Gigue

The Gigue is up!  The pigeon has landed!

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.

The Grande Tour part I

It's early in the afternoon on a Thursday. I'm sat in the kitchen of my friend's house, slightly aware of the drizzle that's formed outside, accompanied by a pernicious breeze. A typical English summer, and nothing less. Aside form the fact that I'm in Ealing, London... Nothing is too different!

Already, this Grande tour des Londres has been a trip of firsts. Last night I attended my very first concert Henry Wood's Promenade series, or the BBC Proms as they're now ubiquitously known, and earlier that afternoon found myself behind the wheel trying desperately to find the biting point on the clutch of a manual car. What a time to be alive! Suffice to say I will be endeavouring to find myself an automatic when I finally take serious driving lessons (will I even be in this country though?), as the critical lack of spacial awareness that means I can't use the pedalboard correctly also takes a serious toll on my ability to use three pedals in a car. Laugh all you like (as I'm sure many of you do), but I literally have no idea what's going on at the end of my legs. It's ridiculous.

Anyway. The Proms. After queueing for what seemed like less than a half hour, and possibly recognising and being recognised myself (I could be more certain, and their expression seemed to indicate that they'd seen a ghost), we entered the Royal Albert Hall, a building I have never set foot in before. The late Prom last night was the Tallis Scholars, singing a program of motets by Gesualdo, who is remembered as not only an Italian noble and composer, but also an insane murderer, and the Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas by John Taverner. Gesualdo is most famously known even outside of madrigalist circles as the composer of some of the most chromatic and chaotic pieces in the repertoire; in fact, it would not be a completely ridiculous statement to say that this kind of approach to chromaticism and treatment of harmonic texture was repeated until the early twentieth century. In the late 16^th and early 17^th century in Italy there was an experimental approach to chromaticism and temperament, as can be seen in the works of Claudio Merulo and Girolamo Frescobaldi, most notably in their organ works, where the sustained tone and transparent ripieno chorus was well suited to allowing the shifting nature of the temperament to show its own colours, rather than those developed from the pipes themselves. Anyway, I'm getting away from the point.

Taverner's Missa Gloria Tibi Trinitas (hereafter GTT) is one of the great works of Old England, and I do mean old. Just like his other masses of note, Missa L'homme Arme and “The Westerne Wynde” mass, it is a 'Cantus Firmus' mass, where the melody it is named after forms the core of the points of imitation, a popular technique of his time. For whatever reason, the plainsong melody that begins the 'In Nomine' (in the alto, of course) section of the Benedictus became something on its own, and spawned the In Nomine genre, very specifically English, which lasted itself for around 150 years as an unbroken tradition. The 'In Nomine' melody was set as the point of imitation for polyphonic compositions, called fantasias, both consorted and solo instrumentation. Many of these survive in the Mulliner Book, where the consort fantasies have been transcribed (originally onto one great 12 line stave) for keyboard. Notably, Thomas Tomkins, the 'last Elizabethan', was responsible for many keyboard settings (not only of the In Nomine but also of other plainsong chants that had long fallen out of fashion) alongside his fine consort settings, and John Dowland even set it as a Lute Fantasia, called “Farewell In Nomine”. Orlando Gibbons' infamous piece for viols and voyces in consert, The Cries of London, is also an In Nomine.

On first hearing without a score to follow, the GTT is quite amazing. It sounds very much like the lower voices are more together in their tessitura, but then this terrifyingly high treble part is sat on top. The effect is frankly staggering. I would say that the complexity of the mass itself on the whole is not beyond the average Cathedral Choir, just a matter of treble stamina! This of course reminds me once again of the great pitch standard debates, and having subsequently looked at the score (where the high thirds in the Treble part are in fact F sharps), can't help but wonder at why in God's name they transposed up...

The only real detraction from the effect was that it was performed in the truly cavernous acoustic of the RAH. Say what you like about the size of the acoustic in Lincoln Cathedral (where the GTT would have doubtlessly been sung), I doubt the polyphony and counterpoint would have got quite as lost as last night. I'm sure listeners to the simultaneous broadcast on Radio 3 would have got the most benefit from it. It may not be chamber music, but maybe it should have been a chamber prom. Who am I to criticise, anyway? It was certainly quite an experience,even if I didn't get one of those plush looking seats to park myself in. Oh well. Maybe next time? Will there be a next time?

The greatest problem I actually faced last night was in fact that I had to leave my phone (which of course is camera and media player in one) behind on charge, and thus took no pictures of the night at all. What a shambles.

