Speculations & Ramblings on Musick

inannajones and I are just back from the Kilkenny Arts Festival, where we were at a number of concerts of old music - not quite Renaissance, and not Baroque, but a Vespers by Rachmaniov, and a Latin American Vespers called Moon, Sun, And All Things. The first was by Ex Cathedra alone, the second by Ex Cathedra and QuintEssential. Ex Cathedra are a vocal group, conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore (who looks so like bastun_ie that they have to be related), and QuintEssential are a cornet and sackbut ensemble. They were absolutely fantastic, especially the combined one. Parts of the Latin American vespers were secular, rather than otherwise, and Ex Cathedra really got into these, with one alto soloist in particular providing a number of trills and, uh, squeaks, and clearly enjoying herself immensely.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm more tone-deaf in the higher ranges. I like deep tones better anyway - preferring brass over strings, and all but the deepest woodwind falling between. But either the bass singers from Ex Cathedra were better than the baritones and tenors, and they in turn better than the altos and sopranos, or I could hear them better. I think the latter is more likely, as they were all excellent. The Rachmaniov Vespers goes down to a low B flat at points, though, and that sounds fantastic.

I've yet to establish what some of the instruments onstage the second night were - I think they were treble cornets, but I couldn't swear to it - imagine a brass mouthpiece on a clarinet-shaped instrument, which curves slightly to the right. And the lutist was not playing a lute, but something like one, with the sharp bend in the neck straightened, and extended to perhaps two times again the normal length, with six extra, very long strings running to the end of that. On asking him during the interval, he said it was a theorbo, or chittarone (Having looked it up, see some scanned pages from a book by Robert Spencer).

I was a little too distracted by watching the brass players to get a handle on the difference in sound of the theorbo, though. It's been observered that brass players are the perfect barometer of quality in a modern orchestra - they smirk every time anyone goes wrong - and it seemed so in this case too. They only got about three smirks in in the entire performance, though - adding more support to my notion that the players were all very very good. And, indeed, one of those was directed at another brass player, who was holding the wrong sackbut for an uncoming piece - a cornet player leaned over to him, and I could lipread her saying "wrong fucking instrument", grinning the while.

The venue - Saint Canice's Cathedral, the church for which Kilkenny is named, unless my Irish is playing up - was excellent; the acoustics are so good that at one point, Ex Cathedra were singing from outside the North Transept door, and were still perfectly audible. And there's a comfortable atmosphere about the place, something not uncommon in old Anglican churches.

(There was a performance by The Irish Consort at lunchtime today, but it had too much Dowland for my tastes, and was in a part of Kilkenny Castle that's been converted for conferences - no atmosphere, and poor acoustics. I'd like to hear them again in different circumstances.)

All in all, it was excellent. I'd go back for many more recitals by both groups.