One good friday

It's Good Friday and I'm pretty free except to attend some music later in the day.  I turn on ABCRN and the morning program is for Easter, all contemporary Christianity and historical Jesus.  Then just one piece of music, and what a coincidence!  I recognised it as Antonio Lotti Crucifixus a 8.  Sung by The Choir of King's College Cambridge.  A coincidence because we had two singers from this choir staying with us one CIMF, but mainly because it's the tune I chose to end my latest album, The Pots sky vs weather.  My take is midi with a nice sampled choir and church organ with some cathedral reverb.  It was inherently satisfyingly beautiful so I left it without further complexities.  Of course, the real voices were better and featured words with meaning, and the arrangement was longer and slower, but nice to find the coincidence.  The music we were to hear in the afternoon was Scarlatti Stabat Mater dolorosa with an introduction of Nicola Porpora Rigate lacrimis.  Clara had asked it not be recorded, as it was not formally a concert but a religious event.  OK.  But another coincidence.  It was a rainy day, and coming up to the start at 3pm we heard thunder.  I checked the timing of Christ's death on the cross.  Apparently the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Luke, Mark) suggests crucifixion at 9am, darkness at noon and death at 3pm.  There's a conflict with John's gospel but I didn't follow it up too closely.*  I'm not superstitious or religious, so I can easily accept a coincidence as just that, but it was amusing, if this topic can be.  Then the music.  There was a cross out front on the altar with two candles, a request for silence, a female priest narrating (given my Catholic background, this remains notable), a string of musicians along the back wall of the altar.  Organ, cello, two vocals, two violins.  Interestingly, a full female retinue.  The Porpora was fairly short; the Scarlatti longish, ~50mins in 20 short movements, each with a three line theme introduced by the priest and sung by the singers.  I love this era, ordered and contrapuntal, even somewhat joyous, but I found the context quite strange.  Isn't this Good Friday, memorialising the crucifixion?  The words seemed oddly contrasting with the emotions of the music.  And as for picturing a distraught mother at the foot of a son dying in pain, it seemed fully implausible.  But then I am not of the era and don't have this worldview.  You could also consider it the opportunity for salivation so a thing of joy.  All difficult arguments, but the music was lovely. 

Scarlatti and Popora were performed at St Pauls Manuka on Good Friday by Greta Claringbould (soprano, canto), Maartje Sevenster (alto), Lauren David and Michelle Higgs (violins), Clara Teniswood (cello) and Ariana Odermatt (organ) with Rev. Sandie Kane (priest, narrator).

Compare takes on Antonio Lotti Crucifixus a 8 >
The Pots sky vs weather   /   Choir of Kings College  Cambridge

* What time was Jesus crucified?

Clavicytheria and more

The clavicytherium was sitting on the edge of the stage and featured between tunes, but the real star of the day was Pierre Gillier Livres d'airs et de simplonies mélez de quelques fragmens d'opera. Sarahlouise, Lauren and Ariana gathered to perform this recently recovered collection of songs from the French baroque era (1697), This is a work of history by local academic Kathleen Gerrard who unearthed the manuscript in the vaults of the Versailles music library and has recently published the definitive text. Gillier was a student of Lully, and here produced a string of works of amusement to the aristocracy or perhaps the developing bourgeoisie, rich in stories of love and animals and references to classical mythology. It's all rather out of time for us, but fascinating and pleasurable and laugh-inducing at times with the accompanying translated texts. The trio did it great justice, Sarahlouise emoting as only a singer does; Ariana hard at work throughout but gentle on the soft harpsichord; Lauren sitting out the songs but taking book-ending and intervening pieces with her baroque bow and easy gamboling cadence. And Ariana intervened at one stage to introduce this new Wesley instrument, the clavicytherium: an old and now rare instrument, recreated in this copy, luscious with its carvings on the subject of St George and playing somewhat like a harpsichord, strings plucked. It's missing some strings and even that replacement is a slow task, but maybe we can expect a Wesley outing sometime. A lovely historical but intellectually-informed concert.

Sarahlouise Owens (soprano), Lauren David (violin) and Ariana Odermatt (harpsichord) performed Gillier and Rameau at Wesley. The Gillier was recently un-earthed from Versaille and published in a definitive edition by Kathleen Gerrard.