Hiatus

It is now Thursday evening. The weather has cleared up somewhat, and I'm back at the keys. Today was entirely more sedate than yesterday with its 7am start and four hour journey. This time, we attempted to access the Speech Room of Harrow School, high on the hill (pardon?), but were thwarted once more by locked doors! Instead, we made to to St. Mary's of Harrow (on the hill), a rather nice church with an exceptionally fine organ inside it, a very complete 3 manual and pedal Lewis: Cornet Separe on the choir (also enclosed), 16/8/4 high pressure reeds in the Swell box (but available on the Great), a devastating pedal Trombone, a top notch Great and a pleasing Swell chorus (shame about the lack of 16 in the box though). A crisp and responsive Electro-Pneumatic action, and a Pedalboard that I could at least agree with. Plenty of pictures taken and even a few of me! At present, I'm taking in some fresh air in the Garden, while waiting for a dinner of kebabs and rice, before striking out to a local public house later this evening. The plan today was to go to the Great British Beer Festival, but at £10 for entrance things could have gotten out of hand quickly, and I'm in no position to allow that. I haven't changed any sterling to the mighty Swedish Kroner... There isn't even that long now until the tour, let alone once I get back. I'm looking forward to it, if a little disappointed that there isn't that much to sing: Two services and two concerts. I am however, a noted workaholic as far as choral service is concerned. Remembering the tour to Exeter I took with Derby many years ago, the 8am rehearsals were actually rather enjoyable! I just hope I don't get too bored, with not terribly much singing and that visit to a water park (oy gevalt) that's timetabled.

That's quite enough for now. There's another entire day down here, and then the trip along to Worcester on Saturday...and then the 6 hours on the train back to Truro! Plenty of time to do more things and look back. Just as long as my phone doesn't run out of battery again.

Travel Dreams

I don't travel much, I am not a well traveled man... Which is a terrible shame!  

I've never been a rich man either, and because travel costs money, we have reached an impasse in the narrative already.  My usual forays away from the homestead are in the shape of choir tours, and this year will be no different.  Truro Cathedral Choir are on their way to Sweden this year, in August, and it promises two things: Singing and, well... Drinking, let's be honest.  Prices for alcohol might be supposedly sky high over there, but remember!  There is always another way.  

But let's pretend that I have endless supplies of cash.  Oodles of frequent flier miles, I dunno.  Where do I want to go?  Where would I choose to go? (Because it's about what you choose, not what you want)  Predictably (is it predictable?), I'd like to go to America.  It'd be nice to go to the land of the almighty Dollar (which I suppose isn't exactly so almighty these days) just to experience it.  I've spent all my life within European borders, and I'd like to get out and see the other side of the pacific.  Even now, my friends are finishing their years abroad, and have had various results.  I dunno how much American TV I've watched, and I know it's completely wrong to base one's expectations from mere entertainment... So it would be nice to see what sort of reality it comes from.  I can read about as many cultural differences as I like, but nothing will ever beat going over there.  I hear even the air's different too.

I've been to Germany a total of 4 (that's right, FOUR) times as well, and I wouldn't mind going back.  My sister spent a year in Berlin on her internship with the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy, and she intends to go back there to celebrate her birthday.  What a Git.  Anyway, I've been to Berlin for a grand total of three days, choir trips to Osnabruck for a week and a tour of the Rhineland, and a school trip to the Black Forest.  Berlin particularly (probably because it was the most recent in... 2006!  Erk) stands out, being stood out on a balcony til the early hours of the morning, and then repairing to the 24 hour bar in the Sunflower hostel for a coke, while the English guy with the dreadlocks NEVER SLEEPS.  Ahh... Happy days indeed! 

Closer to home though, I'd really like to get back to England for a bit.  There is actually a difference down here in Cornwall, culturally and meteorologically to say the least, and seeing as I the last time I left Truro was to go to Norwich last October, I really need to get out more!  There are more than enough in the way of churches and beaches and everything in between down here though to keep me occupied while I'm forgetting my writing schedule.  I do love living away from home, but it's almost as if I can't go anywhere at the moment due to abject poverty.  Do you even bloody know how expensive it is to travel on the trains these days I mean OY GEVALT. 

Never having traveled as a child, I've just gotten used to...not really thinking about it.  I still get envious, which I know that I really shouldn't do, but still... When you're stuck in while other people are off to fabulous destinations... Oh well.  I'd love to travel on my own, as stressed as it would make me.  I have enough problems on the Tube through London, could you imagine me interrailing around Europe?  It'd be brutal.  I'm terrible at traveling light, that's for sure.  The last time I went to Norwich I took my backpack, my case AND my Banjo, which on the tube on the way home was nothing short of murder.  I'd like to say I've learned from this experience... but probably not.  I take a lot of things with me when I travel so I feel comfortable all the time.  It's crazy, I know, and I'm sure that I just need to go traveling with basically nothing to snap me out of it but... I dunno. 

Of course, signing on as a Lay-Vicar will keep me in Cornwall for a few years yet.  Maybe, once I get a job, I'll be able to get away when and indeed, where I want to without having to worry about traveling on a shoestring. 

