Contacting the pre-modern

The pre-modern era remains with us. The turnout for the Pocket Score Company at the High Court just confirms it. Not that it means we really understand it. We see the beautiful and aged buildings in Europe; we hear the glorious music and associate it with cathedrals. It’s a trivial example of our lack of understanding, but I remember the disappointment when Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling was restored as vivid colours.
It was similar with some of the music the PSC sang. We think of towering cathedrals and monks singing religious themes, but at least one equally beautiful song was downright bawdy and there was a love song from Abelard to Heloise. There was a song that depicted Parisian street with three parts that spoke over and above each other while musically entwined. Another song comprised lurid hints of debauchery with the male, a fine oarsman, singing his exploits and the female fretting about the size of the barge. But they were sung in various languages in various olde forms, so we could just ignore the words and luxuriate in the male voices. Which is what I mostly did: enjoying Ian’s deep bass with David’s countertenor and Paul and other David’s two tenors. Maybe it was just in some songs, but I loved it when the two tenors ranged high, so we had three males up high which just accentuated the pure and deep bass below. Otherwise, I couldn’t help but relish the intertwining lines of melody. They sometimes echoed between voices like in a round; other times they were sung like layered harmony with matching phrasing. For one tune, Ian accompanied with a gentle and billowing hand drum. And they presented well. They had started by walking the ramps into the performance area for Abelard’s chant, then the French street scene had singers moving from backstage to congregate at centre. Nice informative introductions, too. These are confident blokes singing olde music and it’s popular. I like it that we have this touch of mediaeval / renaissance Europe here in Canberra and it even fits the modern, concrete brutalist cathedral which is the High Court. Pocket Score Company are David Yardley (countertenor), David Mackay (tenor), Paul Eldon (tenor) and Ian Blake (bass). They performed at the High Court for the Canberra 100 Musical Offering.

A short history of Western music

So said David Mackay. He was welcoming a generous audience to a performance by the Coro chamber choir in the High Court foyer. It was another free concert for the Canberra 100 Musical Offerings series. Coro is a relatively new chamber choir formed by David and Paul Eldon. David mentioned there were some gaps in this history – 200 years and Bach and Handel missing in the Baroque years – but this was certainly a broad sweep of styles and beautifully performed. The voices merged mellifluously with gentle attacks for each note, the choristers were obviously listening with care and there were some particularly satisfying and identifiable voices. You heard individual voices in solos or feature lines, but also when the voice was aimed in your direction. This was not a large choir (11 on the day and fewer for several pieces) and it was laid out in a curved line fronting the audience. The space was generous. The High Court foyer is tall: cubic in form with intrusions of concrete stairways and ramps and some adjacent low ceilings, so the space is modern and irregular and clean and quite dry. It’s also spacious and dignified and sparsely decorated. Perfect for a modern chamber choir.

The concert started with Caritas abundant by Hildegard von Bingen: calm, meditative chant sung by male countertenor and four women. Then an original setting by David Yardley for an olde English lullaby with harp called Lullay, lullay litel child; Nigra sum sedis formosa by Tomas Luios de Victoria, sounding of classic cathedral choirs; an amorous love song from Jon Dowland called Come away, come, sweet love; and the interwoven melody of Zefira torna by Monteverdi. Then a jump from late-Renassance / early Baroque to classical. First Mozart’s Piu non si travano with counterpoint, then Mendelssohn’s Auf ihrem Grab with richer, bigger chords, and Vaughan-Williams sounding of sweet English country. Then into the twentieth century. Nils Lindberg’s settgign for Shakespeare’s connet, Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, introduced some chromatic movements and harmonies and sweeping melodic movements rather than contrapuntal interplay. Edward Higginbotham’s arrangement for O Waly, Waly was more individualist, starting with featured tenor then soprano voices. I particularly enjoyed the following tune by Eric Whiteacre and strained to catch the lyrics. This marriage was a tender and thoughtful but optimistic lyric, obviously written to be sung at a wedding. This was lovely and touching and contemporary. Then a final song by David Mackay, Mary-darkness, which was lightly dissonant with moving tones and dedicated to his wife.

It was a broad spectrum and I particularly enjoyed the more modern songs, I think because they have been less common at the choral concerts that I’ve attended. What a satisfying concert and competent choir. I’ll look forward to catching more from Coro. On the day, Coro were Gabriel Bieniek, Jane Haycock, Jo Johnstone (sopranos), Maartje Sevenster, David Yardley (altos), Paul Eldon, David Mackay, John Virgoe (tenors), Ian Blake, Andrew Fysh, Daniel Sanderson (basses).

