A musical update

 There have been several blog posts buzzing in my head, but this musical one has come up first  because of a wonderful Prom broadcast of the St John Passion recently.  You still have a couple of weeks to hear this on BBC Sounds if you wish.

The St John has been at the heart of my musical life since I was 20, a student at UEA with the fortune to have got to know Philip Ledger who conducted our choir with Peter Pears as Evangelist and I think Robert Tear too.  Later the Bach choir I sang with here in France performed the Passion with local soloists including my friend Fraech as Evangelist. This Prom performance was wonderful - Suziki has an astonishing way of getting the choir to speak text, even in chorales.

My life as a singer has drawn to a gentle close - truth to tell I was always too lazy to develop the technique I really needed, allowing sight-readiing ability to substitute for enough solid practice.  But after nearly 70 years (I began with local solo competitions at the age of 9) I can happily claim to have enjoyed many marvellous experiences, singing in choirs large and small and from time to time as a soloist.  I have worked with remarkable musicians - apart from Mary who accompanied me often in Schubert and more, and conducted the choir in Wirksworth for several years (a highlight in Wirksworth was Britten's St Nicholas), there was Tony Milledge with the Canonbury Chamber Choir in London.  My musical life was also greatly enriched by early music with Emma Kirkby and Evelyn Tubb (with whom I sang in a quintet doing Dowland for a while in my 20s) and later witnessed Vivien Ellis's first encounters with early music - she remains a close friend and inspiration.

In France there has been David Austin with the Chorale Franglaise here in Lunel, my lovely friends in Ochoeur (an octet of 7 since I usually was the only tenor), with whom I enjoyed several years of Christmas music in local protestant chapels.  I've worked with singing teacher Christian Buono, with the multi-talented Stéphane Fauth whose musical summer weeks in the Ain were initially for Mary but where I attended as a 'groupie', sharing driving and accompanying our dogs, but ended up singing with the chamber groups in arrangemenets Stéphane had made of everything from Stephen Foster to Vaughan Williams.  

Most recently here in France our friend Kamala Calderoni, a wonderful soprano who has ended up conducting BaBach, but was also my singing teacher for a while.  Through her I got to take part in performances as diverse as Purcell's The Fairy Queen (with large chunks of Shakespeare mixed in) in an ancient building in Montpellier, and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore in a casino in La Grande Motte..  And then there was Monteverdi's L'incoronazione de Poppea, some of the most divine music given to some very unsavoury characters in Poppea herself and Nero.  Leaving the choir has been difficult, not least for me because I found I no longer had the ability to keep up in polychoral pieces, but also because it seemed as if I was letting others down.  But my presence could not have helped the choir when I could no longer hold the line; and amazingly there are more tenors in BaBach now than ever.

I have also enjoyed (and shall probably still enjoy) recorder playing, especially here in France with our friends Charles Whitfield and Pierre Bonniffet and of course Mary playing cello continuo.  I have a collection of underplayed recorders of all sizes (from garklein Flötlein  to bass) which I must revive a little.  Alongside this, over my adult life there has been a revolution in quality and availablility of recorded music.  listening to wonderful singers like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Janet Baker, Cecilia Bartoli, Sarah Connolly and many, many others.  Their amazing technical and artistic talent is at once daunting for me if I thought of continuing to sing myself, but also an inspiration and delight in our daily lives via radio and recordings.

Musical ornament at the Val du Séran

Live music

 My posts in this music blog are rare.  We listen a lot, mainly to BBC Radio 3 (thankfully still free on the internet though I'd willingly pay, as I would for tv on the i-Player).  But my contact with live performances is getting less frequent.  After last night's excellent outing I regret that.

The little village of Mus, just over the Gard border, has an annual chamber music festival in a beautifully restored Temple (protestant chapel).  A few years ago we went to a performance of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the animals, but since then nothing there has caught our attention until this year.  But Mary (who spent lots of time turning pages for a pianist in her late teens/20s) particularly wanted to go to this concert.

The young performers were brilliant.  Mary thought I would enjoy the Ravel less than the Schubert, but I realised that you can appreciate late 19th century music as parallel to impressionist painting, so I found the whole concert well worth going out for.

After 60+ years of choral singing I think my singing days are nearing an end.  I have spent much of my time in France as virtually the only tenor in choirs of varying sizes, and it's ironic that I should decide to withdraw just when the choir B.a.Bach has more tenors than I've ever known around me.  But on the other hand, at least there are some, and circumstances made the latest concerts almost impossible for me - illness, travel problems but above all a quite unexpected new difficulty for me in finding my way in complex (8-part) music.  all contributed to my decision to quit while I'm ahead.

