Many thanks for all the emails responding to these blogs!
Before I talk about the concert, Janie explained something to me that has proven very important. I was having great difficulty using my little métro cards (@ €1.49 each when purchased 10 at a time). It turns out that because I was storing them in a handy pocket in my mobile phone cover, my phone was demagnetizing them. Dumb of me. Now, on to Saturday's main event, the concert.
The seven singers met at Michel's condo in the Marais at 4:30. I was early because Michel had phoned to warn me that an enormous demonstration against something or other was happening between République and Bastille, which meant that the No. 8 métro skipped all of those stops, thereby hoping to prevent any anarchists from causing disruption or damage. I transferred to Line No. 1 and walked north to his place from Saint Paul's.
We gathered around Michel's dining room table to review voice entries, go over some of Pierre de la Rue's more challenging rhythmic passages, and get our voices going.
After some rehearsing, the table was cleared of water glasses and music, a table cloth spread, and food magically appeared from Claudie's kitchen. The highlight for me was her quiche made with broccoli and other delicious things. I didn't know such large quiche pans existed. She also had a pasta salad, humus, several healthy breads, tomatoes, etc., including an excellent hunk of comté cheese. William (countertenor) was joined by his wife and three young children, who were superbly behaved.
Several of us went over to the church at 7:40 (concert at 8:30) to check out the acoustics, but the place was locked up. Michel began phoning around, trying to get someone to unlock the place, and finally did. Michel had put posters all over the Marais telling of our free concert (actually by donation upon leaving, which makes more sense than before--you can evaluate it and contribute accordingly).
I won't translate the historic marker, but Saint-Denis-du-Saint-Sacrement was built 1826-1835.
Both the exterior and interior show that the neo-Classical style was in vogue after the Revolution, as it had been under Napoléon. The classical Greek/Roman pillars, barrel vaulted ceiling and lack of transept were typical of the time. (Jesse kindly gave me this photo.)
When I saw how large the sanctuary was, my heart sank. Our last concert at the remote hunting lodge "La Chaux" had an audience of ten.
Well, we were still trying out the acoustics and I counted over 100 people, and more were streaming in. Fifteen minutes later, I'm sure there were at least 150 people present, three of whom included Jesse, Rapti, and Janice (all of whom were in the audience at La Chaux. The next three photos were taken by Jesse.)
I was very glad to be singing from my iPad because the light was a bit too dim for me to have seen the hand-copied music with ease, even though all the lights were fully lit. I enjoyed singing in the church's acoustics, which had a 1-second reverberation.
The two gentlemen to the right of me were the two low basses. Bertrand (white shirt) has sung with William Christie's Les arts florissants in his youth. Being blind from birth, he has developed an impressive ability to memorize music by rote, including complicated rhythmic passages. Michel would say (in French), "measure 53, Domine Deus" and Bertrand would immediately say, "Oui, oui" and we would sing! The tall gentleman to the right of Bertrand was Jean-Christoph, our truly low bass. He consistently boomed out one low B-flat after another. He made me feel like a pretend bass. He could surely move to Russia and make a living singing as a basso profondo. Many of La Rue's movement in the beautiful Missa pro fidelibus defunctis (Requiem Mass) are for men's voices, and they explore the lower ranges in ways rarely heard. People seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed watching people's expressions as it slowly sank in just how low he was singing.
I let Jesse follow the concert, looking at my paper copies of the music (my backup, just in case). At the Interval, we discussed some of the polyphony, performance, etc. This made the event so much more special for me.
For this concert (and for the recording sessions this coming week), we have one female soprano, and the rest are men: countertenor, tenor, baritone, bass (me), bass, basso profondo. In addition to La Rue's Requiem, we sang another by Johannes Ockeghem (d. 1497) and Josquin's beautiful Déploration sur la mort d'Ockeghem (lament on the death of Ockeghem, the so-called father of Josquin and La Rue and others).
Since I had been introduced as being from English-speaking Canada, these people caught me after the concert and chatted briefly in English. They were particularly interested in two things, how I sang from an iPad and the low notes. So I whipped out the tablet, picked up the score and showed them the music. They could not believe their eyes; they had never known singers would sing so low. It was fun.
Jesse noticed how blue the sky was and how the pillars were nicely contrasting with it.
Heading home, we were able to take the No. 8 line at Chemin Vert (an earlier blog), where we briefly observed two typical Parisian lovers.
We have a busy Sunday afternoon and evening today, including a brocante (vendors selling used stuff on streets), an organ recital, and dinner. Rough day. On Tuesday, William (countertenor and works for Orange, one of the largest phone companies in France) and I will drive to La Chaux for three days of recording.
All for now,
Evan
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