Berberis' World

Wednesday, 29th December 2010, Barbican Hall.

For a concert venue – at least from the performer’s perspective – the Barbican Hall is tiny. With the majority of the 1900+ seats filled, putting 120 singers (members of both the London Philharmonic Choir and the Royal Choral Society) behind a large orchestra (the Royal Philharmonic), the place soon becomes almost uncomfortably hot. As we sat listening to the first 4 movements, I occasionally felt a waft of cool air coming from somewhere above me, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

I only managed to get to the rehearsal on time due to a chance meeting on the escalator at Moorgate, and was hot and bothered by the time I reached the dressing room. The Barbican Centre is perhaps the most magnificent example of why every single building that is erected these days is 99% glass. A thousand psychotic rabbits on crack could not construct anything quite so ridiculously dark and complicatedly un-navigable.

Once we’d worked out the seating arrangements (always a nightmare) and the RPO had tuned up, Christopher Warren-Green came on stage with 3 of the 4 soloists (the bass soloist was missing, having probably taken a wrong staircase and found himself in the Library vault or the boiler room) and proceeded to conduct like a man possessed. Even the soloists had difficulty keeping up with him. He wanted it louder! nastier! uglier! sharper! and I just sat there and looked at him as his hair grew wilder and his arms threatened to fall off.

He was also wildly effusive in his praise of the music – at about 3′ 23″ (timings may vary) into the 4th movement, he demanded that the orchestra quieten down so that the bassoon could be heard playing (I paraphrase here) ‘the most perfect piece of contrapuntal music ever written’. I didn’t care that he might well say the same about every piece he conducts… at that moment, in the face of such passion, I believed him utterly.

In the 2 hours or so thumb-twiddling time before the concert (we weren’t allowed on stage for the first half) I had a long conversation with a couple of choir members about the vagaries of life, the therapeutic nature of singing, the unrelenting pressure of work, and the nightmare of re-auditions; discussion of all but the latter made me feel better. However, I subsumed my fears, ate my ham salad and put on the required ‘long and black’ as well as some not-required make up.

When I auditioned for the LPC, one of my goals – if not my only goal at that point – was to sing Brahms’s Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall. Well, I’ve done that. Everything else has been a wonderful and extremely enjoyable bonus. Having said that, I would definitely miss singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony every Xmas. For anyone who wants to know why it’s performed at this particular time of year, given that it;s not particularly seasonal, please go here. For anyone who wants to understand anything else about Beethoven, please go here.

However, I doubt that anything I could point you to on the internet would do justice to Maestro Warren-Green’s performance. I don’t think we’ve been directed with such ferocity since the closing moments of Dvorak’s ‘Stabat Mater’ in October. What was truly exhilarating was that Warren-Green sustained his fevered pitch for the entire symphony. It was certainly the quickest last movement I’ve ever sung. Indeed, as the final ‘GOOO-tter-FUNken’ was blasted off stage by an orchestra playing like the place was on fire, an alto in the front row fainted. Luckily, she fell backwards, and not into the horn section. To be honest, even if she had, I don’t think it would have stopped them.

Saturday, 30th October 2010, Royal Albert Hall.

Brace your lungs! Clear your throats! Lock your knees! Batten down your hatches! It’s Carmina Burana! BUT! Where are the Welsh Guards and their splendidly shiny horns? Where are the Fruit Pastilles? Why the hell am I sitting here?

In the midst of Westminster we are again in the Royal Albert Hall, with its crowded dressing rooms (‘Ladies of the LPC’ were in 9 instead of our usual 8: it’s the wrong way round, there’s no CCTV, the majority of the lockers don’t work, but they have more shower space) and its bizarrely hot basement corridors. Carl Orff’s musical weird-fest was (this time) performed by ‘400 voices in Monumental Harmony’ (in democratically alphabetical order) the English Concert Chorus, the London Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Choral Society, and the Southend Boys’ Choir.