But music is a huge part of my life as it is of Mary's, and I'm frrequently full of admiration of her dedication to the cello.  She is still regularly involved in groups, and has lessons with a good teacher, in the music school  in Vauvert.

One of our pleasures lately has been to organise opera evenings, in our living room with a large tv and DVDs.  Not frequent, but always very enjoyable, with two halves of music separated by a shared meal with a few friends.  Last year we saw a Glyndebourne production of The Marriage of Figaro, and next week we'll enjoy another Glyndebourne production, of Handel's Julius Caesar in Egypt, with an outstanding cast including Sarah Connolly as JC and Angelica Kirschlager as Sesto among a number of trouser roles, and Danielle de Niese as a wonderful Cleopatra.  The discs come with subtitles in French if needed, though so far our small audiences have been content with English!

Bach is back

 I try and write regularly in the general blog, but wine and music (this one) are usually neglected.  But I'm inspired by our latest concert in the village of Sain Jean du Gard, in the foothills of the Cevennes, to provide a brief update on my musical life, and Mary's.

B.a.Bach is the choir I joined over 10 years ago, which does 'what it says on the tin', i.e. sings (almost only) the works of J.S.Bach. We have recently moved onto a new conductor, my friend and (for some time) singing teacher Kamala Calderoni who many in the choir had known for some time as soprano soloist.  Like other choral conductors I've been lucky enough to know, she is very keen on teaching us all to sing, as well of course as producing good music; as it turns out she is also good at keeping us cheerful - there is humour alongside the serious business of accurate expressive singing.

during our concert in the Temple of St Jean du Gard

 

 

 

 

 

But much of Bach's choral music needs high quality orchestral accompaniment, and so concerts can cost a lot.  Like the Canonbury Chamber Choir with which I sang in London, we work with players of baroque instruments so there are no shortcuts, and although we are lucky in this area to have excellent players on hand, we are often short of money to pay them.  No easy solutions, and to my mind you cannot get far in Bach choral music without brass and woodwind, so we are looking for sponsorhip.

Music has more or less stopped for the summer for both of us - my last choir rehearsal was a couple of weeks ago.  We are just beginning work on the motet Jesu meine Freude, which I've sung several times over the years.

Tom Service is so often an inspiration in his explorations of music on the BBC the Listening Service, and his piece on Thomas Tallis's Spem in Allium is no exception. We listen to BBC radio 3 a lot (over the internet) with good sould from our Bluetooth speakers, but thanks to friends here I have also discovered the Sunday morning Bach on France Musique.  So the hot summer days pass lazily on!

Signs of life

 

As I start this post, Mary is practising the cello downstairs.  This has been one of the most constant musical sounds of the past 18 months here, and it is particularly noteworthy (no pun intended) since she has little to sustain her efforts beyond her own interest and commitment.  Lessons and chamber music are about to start again in Vauvert.  Meanwhile, the Bach choir I belong to is also struggling to emerge from the difficulties of Covid, which has created difficulties in rehearsals as well as leading to the postponement or cancellation of many concerts (as of course it has for almost every musician from amateurs like us to the top professionals.  The choir will need a lot of luck and effort if we are to continue.

But last weekend we went to an excellent concert, our first live for many months.  Our friends Karen and François-Xavier are baroque specialists but with a very broad spectrum of interests and repertoire, and their programme with the Sétois singer Max was of the chansons of Georges Brassens.  His music needs little introduction for French people, especially those from this part of the south of France where his name is familiar from many local concert buildings including the Salle Georges Brassens in Lunel.  In short, his words and music are part of the everyday ability to sing along for locals, but we know it far less well.  However, he combines attractive memorable tunes with a rich popular poetry, and combination of well-turned phrases and an earthy side.

Our friends, and their excellent singer, added a very individual touch to the already appealing music  by their choice of baroque instrumentation and by the combination of instrumental interludes from the baroque repertoire which blended seamlessly with the songs.  On a beautiful September evening in a recital room in the impressive château in Lavérune the effect as the sun went down was really impressive and enjoyable.  But despite our improving grasp of the French language we found it hard to catch the often allusive language of the songs, and I'm looking forward to searching out the words and re-listening to songs which some of our neighbours were humming under their breath as they listened, so familiar are they!

