If you weren’t in Carthage’s Siebert Chapel Friday night, then you are probably wondering what in the world is depicted in this photo. It captures a rather extraordinary moment in what was already an extraordinary concert presented by the four gifted singers who comprise the Orlando Consort. This is a group who specializes in vocal music written between 1050 and 1550, which is quite early in the history of western music. In fact, the latest piece of music they sang Friday night was actually from 1585 – which is exactly one hundred years before Bach and Handel are born. I think most people who saw the ad for Friday’s night concert (or for that matter, students at Carthage hearing about the concert from the faculty) imagined a night of staid, humorless, colorless chant…. about as exciting as watching grass grow. And to be entirely honest here, even I was going to this concert more out of a sense of duty than excited anticipation – and I fully expected to be impressed by these four outstanding musicians and their skills, but I did not really expect to enjoy their concert, except as an all-too-rare opportunity to hear some very old music sung very well. I did not expect it to be fun.
Boy, was I wrong!
The program presented by the Orlando Consort was titled “Wine, Food, and Song” and every single song sung had something to do with eating or drinking, spanning three different languages and six different cultures. When I saw that the printed program did not include translations, I thought we were all in for an incredibly long night, sitting through two dozen songs with no idea at all of what was being sung about. But in what proved to be a fantastic choice, the members of the Orlando Consort offered up spoken introductions to each set of the concert, choosing their words impeccably (as the British so often do) but also doing a great job of conveying information as well as underscoring the good-natured fun that was at the heart of this program- including those moments when the songs actually got a bit coarse or bawdy in their subject matter. (The scene captured in the photo came in the second to the last song on the concert, a German song about drinking in which the four guys appeared to get progressively drunker as the song went on, until one had passed out completely, another was doubled over, and the other two looked lucky to be on their feet at all. They did a marvelous job of depicting this slow slide of inebriation, with their tone color growing increasingly strident, their musical precision gradually giving way to swooping, and their perfect sense of rhythmic pulse dissolving altogether. It was a mess- and it was magical!)
But beyond the fun was astonishing singing- some of the best singing we’ve ever heard in Siebert Chapel … and that’s a room in which the King’s Singers, Chanticleer, Anonymous Four, and the Waverly Consort hang sung. The Orlando Consort was every bit as good, and their particular program was the most enjoyable of them all, without a doubt, at least in my humble opinion. And then, as if all that wasn’t enough, they proved to be really nice guys as well- and as personable as any headliners we’ve had with us for our chamber music series. The alto of the quartet was especially easy to talk to, and a number of our students who were at the concert were clustered around him at the reception, reveling in the chance to speak with such a fine musician at length (not too much older than they were) and he clearly enjoyed the exchange as much as they did.
And this concert was just one course in a spectacular musical banquet that I’ve been enjoying all week long. Tuesday night was a Chicago Lyric Opera performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto, and while it was hardly one for the Hall of Fame (thanks to some rough conducting, plus a horrific crack by the tenor during the act one duet) there were plenty of reminders of what a magnificent opera this is. (Verdi thought it was his masterpiece.) And Saturday, when I wasn’t busy playing for young musicians at Racine’s Solo & Ensemble at Case High School, I was right down the road at the Renaissance Theater, taking in whatever I could of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Wagner’s sublime final opera, Parsifal, in a high definition simulcast. But in some ways, my favorite opera moments of the week came in music theater workshop, as I listened to some of our students taking a swing at the Flower Duet from Madama Butterfly, the Love Duet from Romeo and Juliet, and even the Judgment Scene from Aida. After years of hearing these iconic scenes sung only by world class singers, you might think it would be a bit underwhelming or even disconcerting to suddenly hear them sung by college students. But in fact it’s thrilling . . . in part because you know it’s thrilling for them . . . and in part because they are rising to the challenge so well.
Finally, there’s the musical bookends of the week. Yesterday was Racine’s Solo & Ensemble, and there is no better way to celebrate the impact of music on young people’s lives than to spend the day playing for them and/or watching them in action. . . even if the first performance was at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. And a week ago, Kathy and I drove up to Milwaukee to rendezvous with Marshall at the Oriental Theater to see the film “Quartet.” Maggie Smith stars in this film about a quartet of former opera colleagues who are living in a rest home for classical musicians and trying to come to terms with their own complicated histories as well as the sobering reality of their own mortality. It’s a touching film on so many levels, but especially for its depiction of elderly musicians for whom music is still a precious gift that, if anything, is more important to them than ever. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when a couple of young girls are playing a violin duet at the rest home; the contrast of their young faces with the deeply lined faces of the senior citizens watching them is so touching. It makes you realize that Music is the gift which they all have in common . . . and Music is one of the only gifts we have that goes with us in the brightest moments of life as well as the darkest, and – one hopes – from cradle to grave.