I’ve sung this at least twice before (in November 2005 with Lewisham Choral Society and, in 2009, with the LPC) but it’s such an easy piece that I could almost sing it sans score, a là Beet9. My main problem? My eyes. I have reached that stage in life when my eyes no longer want to focus on anything either close to/somewhat removed/very far away from me. Contacts and reading glasses are no good, because the reading glasses are too narrow to allow me to look at both score and conductor simultaneously; I head-bob like a rabid pigeon. So I wear my normal specs and hope that repeated blinking doesn’t deposit too much mascara on the inside of the lens and render me blind.

(It’s 1.15am and, whilst I don’t have to be up especially early tomorrow, there are limits when you get to my age).

It took a dog’s age for everyone to line up in the right order. It’s not rocket science, chaps; you only have to remember who is sitting to one side of you. If we made everyone hold hands with the person on their right it would solve the problem instantly. Hmm. Somehow, I can’t see that happening…

My OU course started today. Having started (and abandoned, from lack of both time and money) a 10 point Arts course many years ago, I decided to have another go. I chose another 10 point course which is done almost entirely online, without the residential school requirement, called ‘Start listening to music’. Now, in common with arguably the entire world’s hearing population, I have been listening to music since I realised I could hear anything, so I had to admit that studying listening to music did seem fairly pointless. However, it has not escaped me – in writing this blog – that I occasionally have difficulty explaining why I like certain pieces of music and dislike others.

For instance, you may recall that I have – in earlier posts – expressed a dislike for Vivaldi’s Gloria and Cecilia McDowall’s Magnificat. Conversely, I love Bach’s B minor Mass and Eric Whitacre’s Lux Arumque. Presumably, this is because there is something in my brain which finds the former disagreeable to listen to but not the latter. If I had to explain it more thoroughly, I’d struggle. That much is abundantly clear.

And yes, there is a difference between listening and hearing. It sounds obvious when you say it like that, but it’s perhaps not so when you’re actually doing them. Hearing is what you do when the radio is on in the background at work, or in a shop, or driving a car. Listening is what you do when know you are not going to be interrupted, and you can turn the lights down low, relax in a comfy chair with maybe a glass of your favourite tipple.

I’ve also realised that listening to music is also going to require me to be more open-minded. I find it easy to dismiss, without much thought, not only just single bands (Kings of Leon, Florence and the Machine, Stereophonics) but also whole genres like jazz, rap and reggae. I could argue that I find the voices of the lead singers of the named bands particularly grating, and that the genres I’ve singled out produce nothing but the same tune (with or without words) time after time. This is patently untrue. You only have to go to Wikipedia to find that the entry for ‘Jazz’ includes Scott Joplin and Herbie Hancock, ‘Reggae’ names The Maytals (Toot-less and Toot-ed) and UB40, whilst that for ‘Rap’ is so peppered with names it’s impossible to single anyone out.

When (to be honest, it’s not a question of ‘if’) I’m accused of being narrow-minded, I counter with the argument that it’s not particular bands or genres that I like or dislike, it’s particular songs or melodies that move me. Perhaps it’s the ‘Desert Island Discs’ conundrum; in the unlikely event that I was asked to appear on that programme now, my 8 tracks would include ‘Hysteria’ by Muse, ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ from Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, ‘It Is Well With My Soul’ by Four Voices (a stunningly good barbershop quartet I literally stumbled upon on the intertubes), ‘Champagne Supernova’ by Oasis (reminds me of moving to Newcastle), something by Sting (‘Dream of the Blue Turtles’, ‘Mercury Falling’, ‘The Soul Cages’ and ‘Summoner’s Tales’ being but four from which it would be very difficult to pick only one song) and Stevie Wonder (and where to start with this man?). The last two would be difficult. ‘She Makes My Day’ by Robert Palmer, ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’ by Ella Fitzgerald, the 3^rd Movement of Rachmaninov’s 2^nd Piano Concerto… the list is very long and (I’d like to think) very diverse. Well, quite diverse. Still, as I’m not going to get Kirsty calling me up any time soon (any time at all, actually) I don’t have to worry about it.