Music continues to provide a daily backdrop to our lives through the medium of recordings, whether broadcast of on other media.  Not the kind of music usually referred to in quizzes like Pointless which we watch regularly on BBC tv (competitors regularly score well in music round which leave us clueless), but the wide world of  'classical' music, particularly baroque and early 19th century music which has been the ostinato of our musical lives for 50 years.  We look forward to more opportunities to play chamber music with friends as we often used to do, and meanwhile Mary's cello takes her into a rather wider repertoire of romantic music and opera as part of the groups she plays in.  We are very lucky, even now, to have access to good music to listen to - we hope the opportunities to play and sing will gradually re-emerge.  The dogs sit patiently through it all in the sunshine!

Spring harmonies

 

Mary is practising the cello often as I start this post.  As I said last time, she has been pleased to be involved as a stand-in teacher for some of the younger pupils of her cello teacher (who had time off for an operation) at the Vauvert music school, with the added bonus of being paid for the few sessions that have been possible during these locked down times – that school is among many in the arts who are frustrated that they are still going to be restricted even when ordinary lycées and collèges are reopening.  But Mary has really enjoyed the encounters with young people.  The pictures below are from  a little concert we did in the garden of our friends Pierre & Charles over 10 years, one of many recitals we enjoyed with them in the early part of our time in France.  We have not seen them for a while, but I listen daily to the recordings of Corelli trio sonatas that we play in the car.

We have as usual been listening to a lot of recordings and broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and elsewhere.  Thanks to weird goings on R 3 early on Saturday mornings (experimental apparently, not to my taste anyway)  I’ve taken to recording the night time broadcasts which frequently have interesting concerts and whole work played through.  One such last weekend was a Scandinavian concert with with Marianne Beate Kielland singing Schubert Songs with orchestral accompaniments (these are after the Sibelius, about 11 minutes in near the beginning of this concert).  This was a great pleasure: songs I knew well but with a singer but in arrangements I’d not have stumbled across but for the accident of avoiding other things.

A few years ago, at the beautiful countryside setting Val du Séran, home of Stéphane and Chantal Fauth I sang the Vaughan Williams cycle On Wenlock Edge, settings of 6 poems from A A Housman's collection A Shropshire lad.  Last week we heard arrangements of some of these poems by another English composer and poet  Ivor Gurney.  The full setting (like the Vaughan Williams) is for tenor voice, piano and string quartet but there is a version just for voice and piano.  Gurney's is a troubled story, plagued by mental ill-health, confined in an asylum and rejected by many because of his illness, but Vaughan Williams apparently valued his work and visited him a number of times.  I was taken with these settings and, perhaps optimistically, hope I might one day sing them.

The percussionist Fang Zhang has won the delayed BBC Young Musician 2020, playing incredibly movingly and sensitively on the marimba.  We have long been fans of the competition and followed several of the biennial contests, watching and listening to so many wonderful young performers who have now become well-known, established musicians.  It has been derided by some, but we realise now that our view of 'music' is simply different from that of many people - we are clueless about most of the popular names that regularly crop up in the music rounds of quiz shows like Pointless as many of those competitors, and some of our friends, are about our taste in 'classical' music.  We always at least try to keep an open mind!  Anyway, this year's Young Musician final also included a french horn player and an  oboist, both very fine performances but simply overwhelmed by the brilliance of the marimba.  We were delighted to find that all three of the modern pieces played in the Final were interesting and approachable.

As I write I am about to go to the first choir rehearsal for some time.  In normal times we have performed 2 or 3 Bach concerts each year, with small instrumental ensembles.  Happily there are good musicians and vocal soloists specialising in the baroque, and I've just come across this group, Ensemble Arianna in Montpellier - the bass player and others in the video has often played with our choir.

A photo of a choir performance two or three years ago

I'm reminded often of great musicians and groups which were part of my musical upbringing, one of them the Amadeus string quartet.  Amadeus, one of Mozart's names,  is derived from the Latin words ama – the imperative of the word amare (to love) – and deus (god), so it means literally "love god".  I realised recently that the German equivalent is Gottlieb, and Habibullah (Arabic) and Theophilus (Greek) have similar roots.

