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!