A musical week

Tags

Beauchamp course, Cerney House Gardens, Covid, early music, Gloucester Royal Hospital, Gloucestershire Academy of Music, Rendcomb College, Southwest Ambulance Service

Or six nights, five days, anyway. I had done the ‘Beauchamp’ early music course in 2001, when it was based at a place called Beauchamp House, in Churcham in Gloucestershire. Most people camped, and a few of us, including me, living in France at the time, stayed in B’n’Bs.

The scale of things being too large for me on the whole, I had not done that course again, but this year I just felt I wanted to get together with lots of fellow amateur singers and players to make music for a few days under the aegis of some known and trusted tutors. The course had not been held at Beauchamp House for many years and had known several different homes since. It is run by the Gloucestershire Academy of Music, and this year was being held at the independent school, Rendcomb College, near Cirencester, for the first time. It was amazing that the course took place at all this year, and all precautions were taken to ensure a Covid-safe environment, including all participants having to take a negative-outcome lateral flow test within 48 hours before arrival. In the event two people were ‘pinged’ during the course of the week and went straight home.

I arrived on the Sunday with an hour or so to spare before dinner, and walked round (just) part of the grounds.

The Music and Art block, not that we used it, remaining in the Main Building for all our sessions

The Main Building

The timetable was that all 70 participants, plus the four tutors, were all together working on one piece in the evenings, the first session of the day was in instrumental specialities (I was with 30-odd singers), and pre-lunch and post-tea sessions were in changing mixed groups, with the post-lunch period being free.

The view from the terrace as we finished our first evening session, on the Sunday

During Monday’s free time, I took up the suggestion of the very able organisers and visited Cerney House Gardens, just two miles down the road. I took lots of photos of course, and these will be the subject of my next-but-one post.

On Tuesday evening, I was taken to Emergency at Gloucester Royal Hospital, in an ambulance for the first time in my life. I have written that up, and that will be the subject of my next post. (Teaser: it was a mental, not a physical problem.) Here is a photo I took in the ambulance, which will show you that by that time I was sufficiently well to be sitting up, not lying on the ambulance’s gurney, and aware enough to think of taking a photo with my phone. This is Shaun. He has just done a lateral flow test on me. Phil was driving.

I missed breakfast on Wednesday morning. It was not to be served until 8.00 at the hospital (very civilised compared with what I have experienced in the past), and I was in a taxi back to the course at that time. Having had very little sleep overnight in Emergency at the hospital, and being very scruffy indeed, I did not feel up to creeping in for a late breakfast at Rendcomb. I skipped the first music session, and was found a banana, a chocolate bar and some cake to fortify me at 11.15, at the end of the coffee break. From then on I took full part in all the sessions, bar that of Wednesday evening which I decided to devote to R and R. In the afternoon’s free session, Jill D invited me to join a really excellent group of three recorder players and continuo instruments to sing the mezzo part in a lovely piece by Bach. The players sounded gorgeous. I think I acquitted myself reasonably well, but there were some complicated harmonic changes, and I was only working from a part, not a score, so would have done better with a little work on it beforehand. I really enjoyed the brief interlude though.

I remembered to get my camera out of my bag a few more times, but mostly forgot.

David Allinson looks pleased enough to see me at the Wednesday afternoon session.

David Hatcher takes a ‘small’ group in the Main Hall on the Thursday.

Coffee break

On Thursday afternoon I got a group of four viols and two voices together to do six-part music. Sadly it did not work quite as well as the previous afternoon’s free music-making, not least because I was not on particularly good singing form.

Not bad for a school dining hall, eh?

My last photo shows us nearly ready for the final session, on Friday evening. Most of the 70 plus participants can be seen in the picture, but sadly the huge variety of modern copies of renaissance instruments cannot. Hats and coats are because (Covid-safe) ventilation through the huge doors in the four corners of the room meant that it was blowing a chilly gale for most of us – August! – except for those in the large bay of the window.

One way and another I was shattered by Saturday. My aim to make good music with lots of other amateur musicians had been fulfilled – but there were elements I could have done without!

[Works I was involved in were by: Aliseda, Anon, Byrd, Croce, A Gabrieli, Guerrero, Hildegard, Isaac, Padovano, Palestrina, Praetorius, and Victoria (lots). The other tutors were Sue Addison and Julia Bishop.]

Twixtmas at Trefeca

Tags

Black Mountains, Coleg Trefeca, commemorative trowel, early music, Ffynnongroyw, Howel Harris, Howell Harris, Methodism, Strawberry Hill gothic, Talgarth, Teulu Trefeca, Trefeca, Welsh Methodism

A four-day, three-night house party for early music-making fans, between Christmas and the New Year, has been happening for years and years, I’m told, but this had been the first time I’d heard of it, and this was the first time they allowed someone in who only sang, with no other string to her bow, as it were.

To quote Wikipedia, “Trefeca (also Trefecca, Trevecca, and Trevecka), located between Talgarth and Llangorse Lake in what is now south Powys in Wales, was the birthplace and home of the 18th-century Methodist leader Howel Harris (English: Howell Harris). It was also the site of two Calvinistic Methodist colleges at different times; the first sponsored by the Countess of Huntingdon (an English methodist leader) in the late eighteenth century; the second supported by the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Connexion in the later nineteenth century.” Coleg Trefeca is now the conference centre and retreat house of the Presbyterian Church of Wales, with 14 twin-bedded rooms and several meeting rooms of various sizes. It is a Grade II listed building, and includes the Howell Harris Museum. It welcomes not only religious groups – evidently.