As my broken arm has healed I've been able to get back to a little recorder playing, although numb fingers still make playing slightly hit and miss.  But since Mary is practising a 2-cello arrangement of one of Bach's 2-part Inventions to work on with her teacher, I've arranged two of them to play with recorder and cello.  The originals were for keyboard.  I'm frustrated that the sheet music editor called Music Publisher produced by a nice man in Scotland for many years is now obsolete, and I have not found a good replacement.  I shall keep looking!

over 10 years ago now, when we gave a recital of songs to accompany a lecture on Darwin in the Cevennes

And finally, in these times when live audiences at concerts are rare, a little story from a book I read with great enjoyment "In October 1940 Marjorie Redman was enjoying a lunchtime concert given by the Stratton Quartet at the National Gallery. In the middle came an unexpected crescendo: a bomb on a delay fuse exploded. Some of the audience leapt up in alarm – but the quartet played on as though nothing had happened. ‘People not only subside,’ writes Redman in her diary, ‘but several by the door say “Sssshhh!” as if someone had talked in the slow movement of Eroica.’ There is something absurd and wonderful about a music-lover warning a high-explosive bomb to shut up. Even Canute only attempted to lecture the sea." (from The Secret History of the Blitz,  by Joshua Levine)

Listening in lockdown

some Easter flowers

We’re amateur musicians.  We enjoy playing and (in my case) singing, but giving concerts, performing in public, is not a high priority for us.  But this period of uncertainty has left us frequent disappointments, when the rare chances we might have to play music with friends (we have a group of 4, 2 couples, which used to get together playing baroque trio sonatas) are cancelled again and again because of Covid.  Sadly I think our next date later in April will be added to the cancellation list.

All the same, Mary has been pleased and touched to be asked to help out at the Vauvert music school where she has her cello lessons.  Her teacher is unwell, and M has been asked to stand in for her working with individual young pupils.  Even without Covid it would only have been for a short time, and the latest lockdown measures curtail it even more, but it is both an unexpected extra thing to do, more variety, but at the same time a bit daunting.  Tomorrow’s will be the last session for now, but she’ll be back later in April to complete the lessons, around 20 young people of varying abilities over two days a week normally.  Of course, whatever her qualities as a cellist her experience as a teacher and musician means that she has things to offer and she has enjoyed meeting the pupils so far.  Meanwhile my choir in Montpellier is postpones again and again, and the various schemes that have been suggested for sectional rehearsals don’t seem to me to be very useful even when they were allowed.

soprano and flute, following Jesus to the cross

All of which leaves us with the alternatives of listening to radio and recordings.  To be honest, these days that attracts me more than performing, and there are plenty of inspirational things to listen to.  At Easter there are of course Bach Passions on offer, and while Mary was out meeting her pupils on Wednesday I listened to a broadcast of the St Matthew Passion which I don’t know very well, a Dutch performance with beautiful singing and playing, particularly a lovely tenor evangelist.  The 3 hours’ music took me through mundane morning chores and past lunch too!  Listening is more practical in combination with other simple tasks – you aren’t glued to a screen, and so can listen as you potter about.  I’ve enjoyed the more flexible opportunities available through podcasts and ‘catch-up’ radio, especially since we’ve acquired high-quality wireless (Bluetooth) speakers.

 This Easter Sunday, we played a lovely tv programme of excepts from the Messiah from English National Opera at the Coliseum.  Marvellous soloists, including Iestyn Davies whom we heard live in Handel, Saul, at Glyndebourne.  The chorus and orchestra of the English National Opera, including wonderful valveless trumpets, were spread right across the auditorium, which turns out to have a very good acoustic when empty - never of course heard like that except in these odd times.  But singing and playing widely spaced like that must have been a great challenge, successfully surmounted.  And we also played the Easter service from King's College Cambridge - as at Christmas the tenors and basses of the choir were replaced by the Kings Singers, who blended well with the boys' voices.

Inspirations - part 1

 

Illustrating a talk about Charles Darwin

As I began to write this, Mary was practising the cello downstairs.  She used to accompany me often on the piano, but these days most of her energies are directed towards the cello.  Practising is vital for musicians.  It it's not always easy to listen to, but I can honestly say it is a pleasure to hear her, not only because there are a lot of really nice sounds coming from her bow but because I can hear the improvement over weeks and months and indeed years.  I cannot even imagine being able to play a stringed instrument in tune (it is 60 years since I put aside the short-lived attempts I made to learn the viola) let alone musically as Mary does.  I am a lazy musician so rely on whatever passes for talent in my singing and recorder playing - not nearly enough practice, so I stand no chance at getting anywhere near perfection.

