Lammermuir: I Fagiolini
St Mary’s Church, Haddington
Around twenty years ago, I Fagiolini – Robert Hollingworth’s quirky high-calibre vocal ensemble – presented Monteverdi madrigals to a puzzled Glasgow audience: puzzled because the setting in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall restaurant was literally gastronomic and, unbeknown to us, the singers were interspersed like fifth columnists among the diners, erupting mid-course into songs and actions of spurned love or unfettered passion. We sank our coffees with a renewed insight into Monteverdi.
Fast forward two decades, and over last weekend the same group, with the same quasi-theatrical flair plus period instrumental guests, reawakened such memories through two idiosyncratic evening performances of Purcell and Monteverdi. Both took place in the historic spacious sanctuary that is Haddington’s St Mary’s Church, which served to accommodate an intriguingly contextualised Dido and Aeneas (Purcell’s uncompleted opera prefaced by other miscellaneous Purcellian titbits) on Saturday; then, on Sunday, Hollingworth’s highly-personalised (neatly and entertainingly argued) take on Monteverdi’s monumental Vespers, his virtuosic collection of liturgical engine parts published in 1610.
The Purcell programme was fundamentally intimate, the team-spirited singers underpinned by a lithe but lightly-hued band of gut-stringed strings (one to a part) and fluid continuo. A first half taster journeyed from the gossamer luminosity of Purcell’s Soft Music and Dance of the Furies from Dioclesian to the same semi-opera’s Triumph, Victorious Birth, by way of assorted arias and the instrumental interludes.
Highlights included some wild fiddling, verging on rock improv, emerging from the ground bass aria Mark, How Readily, and the instrumental sunburst piercing through The Sparrow And The Gentle Dove from the 1683 wedding ode From Hardy Climes.
When it came to Dido, we were firmly in the groove. An eight-strong singing troupe took to the task like touring minstrels, doubling parts, costumes simple and adaptable such as the Hallowe’en witches’ noses and googly-eyed glasses, the general acting style a mix of Disney-type hero (a cool, contemporary Aeneas) and heroine, and comic grotesquerie. Rather than jar with a serious tale, this rather emphasised the entertainment dimension of the piece, a kind of character reference for a composer known for his latent bawdiness and barstool wit.
More importantly, nothing got in the way of Purcell’s engaging music. Julia Doyle’s regal Dido, the gorgeous resignation of her famous Lament, rang true with Frederick Long’s molten Aeneas, who was given an extra aria (sourced from Purcell) that made so much more sense of his strangely curtailed presence in the plot. Rowan Pierce, her ever-active eyes as dramatically captivating as the unflinching purity of her voice, was mesmerising as Belinda. The witches cackled and spat, the sailors (looking a bit like Pontins bluecoats) came and went. Dances were generally avoided, to no great cost. Hollingworth’s laissez-faire musical direction allowed the evening to flow effortlessly, the performers happily owning their own show.
Sunday’s Monteverdi was more of a set-piece experience, though a modicum of stagecraft served to validate the music’s adaptable construct and extremes of utilised personnel. Thus an opening wall of reverberant sound saw the singers amassed behind instrumental forces that included the pungent tutti of the English Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble. The ensuing cocktail of psalms and motets – from such wonderfully flagrant numbers as Nigra sum to the ecstatic escalating female voice suspensions in Duo Seraphim – required much coming and going front stage to suit the endless combinations of voices, occasionally reminiscent of school concert choreography but coming together cathartically in the final Magnificat with the full choral contingent now purposely to the fore.
Typical of Hollingworth, he had something new to offer in what marked the start of a new project for I Fagiolini (due to be recorded soon). He drew our attention to the raised pitch of certain settings based on recent research, which, true to his word, gifted the numbers affected with a rare piquancy. He adopted more leisurely tempi, sourcing nuggets of unexpectedly enriched sentiment and expression.
Ultimately, though, it was the extraordinary ability of these singers to deliver individuality as soloists, while merging as one homogenous body in ensemble, that raised this performance beyond the ordinary. In the wrong hands, Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine can so easily become a challenge of endurance. This one never failed to enthral.
Ken Walton
I Fagiolini perform their final Lammermuir programme, A Life In A Cappella – We’re Not Dead Yet, in Aberlady Parish Church on Tue 9 Sep at 3pm. Information at www.lammermuirfestival.co.uk
(Photo Credits: Sally Anderson)