I arrived with a friend in her car (mine would not have taken all her many viols) late afternoon on the 27th, and found that some, after a quick cup of tea, were already planning to make music. We waited until the first official session after dinner, and I sang at that session with five viol players. I was not really intending to take photos during the stay, so have no photograph of that group as I was not with it again.

But my camera finger got itchy the next day, when I realised just how many interesting things there were around the place. First to catch my eye was this clock.

and its explanation, which, as with every other label, was also given in Welsh.

… though it stood at 11.40 throughout our stay.

Behind it was a display cabinet.

including these objects:

Baptismal bowl, presented in 1901

When I saw these cups I thought they were pure 1960s, but they’re 18th century.

“Scissors and keys owned by the tailor and novelist Daniel Owen, (1836-95) of Mold, who depicted Methodist life in his works”

We occupied the place fully. So manifestations of our own lives were all around.

Three viols in their cases, and a cushion

An unlit showcase in another room included these:

“It was the custom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to present a commemorative silver trowel and sometimes a gavel to those who laid foundation stones of chapels. Seen here are some examples.”

“Chopsticks presented to John Ellis Jones (1875-1968) of Ffynnongroyw by Miss S. A. Jones of the China Inland Mission”

When I walked into the library during this free/informal playing time, I was inveigled into singing one verse of the piece they were playing (it had optional words) in return for being allowed to take their photo.

The dining room and part of the kitchen. Very good food was served, with no tempting cooked breakfasts, and light lunches. Just right.

Also found around the place were carriers for wind instruments and bags of music.

The weather did not tempt me outside on day two, so this was taken through glass.

Beverage station. The excellent and cost-saving system at Trefeca means that, on a rota, we took it in turns to make drinks during the breaks, and to serve and clear up after meals. Many hands, and all that.

I sang with recorders

I just happened to look out of my window at 8 a.m. on day three.

This presaged much nicer weather, and later in the day I was tempted outside.

The Coleg with its twentieth century accommodation block, very recently refurbished.

The ‘Strawberry Hill gothic‘ original buildings

(‘The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord’, if my schoolgirl Latin is correct.)

They said I must go and find the weather-vane. This is the best angle I could get on it.

This being the setting where you could try things, I asked, to the organiser’s surprise, if I might have a session with the ‘loud wind’ (as against recorders) though I’m told I must now refer to it as ‘renaissance wind’. I took out the loud version of my voice, and I was pleased to say that the general consensus was that it had worked. These loud instruments are banished to the chapel (the small one if I read the Welsh correctly).

Cornett, kirtle, and three sackbuts of various sizes

Just a couple more pictures of items in the house:

From near to far: an eisteddfod chair won by Sarah Jane Rees (1839-1916), peot and temperance advocate; a chair owned by William Williams (1717-91) ‘Wales’s’ foremost hymnwriter’; a blacksmith’s anvil owned by Thomas Lewis (1759- 1842), another hymnwriter, and, furthest, if I remember correctly, a chair owned by Howell Harris himself.

When I first saw this, I was just reminded of the dock in a court, but in fact it is a pulpit, made of oak and wrought iron, used at Trefeca from 1768 to 1791.

As we travelled across the beautiful South Wales countryside on day one it had been smothered in mist and fog. As we returned on the afternoon of day four it was glorious in low sunshine – but of course my camera was in my suitcase.

Singing in Thorverton

Tags

baroque music, Brumel, early music, gravestones, renaissance music, Robert Harre Jones, singing, Tallis, Thorverton, Thorverton Arms, Thorverton Parish Church.

It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I’d do something on another of my great interests, singing.  Especially when it consists of singing with a group of others (the fewer the better, for my liking), and when the music was written in the renaissance or baroque periods.

Today I made my way to Thorverton, a village in north Devon.  It was bitterly cold outside my car, so I didn’t stop long to take photos on the way.

The music-making was to take place in Thorverton Parish Church, which I was very pleased to find was heated.

Cottage by the side of the church

I was to join a number of other ‘Early music’ fanatics, to work on, under the direction of Robert Harre Jones, two sets of Lamentations, based on extracts from the Bible’s Lamentations of Jeremiah:

 

This little fellow, about 30 cm/12 ins high, was at my right shoulder all day.

It was admiring his carving that gave me the idea of taking sufficient photos to do a post, though sadly I only had my not-very-good phone camera on me. (That’s my excuse anyway.)  Anyway, I took photos of a few things around the church during the coffee break.

(I have no idea..)

I did pop out into the churchyard for a couple of minutes, but soon popped in again, it was so bitterly cold.

We had to go out for lunch though, taken in the Thorverton Arms.

Here are mein host and his frau.

It had warmed up a bit, so I spent a little longer in the churchyard after lunch, admiring the great diversity of headstones.

Only as I came back to the church did I notice a monument, set into the outside wall,  dating back as far as the eighteenth century, though I hadn’t studied the very worn tombstones in detail for dates.

During the tea break

an audience started arriving

to hear a final run through of the pieces we had been working on.

RHJ introducing the pieces

I just adore the Tallis – that’s what had attracted me to do the workshop – and the beautiful Brumel piece was a real revelation.

It was warmer as I drove home, and I stopped a little more frequently to take photos.  Fortunately, after a while I found myself on roads that didn’t permit of stopping, or I’m not sure when I would have managed to get back.