But although she has a few opportunities to play with other musicians just now, Mary shows a determination which is shared by amateurs like us all the way up to the best professionals.  In our heart of hearts we know that only a lot of practice leads to the wonderful music we so much like to listen to. Listening as we do every day to music on radio and on recordings, I have been marking out the musical influences which keep us going.  In another post I'll list some of the musicians and performances that inspire us, but first a few of the people who have contributed to my love of music at closer quarters.

Richard Sturge at his
wedding, long before we met

 Richard Sturge, music teacher at my secondary school and conductor of its   choirs, tried in vain to make a reasonable pianist of me, and I think gave me   every opportunity before admitting defeat (he did not often give up on pupils).    But he was an inspirational choral conductor, encouraged my singing (from a   joint solo moment in Rubbra as a 12-year old soprano onwards)  He has left me with memorable and indelible experiences, from the Verdi Requiem which was my first experience of a major choral work with soloists including Cynthia Glover and Winfred Brown, to the carol concerts our small choir did every December around Essex and in London, a repertoire which remains my favourite these many years later.  The boarding school I attended was not always happy for me, but its musical life (a touch unlikely in a Quaker school) was wonderful thanks largely to him.                                                                                                                                

At university I was supposed to be a chemistry student but took every opportunity to listen to music and
to sing, and again recall whole chunks of the major works we performed there, including Dido & Aeneas, a staged version of Handel's Saul, and Bach's St John Passion  All three have continued to play important parts in my musical life over the intervening 55 years.  Much of the credit for this part of my musical inspiration must go to Philip Ledger, taking the helm of the embryo music department at UEA and already a key part of the English Opera Group but still on the way to the the height of his distinguished career.  I feel proud to have known him and worked with him as a chorus member, and to have had the privilege of signing Bach in one performance with Peter Pears as Evangelist.

Much later in my life in my 40s, I encountered Joan Robinson.  I had been attracted to a group called the London Lieder Group which met in NW London, under the inspiration of a slightly eccentric man called Leslie Minchin, an enthusiast for translating lieder into English (I always sing the texts in German except the few Shakespeare and Walter Scott ones which fit well in English) - copies of his books on Schubert and Schumann are still on sale.  There I met a Joan, who spent her life (when not teaching piano to earn a crust) playing Schubert accompaniments (and, I later discovered, music hall songs!).  She was an exceptional accompanist and we worked together for nearly a decade.  We did numerous recital weekends, concerts and two Edinburgh Fringe weeks (in the days when you could do those as good amateurs).  I learnt an immeasurable amount from her about Schubert song, and sang with her  nearly 150 of the 600+ he wrote.  She died too young, and I belatedly realised that she like me had suffered from depression over many years - a wonderful Schubertian role model.

Tony Milledge (like most here now sadly deceased) became a friend in the 1980s, and I joined his
Canonbury Chamber Choir for several years until I moved to Derbyshire.  Nearly everyone in the choir was expected to contribute as a soloist, and my memorable moment was singing the soprano/tenor duet from the B minor mass with Alison Liney, as well as singing alongside Mike Hutchinson whose splendid tenor solo career continued for many years after I left.  Their St John Passion with Mike as Evengelist still remains in my memory, alongside the performance I was involved in here in France in the chorale BaBach with Fraech Haicied as Evangelist.

I go further back in mu musical memory to recall Ruth Liebrecht, whose weekly Tuesday evening recorder groups were so important in my musical education.  It was there that I learnt much I still carry with me of the renaissance consort repertoire, and there also that I stumbled across the world of early music and Musica Reservata, Michael Morrow's pioneering group which rehearsed in Ruth and Heinz's house.  I still think of Ruth as, in a sense, my 'second mother', thankful to have been given a lodging there over many years and proud still to be in touch with their son Uri whose translations of German lieder texts are widely valued.  The recorder playing I began there in my early 20s were the foundation for me of 50 years playing renaissance consort music.

Which brings me finally to Walter Bergmann.  We still have the descant recorder on which our son already too briefly tried to master the instrument with Walter's help at his Belsize Square home, but his inspiration on SRP summer schools was manifold, among other things in the moments when Mary and I meet and got together.  Walter lived round the corner from my temporary lodging in Belsize Square, and he as a pioneer in editing, publishing and playing early music.  I will never forget the way he seized and tore up photocopies students had brought to his classes - apart from his inspiration as a musician, he was a lawyer by origin and so knew the importance of copyright for people like him who earned their living by editing and publishing early music.

Playing recorders in Anduze - Association des musiciens amateurs