In
his book "Orientalism", the
late Professor Edward Said studied western
European depictions of Arabic life. He
concluded that they told more about nineteenth
century western attitudes than about the
subjects themselves. This programme, titled
Songs from the Exotic explores similar
territory through song.
The
title comes from Judith Weir's group of
folk texts. A frenetic, hyperactive piano
part underlines the droll desperation
of the Serbian peasant in Sevdalino,
my little one. In contrast, the voice
part was curiously reticent. Even more
dramatic was In the lovely village
of Nevesinje. It is a song of revenge
and murder, coming to an eerie denouement
that ends, hanging in silence. Bickley
has a well modulated voice, but her innate
gentility limited the flamboyance these
uninhibited songs call for. This passionate
music needs passionate treatment. The
Romance of Count Arnaldos, was more
suited, perhaps because it was sung in
Spanish.
And
then we were off to really wild territory.
Flanders and Swann might be perceived
as popular entertainers but the sheer
brilliance of their inventiveness and
use of language deserves a place in the
canon of English song. Like the songs
of Noel Coward, their music epitomises
the irreverence that lurks beneath the
fabled English reserve : an understated
dry wit that subverts pretension. Gilchrist
launched into Tonga (a philological
Waltz), deftly flying through the
complex word patterns and invented sounds
In contrast W. Denis Browne's Arabia
seemed positively tame, despite the best
attempts of Williams to enliven the curving
mock Arabic stylisation. Within the song
lies menace : the lure of the exotic whispers
danger, the "spell of far Arabia"
can steal one's "wits away"
as the poet de la Mare put it. And so
followed Holst's Vac, from the
Vedic Hymns, where a Sanskrit goddess
sings of her power to control the Heavens.
Holst seemed to seek in exotic texts an
escape from the stifling repression of
Victorian convention : this song with
its almost minimal piano part sounds strangely
modern.
Amy
Woodforde-Finden typified the Englishwoman
Abroad, living in the colonies, but as
a privileged observer from outside. Eroticism
is "safe" if the cultural context
is alien and Empire is unchallenged. Her
If in the great bazaars is pastiche
Arabic, complete with a chorus of "la,
la, la" imitating an Arabic call.
The subject may be Moorish but the perspective
is unwaveringly Home Counties middle class.
Deftly,
the programme altered gears again. Tippett's
celebrated Boyhood's End. Tippett
makes no attempt at pastiche anything,
as he writes from his own inner understanding
of a universal theme. William Henry Hudson's
prose is so beautifully written that it
is innately musical, and the intense feeling
in his work translates into what Gilchrist
described as "exuberance bubbling
over a superfluity of notes". The
piano part is a tour de force, fiendishly
difficult, but carried off brilliantly
by Burnside. Gilchrist, too, sang with
agility and a sense of magic. The final
phrases "to gaze and gaze, until
they are to me living things, and I, in
an ecstasy, am with them, floating in
that immense shining void" could
come straight out of Teilhard de Chardin
or Traherne. Gilchrist sang gloriously,
while Burnside played the spectacular
ending with panache. The audience went
wild. I'd like to hear Gilchrist in Dies
Natalis.
Noel
Coward's I like America introduced
the second new work commissioned by the
Song Festival, Julian Philips' cycle An
American Songbook. Regretfully, due
to car problems I missed the other specially
commissioned work, Ian Venable's Songs
of Eternity and Sorrow, in the first
recital of the weekend. While in New York,
Philips came across a volume of Langston
Hughes, the poet who celebrated the life
of Harlem in the early years of the last
century. Hughes embraced jazz, and his
poetry incorporates a bluesy, syncopated
rhythm that lends itself to song. His
poems also inspired Alexander Zemlinsky,
who set them in German in far away Vienna
in the 1920's. Each of Philips' songs
is a vignette. The piano part is atmospheric,
evoking images of smoke and slow dancing,
the up and down, unending movement of
elevators and escalators. It is the "spirit
of place" of urban New York, just
as the countryside is the "spirit"
of so much English song. Stars
is particularly lovely, the piano twinkling
around the vocal line. I also liked the
dark Soledad about the prison,
and Disillusion, also set by Zemlinsky.
The cycle is so very new that the score
for one of them did not arrive in time
for the performance. Yet even on one listening,
it was intriguing enough that my imagination
buzzed with ideas of interpretation. How
would they sound transposed lower? Would
the distinctive sudden leaps up scale
be more effective if approached differently?
Would a darker, more dramatic voice bring
out something in songs like Elevator
Boy? These are tough, streetwise poems
despite their lyricism. Bickley sings
with a vaguely mid Atlantic accent, but
even an English accent might be appropriate,
given an earthier interpretation.
Chinese
and Japanese music has fascinated many
composers – from Mahler to Delage to Aho.
Lennox Berkeley's The Autumn Wind
has elements of vaguely Chinese sounds.
Adrian Jack's Chinese Bossanova
with its striking introduction, used a
jerky, angular rhythm that made me think
of a diagonal, twisting dance. It's quite
a tricky song to perform, and I wondered
why Bickley sat down to sing it. Perhaps
more western composers absorb Gilbert
and Sullivan rather than real Chinese
music. Master and Pupil by Ronald
Stevenson and Brecht's biting Song
of the Water seller in the rain, by
Dominic Muldowney were a little stereotyped
pseudo oriental, but Roderick Williams
portrayed the Chinese water seller with
such wit and style that it was quite enjoyable.
To end, we had another Noel Coward song,
Nina, the girl from Argentina who
couldn't dance. Just as Holst used Sanskrit
as spice to make darker thoughts palatable,
Coward's veneer of cosmopolitan sophistication
made his satire more subtle. The "exotic"
and foreign, tells us something about
"home".
Anne Ozorio
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