La Gigue in the G major is slightly rough around the edges compared to the manners of the galanteries and Sarabande, and better off for it. Recalling some of the motifs in snatches from the dances gone before, let's look back at the tour...!
It's been... 31 hours since departure from Strängnäs. I'm beginning the extremely lengthy process of uploading all the pictures I took onto Facebook, so let's try to consolidate the trip as best we can...
A stupefyingly early departure, a sleeping Organist, the TARDIS, free wine, Government off-license, The Chlamydia Cave, 10 quid for two pints, beautiful women on the streets of Örebro, roof raising concerts with standing ovations, the ghost of a choir gallery, pasta alfredo, the murder capital of Sweden, the Ur-Touristen, frozen gin, "Is it a sing-song language?", more luck with women in the last two days than in the last year, more hateful lactose than I could take, and 80 pictures OF A BOAT.
I'm really not sure where to start. I didn't even take my phone with me when we went to Eskilstuna... The journey there and back though, absolutely ridiculous: the 4am departure from Cornwall over a week ago was nothing short of horrific. Dreadful doesn't even cover it. The 8:30 from Strängnäs was much more acceptable. Short flights and marathon coach rides, in fact, marathon coaches from Strängnäs to everywhere else, Örebro and Eskilstuna for concerts, and Stockholm for the last full day in Sweden. Thankfully, the choristers were a number of kilometers away in a B&B. Myself, two of the Lay-Vicars, 1st and 2nd in command and the Choral Bollards in swish diocesan accommodation. Well... I say swish. There were beds and electronic locks on the exterior doors. Swish enough. The shower room in the house that I stayed in didn't have a curtain, and converted to indoor swimming pool after every time it was used.
If you have money in northern Europe, you build your churches out of brick. Strängnäs and Eskilstuna were prime examples of this tradition, with Eskilstuna's Klosters kyrka still 16 years away from its first century of standing. They were incredibly compact, Klosters especially seeming grand inside (with its great west end gallery with one organ in from of another), but with quite a short nave. It might even be about the same length as Derby Cathedral. Klosters was built primarily as a new seat for the diocese, an ambition that matches the scale of the building. In Örebro, the church was much smaller, and only the upper third of the tower was brick, but it was no less fine a building (with a very fine choir organ, oh yes!)
The atmosphere in Sweden is very different to here. Even the texture of the air is completely different! On the last day during our trip I intentionally got lost in Stockholm without a worry at all, London's polar opposite. Örebro, being a major university city, was full of young people (including a Swedish version of Scotland the Brave), bicycles everywhere, and quite a wide range of racial minorities, in stark contrast to Truro's incredible WASP majority population. The delicious (yet paralysingly creamy) sauce of the Pasta Alfredo after our concert (and the obligatory walk through the city) complemented by the excellent beer served all throughout Sweden was remarkably ordinary - I don't mean boring, more that it was business as usual. We were aided by the weather (which one of the Ronettes on the boat trip told me was unseasonally good), however, and I'm sure that a winter tour might well have ended completely differently...
Eskilstuna, supposedly a more, er, industrial town, was fine really. Being full of folly, I followed the Ur-Touristen in what amounted to an unrewarding circle, so didn't really saw anything of the town itself! I'm sure it actually is a very fine place. There's some sort of fashion for 'cool' cars, in the shape of old American cars, some rusted to high hell, poling around the streets of all foin ur towns and cities. A vehicle that must have been no less than 20 feet including the fins crawled passed us in Örebro, while a pack of rdecaying Cadillacs raced around the roundabouts of Eskilstuna. I hardly noticed any in Stockholm (maybe they're not that cool after all?), but perhaps that's because I was more focused on avoiding the city's silent killer, cycle traffic.
Saturday and Sunday nights brought us into contact with young persons of the Swedish Church. To say "culture shock" would be a small understatement, and I was unprepared for people to tell me that they genuinely enjoyed church. Does that make me a bad person? Or more a reflection of the cynical lifestyle I lead? Although congregations are indeed falling in Sweden as well, it seems that youth is far more engaged: the youth group who attended a dinner laid on for us all in the Bishop's Palace on Saturday (who also came to Eskilstuna) appeared to be a more powerful part of church than could be expected over here in the Church of England, perhaps more similar to an Evangelical or Methodist Youth Bible Studies group in operation. They also had a more involved role in church matters, which is something I've never felt reflected in CofE groups. One girl even said that they had a hand in financial matters, that they were involved and connected with where the substantial resources of the Swedish Church are going. I'm sure that it's a reflection of being quite seriously invested in the Choir since a young age. Instead of going off for Sunday School, I would be helping to lead congregational worship with the rest of the trebles and the Songmen. Same road, different lane. A few of the girls on Saturday night were tattooed and one must have had about 8 piercings in each ear, something else that's rare over here in the Church scene.
Sunday night's boat cruise on the beautiful Lake Mälaren with the Dean of Strängnäs (with his fashion defying orange jacket) was another exercise in hilarity, meeting a trio of girls who earned themselves the name "The Ronettes" after joining the on-board entertainer for a traditional Swedish song. After perilously navigating a buffet supper (seriously who the hell makes potato salad with cream cheese?), the Choral Scholars (2012-13) sang together for one last time, fisting our way through Blue Moon and Goodnight Sweetheart for the amusement of everyone up on deck. Although going on a boat cruise is certainly no everyday occurrence, there was that same feeling of calm that accompanied the evening in Örebro, a welcome sensation of no stress. It was a really great start to the week.
Hiatus
Predictably, it's now Thursday. Trying to boil down a week's worth of experience into one post is almost impossible, especially when you don't take notes! I'm really, really glad that I went. For all the flipping back and forth, in retrospect I would have been upset beyond belief had I not gone. It was something of a tonic, a real holiday - a week away from all the stress of housing and searching for a new job and opening the next chapter of my life with Truro Cathedral... Any worries about that last one boiled away to nothing over the last week. Not only is this the most I have felt apart from the Scholars (although I subsequently discovered that it was a deliberate measure), but also spending more time with the "adults" and while indulging in alcohol but not what might be termed 'laddish' behaviour marked a real change in the tide. I found myself less stressed and far more able to interact socially than... well, ever really! Except for the almost impenetrable language. Good Lord. I even felt ashamed that I couldn't even find a foothold in spoken Swedish. I was struck by a theory that perhaps the shape of the Scandinavian tongue is different, in order to achieve what can only be described as...unfamiliar vowel sounds, almost inimitable themselves (Örebro seemed to have different pronunciations depending on who you spoke to at different times in the day).
The Gigue is up. I'm packing up every last thing and soon I will move out of this ruined kingdom. I must abdicate from the Scholary. The trauma of moving is mitigated by having a week before term starts up again, a chance to unpack more than anything else! It's almost time to go, and shed my Scholar's skin and transform, as Le Gregoire so eloquently put.
Spending a week away though must have been one of the finest points of an already stellar tenure with this establishment. Even though there are many, many hurdles ahead of me, this tour has shown that for all my fragility I am capable, and really it's time to put away all of my self-doubt. Maybe... Maybe I even grew up a little.
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