and took time to enjoy the extraordinary architecture of the places of worship, and we stopped at a café for a leisurely cup of tea. Later, we returned to a location that we had earmarked for dinner on one of our earlier scouting missions. Hanu' lui Manuc, situated just off the Piața Sfântul Anton, was a fantastic restaurant and bar in a courtyard. Coach-loads of people seemed to disappear into the surrounding buildings, but we favoured the outdoor dining option. This extraordinary restaurant had a poetic menu. Favourite extracts include:

“Beer of the House - unfiltered Premium, 400ml - 13,3 [Romanian Leu (RON) ≈ £2.50 GBP]

Beer connoisseurs will discover in Manuc’s House beer something rare and forgotten - patience. In patience lies the secret of good and settled taste, patience of the malt while fermenting, patience of the beer mug beeing [sic] iced, the lad’s patience when pouring it into the glass so that it, the beer, lightly rolls into the glass leaving two fingers of snow white foam behind. Out of this patience comes your impatience, dear guest, to thirstily taste this noble liquid.”

“Skewers from the old Fanar - for 2 people, 900g/300g - 98,00 [Romanian Leu (RON) ≈ £18.40 GBP]

An encyclopaedia of skewers from the orient’s outskirts, cut by a silver knife and seasoned with artistry by the last Ottoman butcher. Nine historical pieces accompanied by rice, onions and baked tomatoes.”

As it was, Will and I drank the aforementioned beer (patience was rewarded) and we shared a caramelised lamb knuckle, the description for which was a little more ordinary: “prepared in the oven with herbs and red wine, served with baked potatoes and a sautè of green beans and garlic.” The food was very good, the atmosphere (although it was busy) was relaxing and another quartet of dancers appeared, followed closely by an eclectic musical ensemble comprising pan pipes, vocals, a zither and a double bass. It was good, but the singer roamed the courtyard with a radio microphone, singing at diners. It seemed best not to make eye contact.

On the walk back towards the hotel we listened to musicians playing on an outdoor stage as part of the Georges Enescu Festival, and enjoyed a Mozart Horn Concerto at the Piata George Enescu (outside the Romanian Athenaeum). We had been given tickets for the performance of Giulio Cesare that evening, which began at 22:30. I wanted to listen to the horn player in the famous obbligato aria Va tacito. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, and the first two hours of Giulio Cesare but I left after the first act to catch up on sleep (after a relentless few weeks playing in the Aurora Orchestra’s Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique project, I was feeling fairly run down). I left at around midnight, knowing that I would have to stay up later tomorrow to play in Agrippina.

We visited a cash machine in the morning to take out 40 Romanian Leu (RON) [≈ £7.50 GBP] in order to attend the (cash only) National Museum of Art of Romania, housed in the Royal Palace - as the art had been collected by the Romanian Royal Family. On one side of the palace there was a European art collection and on the other side there was a Romanian art collection, so we bought a combined ticket for both for 25 Leu. This was the first time I had seen Romanian currency. Our 15 Leu in change from the museum ticket purchase enabled us to view the 5 Leu note for the first time, with the composer Georges Enescu (1881 - 1955), a violin and a carnation on the obverse and the Romanian Athenaeum on the reverse.

The art collections were interesting with a variety of styles on display in these palatial galleries. On the international side, I enjoyed the images by El Greco, Jan van Eyck, Rembrandt, Monet and in particular three musical works: Giacomo Amiconi’s (c.1685 - 1752) Portrait of Singer Carlo Broschi called Farinelli, an anonymous work from the early 18th Century German School entitled Still Life with Music Scores, and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri’s (1591 - 1666) Saint Francis and Saint Benedict Listening to a Musician Angel. In the Romanian galleries, I was impressed by the repoussé work on various precious metals, and the early 20th Century artwork was interesting. It was especially interesting to speculate on the influences of these Romanian artists; one painting by Samuel Mützner (Bucharest, 1884-1959) was called ‘View from Giverny’, with Giverny being the location of Monet’s famous garden. I wondered if he would have met Monet or if he had visited Giverny after Monet’s death. Later reading confirmed my first speculation:

“In 1908, Mützner was working in Giverny, where the elderly Claude Monet was passing on his experience as an impressionist painter to younger artists. Under Monet’s influence, Mützner studied carefully one and the same spot so as to understand the changing effects of light on colour and atmosphere depending on time of day, weather or season and render them on canvas.” - MNAR

In the evening we attended a rehearsal at the Romanian Athenaeum, where the orchestra had performed Giulio Cesare the night before. The room was ornate and a very wide fresco by Costin Petrescu followed the contour of the wall panoramically, depicting the key points of Romanian history, beginning with the conquest of Dacia by the Roman Emperor Trajan (a suitable backdrop for both Giulio Cesare and Agrippina) and ending with the creation of Greater Romania in 1918.

Our brilliant timpanist, David Joignaux, was using borrowed timpani to save transporting his own to Bucharest. The timpani that he was using looked exactly like timpani that I have seen in museums and I wondered whether they were original. I spoke to him about these instruments and he informed me that they were, in fact, original 18th Century timpani. Apparently the drums had been discovered in the organ loft of a church somewhere in Romania (I presume the heads had been replaced) and two specially made wooden crates both raised the instruments to the correct playing height and protected the instruments when they were not in use. The timpani made a fantastic sound (David always seems to make a fantastic sound no matter what he plays) and it was very special indeed to play with original 18th Century timpani.

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Incredible to play alongside these original (18th Century) timpani at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest

A post shared by Russell Gilmour (@trumpetruss) on Sep 22, 2019 at 12:57am PDT

Agrippina is a fantastic opera with so many great tunes. It’s a bit of a shame that the trumpets do not have more to play, but we were glad that Handel had included trumpets at all. I have many happy memories of performing Agrippina with Les Talens Lyriques earlier this year and with Festspiel Orchester Göttingen in 2015 when we gave six full opera performances in the Deutsches Theatre in Göttingen. That means I have played this piece nine times now, which is undoubtedly more than I have repeatedly played any other Handel opera (let's not mention counting performances of Handel Oratorios!).

The performance was excellent, and it finished at around 2am! Christophe Rousset (director) was on great form, as were the soloists: Ann Hallenberg (Agrippina), Karina Gauvin (Poppea), Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Nerone), Christopher Lowrey (Ottone), Ashley Riches (Claudio), Kacper Szelążek (Narciso), Douglas Williams (Lesbo) and Etienne Bazola (Pallante). Bucharest was a fantastic city to visit and the Enescu Festival was astonishing in its quality and sheer number of consecutive and diverse performances.