Clare’s Fag December
posted by Clare on Saturday, January 30th, 2010
December was quite a month for the little beans. We took on the elements and came out on top. Snowed in (or out) on all sides, against all the odds we had a full complement for every gig (though not for every rehearsal – that would make life too easy.)
We started with a concert in north Norfolk (how can anywhere that close to London on the map take that long to get there?) replacing the Hilliard Ensemble at just a few hours’ notice. Dowland songs, Tomkins, Warlock and Anna playing Debussy. An electic last-minute selection.
Then a planned visit to our favourite Radio 3 presenter, Sean Rafferty, for an appearance on In Tune. We presented a characteristically colourful Hollingworth mix of Poulenc, Hildegard of Bingen and Warlock, designed of course to entice the good Radio 3 listeners along to I Fagiolini’s Christmas Party, a week of events curated by Robert at King’s Place, the fabulous new venue near King’s Cross.
Our first concert took the audience on a Christmas jolly around Europe, highlights being a staging of Senfl’s Swiss clocktower chime (terrifying – all too easy to Gling when you should be Glang-ing) [click here and see this at the bottom of this page], a new and tricky Flecha ensalada (you should have seen our faces when Robert said in rehearsal, ‘I’ve thought of some little theatrical bits we can add on to make this more interesting,’) and Roddy Williams’ cheeky The Twelve Days After Christmas (Anna: ‘Actually, I kept one of the drummers…’) Robert compèred in his own particular…. idiom, and Eamonn spoke beautifully about Warlock. Afterwards we were treated to champagne by Peter Millican (note to RH: Anna and I were not the only ones drinking it. I rest my case.)
Friday saw a repeat of this programme in Ludlow’s Assembly Rooms. The acoustic, the lighting, depleted energy levels, icy roads and a mountain of fish and chips joined rather formidable forces against us, but did not quite prevail. Anna drove us all the way there and back brilliantly, and we played two memorable rounds of ‘the dictionary game’ [come on Clare, own up, it was ’Obscene Dictionary’ – Ed] on the way home (despite a rather disquieting phone call from Nick, driving separately to Stansted through the snow: ‘Clara, I’m sleepy – can you keep me awake, please?’) And I got to stay at the director’s house afterwards.
Rather then the cork-popping, cake-eating extravaganza you’d naturally expect where the Fag are concerned, my top event of the Christmas Party, Intimate Bach, started rather with a whimper – in the form of an unexpected morning off – when Robert discovered that the previous night, the plane containing Barokksolistene had given up trying to take off from snowy Copenhagen after four hours on the runway. Cue panicky phone calls, diary rearrangements, and a (not unwelcome) bit of extra practice time for us – not so for the poor players, who eventually arrived at lunch time after a sleepless night to plunge straight into the rigours of this awe- (and therefore obviously fear-) inspiring programme sandwiching the G minor Lutheran Mass and Telemann’s Concerto Polonaise in G major between two cantatas, 57 and 81. (For those of you who, like me, can’t put a title to every BWV number just yet, that’s Selig ist der Mann and Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?) From the first chord, as we sat in a circle in a cramped little King’s Place studio several storeys underground, we were totally seduced by the magical combination of Bach and Barokksolistene – who play with not only a deep passion for the music but with an amazing directness of emotion. Singing with them is like having a delightful and fascinating, fun and intense conversation, as points of imitation, combined and contrasted in that heart-twisting way that can only be Bach’s, are passed around the room with smiles. One of those times when you think, ’THIS is what it’s all about!’ Most-notes-of-the-evening prize must go jointly to violinist and director Bjarte Eike, who, after his travel nightmares, may briefly have regretted choosing the cantatas with the most virtuosic violin solos he could find, but pulled them off with his inimitable charm and poise; and to Eamonn, whose flawless coloratura in his incredibly difficult arias left the rest of us stunned (and green with envy).
After this, it was just a small matter of the first three cantatas of the Christmas Oratorio in Oslo (2 per part), a kind return invitation from the Barokksolistene. Most of our party were on a silly o’clock flight from Gatwick which was delayed by two hours because of snow in London (no problems in Oslo, of course, despite plenty of snow there) but I was lucky enough to be flying out of Heathrow two hours later, so we all arrived in Oslo at the same time. You win some, you lose some… I’m sure they’ll forgive me in the end. Like most singers at the end of December, we were struggling by this stage and the cracks started to show: a score left on the plane, a rucksack full of valuables abandoned on a station platform, glasses forgotten, a concert dress locked in a hotel room (you know who you are. Ahem.)
Sammy had been even less lucky with his travel, and was diverted all over Europe from his starting point (in Spain) before he finally got to us half way through the rehearsal. Undaunted, he Evangelised, as he always does, with deep commitment and beauty of tone. This pair of gigs (we did it twice in one evening) has to go down as one of the musical high points of my 2009. Anna and Julia were a real soprano dream team (a rare treat, to have them both at once). Nick scampered with impressive ease through Frohe Hirten. The Barokksolistene gave us the same magical energetic lift as they had in London. For me, singing Schlafe, mein liebster with the wonderfully sensitive Torun on flute, and Schließe, mein Herze with Bjarte was a particular honour and joy.
While poor Robert and Bjarte cleaned the church and washed up, the rest of us found an Irish pub where there was just space to squeeze in, and sat in a rather bedraggled heap while the place filled up with gorgeous young supermodel-alikes in suits and designer dresses. I asked one of the besuited chaps why they were all so dressed up. His answer: ‘This is Oslo – we can afford it, so why not?’ I was quite happy curling up again in the corner with my fabulous Bach-playing-and-singing friends. I wouldn’t swap my job for all the money in the world.
Clare Wilkinson
