Abi Rhodes' Zigzag Wanderings

Edward Burra @ Pallant House Gallery, Chichester

On Sunday, we took a day out to The Pallant House Gallery in Chichester to check out the Edward Burra Exhibition which runs  22nd October 2011 — 19th February 2012. We enjoyed our last visit to see their Freida Kahlo show very much but found the publicity hoo-ha that surrounded it somewhat ovwer the top given the very small extent of the exhibition. We were hoping that this event wasn't to be similarly overrated.

We were very pleased to say that this truly is a major show, covering at least 4 rooms and including a very good video presentation too.

 

 

There are well over 70 paintings on show and I was amazed by the vast subject matter and styles Burra covered and how the artworld managed tocategorise him in practically every -ism  that popped up through the whole of  20th century art with the p[ossible exception of the YBAs.

He flatly defies any one categorisation, did not embrace any particular religious or political philosphy other than the cult of Burra. He painted all aspects of his life - in fact he often anticipated the next phase of his life by paintings images gleaned from cinema before actually travelling to the place represented as is the case with his is romance with the life and times of New York's Harlem.

 

He had a marvellous and weird sense of humour and a special eye for the grotesque. The theatre was a particular interest of his and the complement was returned in that he was particularly successful with costume and set design in top class drama, ballet and opera.

 

Besides the paintings we have the opportunity to read a number of his quite expressive letters to friends, in which no holds are barred and often fascinating little sketches are inserted to ram home a point. There are a number of sheets of his collected period photos of friends and acquainyences and of course the highly revealing and amusing video of the man giving a TV critic a very hard time for an attempted portrait show.

Edward Burra made his home base iN Rye, East Sussex and besides providing material for his longtime interest in sailors and the sea, it also gave him access to the countryside which gave him another world to explore.

 

I cannot recommend this exhibition too highly - it is thoroughly entertaining and shows how much a truly great artist has been relegated by the artworld, allowing many people to associate his name with no more than the cover artwork on some 1960s Penguin paperbacks.

I SHALL REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER

 

 I SHALL REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER

BREMF 2011 Event 22

 

The Telling: Vision

The Imagined Testimony of Hildegard von Bingen

 

Thanks to my old schoolmate "Harold," Hildegard was the first contact I had with really early music. Over 25 years ago we used to meet up a couple of times a year, have a family meal, go for a country walk, chew over various cuds and show off our latest musical discoveries - anything from Philip Glass and Steve Reich to Diamanda Galas and Laurie Anderson on my part - from Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi to Palestrina and Hildegard on Harold's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVcKfAZJMU

One weekend, at his home in Aldershot, Harold suggsested I take a listen to Emma Kirkby singing on the 'Feather on The Breath of God' CD. I was  instantly drawn in and spent several following months seeking out similar music which was pretty thin on the ground in those days - even on the record shop shelves.

 

It was particularly with this in mind that I felt drawn to volunteer with BREMF this year, and I was pleasantly surprised to find the multi-media presentation 'Vision' on the festival agenda. The programme notes don't actually ue the phrase 'multi-media' [perhaps it's not a cool term nowadays] but essentially this is what the show is with its use of music, narration, lighting and dance - it only needs the inclusion of film and performance art to go the whole hog to become The Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

 

The Play 'Vision' is written and produced by Clare Norburn, who is part of The Telling and Musical Director of The Brighton Early Music Festival. This production is pretty enjoyable and totally original. I did wonder during the first third of the performance whether we had been sold a dummy. I felt at this point the story relied perhaps too heavily on the narration and some repeated 'meaningful' walking the length of the venue by a couple of the singers.

I thought the visions experienced by the infant Hildegard would have been better illustrated by some proper acting or dance - even some sort of sonne et lumier. But then the plot hotted up a bit from thereon and the final quarter positively sparkled - it literally shone.

 

The singing by Clare Norburn and Yvonne Eddy and instrumental work from Joy Smith [harp] and Layil Barr [recorder] were utterly beautiful.  Nuno Silva's modern dance performance, leading Hildegard to her appointment with her Saviour was  both moving and magical. The lighting effects, which utilised the setting of St Bartholemews Church to its utmost were simple but very, very effective and the haunting voice of Patience Tomlinson as the voice of the dying Hildegard was perfect.

 

I'm not sure whether there are plans to take this show on the road or not, but I would venture to suggest that if it were to be toured in its present form it would be a moderate success in a niche market but with some of the kinds of modifications suggested above it could be a crossover hit in a much wider market that could raise the profile of not only Hildegard but that of Early Music in general.

.....BUT SHALL I REMEMBER THE 4TH OF NOVEMBER?

 

 

.....BUT SHALL I REMEMBER THE 4TH OF NOVEMBER?