Bawdy Chaucer

I had expected David Yardley and his male vocal quartet called Pocket Score Company to be on stage for the launch of his new CD, so I was taken aback when a stream of twenty of so singers entered from the back of the delightfully pure-sounding Wesley Music Centre singing away in bawdy, rowdy mediaeval style. The CD is a collection of songs from the era of Chaucer called New carols and songs for Chaucer’s pilgrims. As David explained, we still have the words of these songs, but we no longer have the music. So David wrote it, and it is grand. Those earthy, muscular sounds of mediaeval voices in full flight. Those dutiful, faithful sounds of mediaeval believers. Those bawdy, joyful sounds of them rousing in inns. Those half-understood sounds of olde English. All accompanied by naught but a bodhrán played with fingers. David walked us through the tunes, through the background, through his experiences studying with Tobias Cole and singing in Jesus College, Cambridge, as well as several Sydney choirs. The music is true to the era although not an attempt at recreation. The words are original, selected from The early English carols / Richard Leighton Greene (Oxford : Clarendon, 1935). We heard a selection. The first and last were sung in ambulation by the Pocket Score Co with visitors and the Canberra Youth Choir. They were a doomsday carol and a drinking song: suitable matters for walking. The others were sung by smaller groups of about 6 singers. They were two Christmas carols and a wartime/political carol. They were variously uplifting or bawdy but always lively with the immediate humanity of this era (as we imagine it). We all followed the ambulating singers out to purchase our CDs and imbibe mead and ale (brewed specially in a style of the era by the Baines Brewery). This was loud and proud music very convincingly sung, both live and on CD. I’m listening to it now. What a Canberra gem!

David Yardley (countertenor, composer) wrote sympathetic music to the original words of mediaeval songs for his new CD. He performed several at the CD’s launch at the Wesley Music Centre. Singers included the Pocket Score Company with David Yardley (countertenor), David Mackay (tenor), Paul Eldon (tenor) and Ian Blake (bass), some invited singers (that I can’t name) and the Canberra Youth Choir.

Bassoons & tarogato, everyday for CJ

It was a very different sound experience for me. I don’t often hear bassoon at close quarters, and I’d never even heard of a tarogato. But Niels had mentioned this to me, I’d got a Facebook invitation and it piqued my interest. It was nothing like what I’d expected, but then I really didn’t have expectations.

The session started with a Piazzola arrangement for bassoon, tarogato and soprano sax. I felt at home with this, especially with the bassoon playing what was essentially a bass line. Apparently, it was pretty much the baritone sax line from another arrangement. Then two Bach inventions for bassoon and tarogato. They were short but comfy enough. Then we started getting adventurous. Firstly, a difficult work in several movements by Ross Edwards called Ecstatic dances. The first movement was tarogato and soprano sax bouncing fast rising lines back and forth. Thereafter, some neat counterpoint. The Ross Edwards I’ve heard before sounds of the Bush, and, at least the first movement was nothing if not like flittering birds. Then another Ross Edwards called Water spirit song, this time on solo bassoon. Bassoons don’t lend themselves to bird flight, but this was bouncy to some degree, although more of an inquisitive animal than birdsong. Then two compositions by Ian Blake. The first was bassoon and female vocals (both by Zoey Pepper). Zoey had previously multitracked layers of voices and bassoons, against which she performed live bassoon and vocal parts. I had trouble with the balance and the recording didn’t match the purity of the live sounds. Also, I know no German, so the Rilke poetry just flew by me, as did the underlying story of Orpheus and Euridice. But some of the vocal work was particularly beautiful and I found it an eye-opener to the modern possibilities of echo and tracking and effects. I know of all this, of course, but to hear a classical acoustic instrument next to richly effected recorded instruments and voices obviates the new sonic possibilities we now have to play with. Then another Ian Blake composition for bassoon and tarogato. The concert ended with more modern effects: Col on effected percussion and Miro on trumpet improvising with tarogato.

Sound Bites were performed by Zoey Pepper (bassoon), Ian Blake (feature composer; soprano saxophone), Nicole Canham (tarogato; clarinet), Niels Rosendahl (soprano saxophone), Miroslav Bukovsky (trumpet) and Col Hoorweg (e-percussion). And in case you’re still wondering, a tarogato is a Hungarian wooden wind instrument with conical bore using a single reed, and sounding somewhere between a soprano sax and an English horn.

This is CJBlog post no. 500.