If more people could feel they could sponsor a concert like the one given for Handley and Anne Stevens’ Ruby Wedding, where might not the Parish Church music go? We could even shut down the South Bank! It’s a thought – and maybe, a challenge.
It is not surprising that three of the composers in the Pepys Singers’ programme wrote for the human voice, as they had one at home, as it were. Verdi married Giuseppina Strepponi, an operatic soprano, whose voice was by then failing, as his second wife. Richard Strauss married another soprano, the battle- axe Pauline de Ahna, who, even when they were only engaged, thought nothing of throwing a score, with deadly aim, at his head at a rehearsal of one of his operas. The opera Guntram never took off, but, undaunted, Strauss married Pauline – and put their domestic squabbles into his opera Intermezzo. And, most modern of all, Monteverdi married a court singer, Claudia Cattaneo, at Mantua, where he was working, and we have her salary records, so we know she was a seventeenth century working Mum. [She died early, and he is said to have grieved greatly].
But music, ho! It was a nice touch that 40 singers celebrated 40 years of marriage. Charles Vignoles our conductor, said he would like to transport us to St Mark’s in Venice. All music, at least to some extent, reflects the spirit of its age, but the first pieces actually reflect a place, St Mark’s itself.
We began with Adoramus Te by Monteverdi. I must confess I am an unashamed Monteverdi groupie. So I was delighted. Monteverdi is sometimes still thought of as a composer of church music, such as the celebrated Vespers, but he wrote glorious madrigals, with prowling soldiers and dancing lovers, and superb operas – indeed the great duet for Nero and Poppea from L’Incoronazione di Poppea is one of the greatest outpourings of human passion ever written, without a surging orchestra or big top notes, in sight. [Even if Nero and Poppea were not exactly nice people!]
Adoramus Te demonstrated one of Monteverdi’s specialities – crunching chords, with the sopranos splintering off each other like icicles. The classic continuo of cello and chamber organ just underpinned it all. There is a sort of seductive melancholy which runs through all Monteverdi’s music, even in church, which surfaced here.
We then moved on to Cantate Domino. Venice was never averse to a jolly tune, and the Monteverdi of the madrigals peeps through. Monteverdi is always kind to his tenors, and gives them nice little flourishes and twiddles, and here the tenors were twiddling away like anything! These pieces could tax even the most experienced professional choir, but they went off excellently.
If ever there was a city for the Grand Occasion, Venice was it. Andrea Gabrieli’s Magnificat for Three Choirs, disposed around the galleries, with brass as well, on another one, was definitely for a big do. You could picture the Doge, in his gold brocade, processing across the Square, as he does in so many paintings [after all that was what he was for] and listening to this splendid music, surrounded by his council, a brave sight in their deep crimson robes. And it all worked. The music bounced from choir to choir, and then, all together now, with the brass, just as it would have done across the galleries at St Mark’s. And then the Doge would have processed back again, and gratified the populace. [The Venetian populace liked being gratified with processions as often as possible.]
Over to the brass, for a Canzone by Gabrieli’s nephew, Giovanni [music at this period was so often a family show]. The players descended to play to us, and it was pleasing to see something that’s becoming more frequent – a lady trumpeter! This was entertainment music – you’d have arrived in your gondola on the dark canal, to hear it pouring from the lighted windows of the palace to which you’d been invited, and you’d have hurried up the steps to join in the feast.
Next we had an Echo Fantasia by Adriano Banchieri. I an sure it is by no means easy to suddenly drop the volume of your brass instrument, specially a trombone, to produce the echo effect!
And suddenly we were back in England for Four Elizabethan Dances for brass. At a court which had, quite literally, a Dancing Queen, you had to know your Alman from your Corranto. After all, the Scottish Ambassador, with the Queen’s Grace’s beady eye upon him, had to admit that Mary Queen of Scots danced “not so high and disposedly” as Elizabeth. And she went on doing it till she was getting older – though not as old as your reviewer! I think the Marylebone Brass consort enjoyed themselves – we wished there was someone to show us how to do the Irish Ho-hoane! The bouncing rhythms were typical of Elizabethan dance music, but the Alman was much more stately – perfect for showing off your latest farthingale! I wished this group had lasted longer!
The European community has been around in the music world for rather a long time. The first half of the concert finished with two Psalm settings by Heinrich Schütz, who took himself off from Germany to Venice, to study with whom-else but Giovanni Gabrieli. And yet, somehow, he gave a German slant, not only because of the words, to what he had learned. The choir members had really worked on their German, and were a lot better at it than many more famous choirs. Bach was definitely hovering on the horizon in the way the music was shaping. Two choirs playing off each other created a joyful atmosphere in “Herr, unser Herrscher”.
We moved into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the second half, beginning with three pieces of church music by Verdi. A wonderful opera composer, somehow one cannot help having a sneaking thought that sacred music was not really his thing. However the “Laudi alla Vergine”, for all female voices, turned out to be a piece of delicate beauty, and it gave the ladies of the choir a chance to shine.
Glazunov’s brass quartet gave us an opportunity to appreciate the equivalent of the bass voice in Russian vocal music, the bass trombone. And very sonorous it sounded too, in a field which is less familiar in Russian repertoire.
And finally we had what may be described, in the best possible taste, as a real musical wallow. Strauss’ Deutsche Motette is such a sweeping wash of sheer musical sound that all you can do is go with the flow. Like nymphs and tritons, the four soloists, Helen Miles, Siân Menna, Philip Bell and Martin Oxenham, emerged in turn from the waves, in itself no mean achievement, and were silenced again. They all made their point, though Strauss, who could never resist the soprano voice, gave her solos which recalled the Four Last Songs, while a duet for soprano and mezzo had echos of Der Rosenkavalier. Rarely attempted, the piece had a huge success with the audience.
I started this review by talking about sponsorship. Of course the performers in this concert were all very well-treated, but it is not always so. I am sure this letter from Monteverdi, written in 1604 in Mantua, will strike a chord with any working musician down the ages:-
“This letter of mine has no other end than to come to your feet to ask Your Highness to give the order for my pay, which is now five months in arrears, in which plight is also Signora Claudia and my father-in- law……”
Suzanne Pinkerton
Pepys Singers – Review
Suzanne Pinkerton