BREMF 2011 Event 20

 

The Sixteen: THE CHORAL PILGRIMAGE - Hail Mother of The Redeemer -Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

St Bartholemew's Church, Brighton

 

The Venue: St Bart's provides the most stunning location for music - certainly in Brighton. It remains the tallest Parish Church in England, despite having been finished off in a hurry by it's mid-Victorian builders as they ran short of cash. It's interior would be entirely bare dark engineering brickworks - fitting in with that of the nearby imposing 23-arch railway viaduct which dates from the same period. It is however fitted out with the most amazing marble canopy over a tapestried gold encrusted altar area [please forgive my woeful lack of knowledge of the correct ecclesiastical terminology!] Being of the Anglo-Catholic [smells and bells] tradition, there are a number of side altars - more simply adorned with paintings [some rather poor, all in a sorry state of repair] and an interesting series of built-in carvings depicting The Stations of The Cross. The seating is by mainly ageing uncomfortably-wobbly wooden chairs which would surely prevent the congregation falling asleep during a boring sermon, although there are a set of more modern plastic and tubular metal chairs which are wheeled out to accommodate the posher part of the audience on occasions such as this. The floor is mainly of plain terra cotta and black tiles which tessilate in a rather ordinary way - but hey, it's for walking over not looking at! The overall effect of the edifice is one of impressive power as the height of the roof disappears into Darkness, the cold austere walls crowd in from the sides and one's attention is drawn inevitably towards the splendid magnificence of the alter, where tonite, The Sixteen will ply their trade - hopefully providing a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

 

The Music: Tomas Luis de Victoria has the reputation as probably Spain's most accomplished composer of the later Early Music period. My knowledge of his work is limited so I came prepared -no, expecting to be impressed. Polyphony is almost an avant-garde formof music where all known boundaries of musical lore are pushed to extremes by its almost magical power to defy commonsense by making different people sing different words and different tunes at the same time and create an effect that defies explanation by being even more impressive than those individual songs. It's Gestalt Music.

 

The Sixteen: On this occasion, unfortunately, Sir Harrry Christophers - the usual director[conductor] of the Group was indisposed with  flu. So his deputy Eamonn Dougan stepped up from the ranks to take on the Director's role for the evening. And a splendid job he did too!

The Sixteen [eighteen , actually] are an incredibly well-known and respected internationally renowned band and probably don't need too much direction onstage once the green flag has been waved but I'm sure he was able to indicate minor adjustments to be made as the ambient nature of the venue dictated.

The dress code was maybe somewhat strange in the confines of this setting. The men were wearing standard evening dress - consisting of black tail-suits  and white bow-ties - which were uniformly all the same except that notable variations in stature and girth of some of the wearers created a noticeable difference in how these vestments hang and therefore appeared to the observer. The women have a slightly more relaxed dresscode - it seems they are required to don a black jacket or shawl but may wear an evening dress of choice underneath - so we have a variety of quite muted colours - one lady even sporting a glittery grey frock - I wonder whether there might be suitable (!) cause for investigation under sexual equality legistlation here.

 

The Performance: The performance was predictably exquisite. The Sixteen delivered on the promise of their reputation and the many recordings one has heard by them. The only hitch came just as the band were readying themselves for their second piece of polyphony - there was a series of bangs from outside - given the date, I suppose we might well have anticipated that fireworks would have been going off now and then but it was somewhat surprising that their noise could penetrate such a stout and solid building as St Bart's quite so effectively. A bit later on there was quite a tirade which nearly developed into Blitzkeig but we soon learned to shut it out by concentrating on the music.

One was left wondering if this was anything like the sort of sound [minus the fear, of course] one lived with during the Bombing in cities [indeed here in Brighton on some occasions -one in particular when the viaduct was hit by a  large 'bouncing' armament] in WWll.

 

 

The Verdict:  I'm sure most of the 600+ members of the audience went home really satisfied with a great night out having heard some superb music delivered by a world-ranking band of singers. And I must admit having been somewhat enraptured and entranced at the time with the whole event myself. However, as a responsible 'critic,' I feel the obligation to look beyond this simple judgement.

I'm sure for someone for whom this was a rare sort of event, the show will remain in their memory for a long time to come.

However my suspicion is that for some regular concert-goers of discernment, there might have been a slight disappointment attached to this performance, which might leave questions to be asked as to how it might have been improved.

Firstly, allthough the music was unquestionably beautiful, it did seem rather short on the kind of particularly dramatic moments that one hears in works such as Allegri's Miserere or some of Palestrina's compositions, where the music can soar and would be particularly suited to such a venue as this. Victoria's offering only reached these heights on one or two occasions and then in very short bursts.