"Seems Legit."

So.  The first post with the new schedule... Late!  Start as you mean to go on, eh?  Turns out that this in the 100th post I'll have published (YAY MILESTONE), so perhaps there'll be some sort of nostalgic retrospective... Oh wait I already did that.


Last week itself averaged out as brilliant, due to the high impact of the weekend, the memory of most of which is hidden behind clouds of laughter.  I can't really remember the most part of the week itself...probably because nothing noteworthy happened; the curse of the unemployed.  All I have to do really is evensong, and that's only a two hour portion of the day.  Actually, secretly, I'm looking for a job.  Don't tell anyone else because then they'll just go and apply for all the jobs and I'll be unemployed FOREVER.

I think there needs to be a change in the format of how I write these.  One of the main reasons that posting ground to a square halt is I lost all confidence in what I was writing - classic writer's block.  I didn't feel that anything I was typing out was informative or amusing, that nobody would have any interest in reading.  It's kind of my root problem in socialising as well... It's the same sort of sudden panic that sets in when faced with the answerphone, and of course, attractive women.  HA HA.  I almost feel like I'm leaving myself open to ridicule, but I guess this is what happens if you write from a personal angle and publish it on the internet I guess it's all part of the deal.

Actually, in all seriousness, I think I've been doing pretty well socialising these days.  Having plans to live in Truro for a good while (say at least a few years), my priorities are ever so slightly different to the other scholars who will be moving on at the end of this year (well, July (well, September really because of the tour in August)).  Although I mostly meet people in pubs (come on I'm a member of a Cathedral Choir, there's always the post-evensong pint), Truro's a small city, you can't help but run into people.  It's nice though!  I feel like I'm beginning to make friends as an adult, unconnected to a study course or my choir, on the strength of character and conversation.  I should think that my reputation as quite a heavyweight drinker has earned me a few fans (especially at a particular establishment), but obviously I could do with avoiding alcoholism.  A few heavy nights in a row has robbed me of much of this month's honorarium, so it really is time to start becoming more responsible with my money.  Buying drinks, not just for myself but also for other people (and finding there is no return...) is just getting too expensive down here.  As much as I enjoy a drink, I far prefer being sober to being hungry, so there's a real cornerstone.  Also, I'm on the Council Housing list, and I've made some personal inquiries into renting costs, although I really ought to start looking into utilities as well.  You know, boring life things.  Things that extend to adult responsibilities.  Anybody worried out there with all this crazy talk?

I've already done this once at Bury Street to various degrees of success and/or failure.  It's all experience, right?  Paying rent and bills sure is a hell of a fag, though.  Living in rent, utility and tax free accommodation (anybody else think that looks wrong?) as a legitimate part of the contract of the Choral Scholarship, that cannot be any more than 300 yards away from the outer crypt door of the Cathedral is an amazing boon, and one that having been through University and back appreciate very much.  The house may be damp and end up feeling a little cramped living with three other guys in what is ostensibly a two bedroom property (the downstairs parlour has been converted into a bedroom as usual and there's a small third room upstairs which would probably used to have been an study or similar), but you know it's a nice place!  If I didn't want to live in a damp place, I wouldn't live in Cornwall.  As a note to anybody who isn't in Truro reading this right now, it is absolutely throwing it down outside (or it was when I started, because now it's just wet and cold and generally miserable).


Of course, outside of my immediate concerns in Cornwall, I find that my thoughts have turned to America, of all places.  Right now, as we live, breathe (and I type), some of my most treasured friends are over in the states: Grasshopper, G, and one of the best writers I ever met and danced with (AMS Ball 2011, still one of the best nights of my life).  I still miss Mike from Marin County, San Fransisco from BH28, but I guess the community fostered in Nelson Court still has a great deal of impact on my life.  I finally restocked my picture frames and I have one of my Grasshopper and one from the AMS Ball on permanent display.  Of course I miss those carefree, post-dissertation days... but I miss the people even more.  I even did a huge roast dinner on Thanksgiving last November in memoriam!  The principal guests, funnily enough, were non-natives to British soil (two German, one French and one Irish), my housemates instead having attended the Youth Choir and then subsequently a local pub, only stayed around long enough to eat, before going out into the night.  

I might try and move away after a while.  Sure, things are good here while I mature and grow into the post of Lay-Vicar, but I wouldn't ever want to get set in one place through lack of choice.  If I'm good enough for Truro now, then I can certainly be good enough for other places (and definitely in the future).  Perhaps I will move far, far away?  Who's to say.  

Postscriptum

You know, I've actually enjoyed this.  I deleted a good 200 or so words earlier, and then started all over again and I think it's okay!  I think I might hash a few more out this week, commenting more specifically on the weekend's hilarity, and maybe I'll push a few hundred words out about that Indie Rock band I can't get enough of.