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.