On the whole I think the effect was uniformly pretty flat - there were very few,if any, moments when the WOW! factor occurred and there was any reaction  forthcoming from the audience. There was no emotional variation given out byThe Sixteen at any time and in general, they were completely unanimated. There was no sense of humour attached to the random occurrence of the fireworks - not a word from the Director - it happened and was immediately swept under the carpet (or would have been had there been one.)

To be frank, the audience's applause at The End of the performance was generous rather than perfunctory  but it was certainly NOT rapturous.

It left me wondering if spending the ticket money on a recording of Victoria's music might have been more rewarding than sitting uncomfortably for an hour and a half watching  a dozen or so guys in penguin suits and ladies fairly dowdily attired singing some fairly ordinary sounding church music, albeit a work of complex polyphony pretty well delivered by a very accomplished group of singers.

At least with a CD or vinyl disc, one can shut one's eyes and be transported wherever the beautiful music takes you. Perhaps if The Sixteen had been dressed in monks habits, cowels and hoods then the live experience would have helped take us to such a place.

As it was, I think the event will go down in history as one that was enjoyable at the time but it could well be that one will hardly be able to recall it in any significant detail.

GIRLS, GIRLS,GIRLS!..... And a few token BOYS!

GIRLS, GIRLS,GIRLS!..... And a few token BOYS!

Events 17 & 18: Sunday 21st October 2011 St George's Church, Kemp Town , Brighton

Event 17: The Dancing Girls of Granada: Joglaresa

 with belly dancing by Galit Mersand and her students.

Joglaresa - 'professional singing girls' in the language of ancient Arab-Andalusia - are a band of consummate musicians, who really know how to put on show.

Directed by the very personable Belinda Sykes who clearly manages to rein in the potential egos of several obvious virtuosos in their own fields with a fantastic list of credits from across the board to their names [Lord of the Rings soundtrack, Boyzone, Transglobal Underground, Hossam Ramzy, Lol Coxhill, The Dankworths and Loose Tubes to name but a few].

On this occasion, every now anf then,  they widened the musical field of action by calling on the Brighton Community Choir to add their own special brand of backing singing....

They perform music from a wide spectru m of the medieval Arab/Hebrew/Moorish/Spanish world including a number of surprising hybrids of these sub-cultures.

Belinda introduces each piece with a story, well-told, which explains, in easily understood terminology, its genesis, language and history. Each member of the ensemble gets a chance to show off the range of their abilities from almost unbelievably gorgeous vocals, through exquisite harping to sublime oud playing, all held together by some of the finest drumming I've ever witnessed outside of a top rock or jazz band.

 In several numbers, the band was joined by the belly dancer Galia Mersand who gave a stunning exhibition or her Art.

In a few of these she brought on some of her students who were able to show what can be achieved with even a small amount of learning and practice in this field.

It really was all very impressive - often quite exhilarating. This was a truly amazing show with brilliant singers, wonderful musicians and spledid dancers. I can think of no better combination for a thoroughly satisfying night out.

www.joglaresa.com         www.galitmersand.com

 

Event 18: The Singing Girls On Tour: Galan

Galan comprises 3 sopranos - Alison Hill, Katy Hill and Lucy Page - acompanied here by Chris Bucknall on Harpsichord and Manuel Minguillon on Theorbo.

The event is subtitled 'from Ferrara to Paris via Rome!' reflecting the musical 'journey' taken by the group as they sing their way from one composer to another as they go through the programme - happiy it also mirrors some ot the places Galan have travelled to in the acquisition of their collective trades.

Now, I have to say that I have little previous knowledge of this kind of singing and only knew the names of about half of the dozen composers covered and on the face of it the programme looked rather dry to my inexperienced eye.

Happily I have to say that my eye was proven totally wrong in its estimation on this occasion.

Each and every one of these young musicians turned out to be really top notch players and the music was totally enriching in its quality.

The songs covered the whole of the seventeenth century and a little bit either side and included works by the likes of Monteverdi, Charpentier, Rameau and Couperin.

The sopranos sang solo, all combinations of duet and as a trio - failing to disappoint in all formats. Although I have never understood the seeming random repetition of phrases in these songs and the sometimes strange vocal contortions gone through to make the lyric fir the music, I felt these young singers carried it all off with panache and aplomb, giving no cause for complaint whatsoever.

 The harpsichord playing was superb despite a panicky quarter of an hour at the outset when a couple of strings broke and needed the technical assistance of a couple of large paper clips to aid in the repairs.

The Theorbo - I hadn't a clue what this might be before it appeared on stage - happens to look like a lute with a set of sympathetic strings and has an unbelievably long fret and it was enchanting.

As I said my experience of this kind of music is limited to nil - so I can hardly compare with similar groups but if Galan are anything to go by, I have a lot of very pleasing musical times ahead of me.