Talk by Mark Tucker: A lost
art - Monteverdi, music and classical rhetoric
Monteverdi Tenor Duets
Mark Tucker & Lynton Atkinson, tenors David Roblou,
harpsichord
Monteverdi Selva morale and
more - Monteverdi's church music
Open rehearsal for concert
Talk by Andrew Carwood: He
didn't only write the Vespers
Concert: The Cardinal's Musick/Andrew Carwood
And God said, Let there
be lights (Genesis Chapter 14) The
Art Bible, George Newnes
South Bank's audiences have a healthy appetite
for instruction, and this Monteverdi study weekend was a notable success,
with Jonathan Miller's new take on Orfeo sold out on the Saturday
(rehearsal and performance) and the Sunday events, starting at noon,
very well attended.
The quality of the lectures and of the music-making
was high, but my reactions to the day as a whole were mixed; there seemed
to be mixed motivations at work.
Andrew Carwood described the revolution in church
music which Monteverdi spearheaded in Italy, building upon the ideas
of Giaches de Wert, his predecessor in Mantua, who introduced "choral
recitative", a forerunner of opera. Following a time in which in which
musical elaboration and counterpoint rendered detailed meanings of texts
for liturgical choral settings to a very secondary place, Monteverdi
developed a flexible way of setting secular and sacred texts, for smaller
forces, with many solos and duets, and emphasis on mood and word painting,
to be illustrated in the evening concert.
Most rewarding of all was the revelatory talk
by Mark Tucker; too concentrated for note-taking, so I hope it will
be published. He traced the manners of singing texts from the Greeks
of antiquity through to Brecht. Tucker emphasized how totally driven
by words and their expression was Monteverdi, who developed specific
modes of word setting, Concitato for agitation, Molle for pure singing
and an intermediate Temperato; consonants articulated with Tau, 'Apollo's
plectrum'. Tucker opined that it was essential that Monteverdi be sung
in the original Italian, with translations (over-titles for the operas)
to help audiences. His presentation was exemplary; an informal, conversational
manner, made possible by perfectly adjusted amplification whilst he
spoke; copious sung examples of each point he made, accompanied by David
Roblou. For the first time it left me able to articulate and understand
why it is that a work like Orfeo, constituted mainly of recitative
with simple accompaniment, holds the attention for long spans and is
never boring.
But the concerts inhabited a different world,
"atmospheric", so I was assured. For the duets, Mark Tucker had provided
more than two pages of closely argued analytic notes discussing each
piece; seven pages of text were provided, with translations, in the
£3 programme. But what we got, without warning, was a "show", with blue
and orange illumination on stage and near total darkness in the auditorium,
despite an angry shout from within the audience "can we have some light!"
It is an excellent show, given by memory and in Italian, of course,
by two excellent and well matched tenors, with all the moods and quips
in the texts mimed for our benefit to give some impression of what it
was all about; they also moved around the gangways and even sat amongst
the audience to sing from the back. We had a few of the delicious duets
from Monteverdi's seventh book of madrigals, and scenes from Poppea
and Ulysses (Tucker and Atkinson even swapping the role of Ulysses himself
to add to the confusion!). Enormously frustrating, even though - it
must be admitted - the audience as a whole seemed perfectly happy in
the dark (at Wigmore Hall vocal recitals one can observe that many listeners
don't follow the words in their programmes).
A complaint afterwards was received with understanding
- an explanation that the singers had wanted "atmosphere", but acceptance
that the needs of the patrons should be of prime concern, with a promise
that the problem would be rectified for the evening concert of church
music. That was forgotten, and Andrew Carwood's black uniformed musicians
appeared before us brilliantly lit, the audience in pitch darkness.
After a few items dim light was restored, enough to reach the doors
safely, but not sufficient to refer to Andrew Carwood's detailed notes
on the individual items during platform re-arrangements, nor to follow
the five closely typed pages of texts and translations whilst listening
to this mostly unfamiliar music.
The music is marvellous; the performances were
good. It had been a long day; we departed at the interval.
Many potential concert-goers are alienated by
the control of the audience effected by ancillary, and usually unidentified,
'experts' and 'event managers', who think they know what we like and
need. We hesitate to attend live performances of Indian classical music
(which we love) because of the prevalence of excessive amplification;
concert performances of operas in foreign languages are often given
in relative darkness, leaving purchasers of expensive programmes to
read them afterwards, and 'lighting designers' are as likely to cause
somnolence as 'atmosphere' by their efforts; audiences are never asked
whether they might prefer light to this sort of manipulation.
Carwood's rehearsal with The Cardinals, in informal
garb and normal lighting, was infinitely more rewarding than the concert;
if Mark Tucker and Lyndon Atkinson (marvellous singers both, and in
perfect accord) had appeared likewise, stayed up on the platform and
just sung those fantastic duets whilst we followed the printed texts,
our own imaginations would have supplied all the "atmosphere" anyone
could want. And for the sacred music (which Carwood urged should be
given in regular church services) there is no historical precedent for
plunging congregations into darkness.
Let there be light!
Peter Grahame Woolf
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