Still, I am straying from the subject somewhat: yesterday’s Carmina Burana. Normally, I would take the bus (436, then the 9 or 10) but, as my other half decided (against type) to come and see the show, we drove into South Ken, finding a parking spot behind the RAH for £2.20 per hour. Sounds a lot, but… actually, it’s a lot. And they only took cards… Waylaid for only a moment by two cops on bikes, who reminded us of the dangers of leaving visible trinkets to tempt ne’er-do-wells we made our way to the not-so-round-as-you-might-think Albert Hall to enjoy Berlioz’s ‘Radetzky March’ and Saint-Saëns ‘Symphony No. 3 in C minor (Organ)’ before the epic Orff-ness in the 2^nd half.

And the wheel went round, and I felt that although we were louder than at the rehearsal, we traded something of the accuracy in places. The soprano was good, the baritone was very good, but tenor was superb, and played his part brilliantly, getting many laughs as he ended up prostrate in front of the organ seat until the end of the concert.

I hadn’t expected the Hall to be as full as it was – apparently, the concert was a sell-out – and the audience response was extremely enthusiastic. I felt quite emotional at the end, and (I’m told) that the biggest cheer of the night was for the combined adult choirs. I thought it was for the Southend Boys, but perhaps that’s just me.

I found out today (1^st November) that I should have done my re-audition at 12.20pm on Saturday. I have heard some nightmare stories about these – people I knew, and who I thought were good singers, have been rejected – and I’m not looking forward to having to go through the process at all. In the meanwhile, I have my copy of ‘Improve Your Sight Singing’  and I really should be reading that instead of writing this.

Saturday, 9th October 2010, Royal Festival Hall.

“Following their success last year with Dvorák’s ‘Requiem’… Neeme Järvi and the London Philharmonic presented two better-known choral works in this Royal Festival Hall concert. The moving ‘Stabat Mater’ and jubilant ‘Te Deum’… The London Philharmonic Chorus was on fine form, impressively unanimous in moments of both subtle intimacy and full-throated might… the magnificent a cappella passage at the end of the final chorus was spine-tingling.”

Graham Rogers, classicalsource.com

“…excellent, well-balanced choral work… a wonderful ‘Paradisi gloria’ and a miraculous unaccompanied choral moment near the end… The London Philharmonic Choir remains a superb group, working impressively as a single body at either end of the dynamic spectrum.”

Colin Clarke, musicweb-international.com

“Superbly drilled, the London Philharmonic Choir came into its own in the a cappella passages, but sang impressively throughout.”

Erica Jeal, guardian.co.uk

Better known, eh? Well, I’d not heard either of these pieces before, and it took a while for each of them to grow on me. In the end, I much preferred the Stabat Mater to the Te Deum, but my enjoyment (and the anticipation of savouring the wonderful lines of the opening movement) was somewhat spoiled by the fact that it was taken at what I considered to be an indecently fast tempo. Dvorak wrote the Stabat Mater during a relatively short period of time when three of his children died – one at only 2 days of age – and the opening movement should not (in my humble opinion) have been taken at a Usain Bolt-like breakneck speed.

Maestro Jarvi’s stated reason for proceeding with such alacrity was that the opening movement is ‘very long’ (between 17 and 20 minutes) and he didn’t want to “bore” the audience! The recording I’ve been listening to takes the opening at a slower – frankly, more respectful – tempo, which makes so much more sense against the background of Dvorak’s undoubted grief. For the sake of doing proper justice to some very moving music, I’d have risked one or two people possibly being bored. No, I’d have risked them all being bored in order that just one or two of them might hear the anguish, the aching poignancy contained in those bars.

But he is the Maestro, and he has the baton, and we follow it whether we like it or not. Anyway, after the sprint to Movement 2, things were allowed to calm down a bit. I particularly enjoyed both the ‘Eia, Mater’ and the ‘Virgo, Virginum’, although (once again) I was unlucky enough to catch something virulent in the run-up to the concert, which meant that I had a much better final rehearsal than performance. Just as well they recorded both.

The final movement is written to be played at the same tempo as the first. Thankfully, Jarvi took notice of the composer’s instructions and conducted it at a speed that I think both we (the choir) and the audience (at the receiving end) found more appropriate. At the very end, the unaccompanied ‘Quando corpus’ was less conducted than fought, with Jarvi clutching the baton with both hands, wielding it in the manner of Obi-Wan Kenobi battling Darth Vader. I almost expected lightning to shoot from it.

As usual, I ran out of breath at the worst moments, which just reinforces my belief that singing lessons would be a good idea. I think we managed to remember everything Neville had nagged us about – most importantly the fact that Maestro Jarvi could be ‘unpredictable’ in his interpretation – as he seemed quite happy at all three curtain calls.

Not to forget the Te Deum: it was quite Christmassy.

Saturday, 4th September 2010.

A friend of mine left London today, to go oop Nowath to teach. We joined the LPC at roughly the same time – I think I had my audition a week or two earlier – but only met properly just before the Xmas concert at Bishopsgate that same year. We got chatting in the corridor as we lined up before the concert, and I liked her straight away. She was clever and funny and, having felt a little out of my depth in this new musical environment, it was good to see a friendly face at rehearsals. We would sit at the back, generally enjoying ourselves as we worked through the piece.

We were always laughing at something; we’d rename pieces, draw cartoons, make up new words and, frankly, act like a couple of kids, to the disapproval of some of the more senior members of the choir. Elijah’s folded beard springs instantly to mind, as does ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ in front of 2000 or so clinical immunologists. We renamed it ‘Bobby Charlton’ and dared each other to sing that instead. It was a lot of fun, and I will miss that. Rehearsals for Dvorak start on Monday, and it’s going to be odd her not being there.

Still, things change, and it’s been a week of coming to terms with change. Zachary didn’t do well enough in his GCSEs to get into his 6th form of choice, so has had to rethink his immediate future. To his credit, he’s done this with only a little complaint; after a fraught few days, he took my advice and went to a local college, got himself through an interview and enrolled in just 2 days. He starts on Wednesday, and we’re hoping that it’s the wake-up call he needed after what appeared to us to be 12 months of complacency on his part. It was evident in his school work that he became either lazy or distracted just at the wrong time, and never really caught up. Perhaps concentrating on just one subject at college – rather than studying 3 for the sake of it at 6th form – will be more productive.

And both he and I will have to find someone new to sit next to.

Saturday, 20th February 2010, Royal Festival Hall.

“…inclusion of [The Eternal Gospel] this unwieldy yet absorbing hybrid of symphonic poem and cantata was welcome in view of its rarity… this setting of Jarosalv Vrchlick’s poem… has a fervency that came across strongly. It helped that Sofia Fomina was so eloquent in the lines allotted to the Angel, and if Adrian Thompson… was severely tested… his commitment was never in doubt. Neither was that of the London Philharmonic Choir, making for a gripping performance that was by some measure the highlight of the evening.”

Richard Whitehouse, Classical Source.“The Eternal Gospel was an unexpected success: no easy Bohemian lyricism here, either, but a blaze of ecstatic choral chant and terse instrumental motifs. The London Philharmonic Choir distinguished itself…”

Andrew Clark, FT.

“The London Philharmonic Choir brimmed with ardour…”

Geoff Brown, TimesOnline.

The positivity of these reviews is, in my opinion, generous, considering the breivity of the part played in this concert by the choir. It was very fortunate that we were on in the first half, because if I’d had to sit around for nearly 2 hours to sing for maybe 15 minues, I’d have been less than enthusiastic. As it was, this was not the most fun I’ve ever had in the Festival Hall.

The choral involvement in Eternal Gospel is minimal, as it is in Beethoven’s 9th, but the latter is almost the entirety of the final movement whereas, in the Janacek, it is spread throughout the piece, thus diluting (for me) its impact. There are two places where we got the chance to really let go, and neither seemed to do anything, or go anywhere.

Add to this unsatisfactory mix the Festival Hall’s organ and you have the ingredients for a short, and less than sweet, evening, about which there is very little more to say.