It happened that the choir did its first concert on that same day, which was quite nice. It wasn't a proper concert as such, it was more a "learning" concert for the school pupils who attended in the Basilica de Santa Maria de la Seu in Manresa. The church was an impressive building on a small, steep hill, very much like Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, where I had sung with my school abbey choir on tour the previous Summer.
The concert was very varied and entertaining; it started off with the choir processing in, singing a slightly unnerving Gregorian chant, while the columns of the church were dimply lit up with a dull green light.
After that, they sung a less sombre, but nevertheless equally mystifying, Salve d'ecos, by Joan Cererols, who had been director of the Escolania a very long time ago. "D'ecos", as you might be able to guess, means "of echoes", inspired by the height at which the choir school is built, and its rocky and steep surroundings. The echoes come from the surrounding mountain; when you shout, it produces a very strong echo which comes straight back.
Then came a more familiar sound, as the choir intoned a Magnificat by Joseph Haydn. The style of Montserrat music is quite different from the sometimes regal sounds of English motets; there are no "For Lo, I Raise Up"'s or "Hail, Gladenning Lights", but a set of motets which very often comes from people closely linked to the Montserrat choir over its longer-than-800 years of history.
The "Cant dels Ocells" (Birdsong) was maybe a clue for the sounds I was about to hear in this next piece. However, even though I now understand a lot of Catalan, there are still words I don't recognise, and "ocells" (birds) was once of them. So when the church seemed to suddenly have been filled with a few birds all chirping at the same time I did in fact think that somebody had been careless enough to leave a door open. I did eventually realise (once the entire song was over) that the boys had been whistling from two balconies over the audience. Maybe I should have picked up on this when I realised that the "birds" only made noise at the beginning and at the end of their motet!
The next piece was by Pau Casals, the famous Catalan cellist and composer. Because Montserrat is the patroness of Catalonia, Pau Casals composed and dedicated his "Oracio a la Mare de Deu de Montserrat" (Prayer to the Mother of God of Montserrat) to her. The director did something very interesting with this piece. Seeing as this was a concert where each piece was being explained carefully to the students, and where each instrument being played was showed to them too, Bernard (the director) decided to show how sound travels. He did this by telling each Escolan (chorister) to stand at an equidistant point from the centre of the church at regular intervals. This would send the sound into the audience as if through home cinema speakers, because the sound is being sent accross the area from all sides, instead of from the front. The feeling is a bit like listening to your iPod through one ear piece, and suddenly listening to the same song but through two headphones; the sound changes completely.
The second last motet to be sung was by a Russian called A. Gretchaninov, called "the stream". This was accompanied by a piano, and the effect of the finger rushing over the keys at 200 miles per hour really did bring across the sound made by a stream.
As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the Escolania regularly sing theVirolai at midday during the week as a prayer along with the daily Salve Regina. The Virolai is probably best known in Catalonia nowadays for being the Barcelona football anthem. It is basically all the same words apart from the last one; instead of singing "guie-nos cap al cel" ("lead us to the sky"), football fans sing "guie-nos cap al gol" (which is pretty self-explanatory). Very original. Well, this piece was also sung that day for the audience to join in.
The concert had been organised by an eminent chef school master from Manresa. He had some sort of link with Montserrat which he explained to the boys later that day, but which I never understood (not because it was Catalan, but because of a very odd accent and slurring noise he would make. He also got very emotional at a few points during his speech later on in the refectory, which didn't help us understand anything else). This man decided to invite the choir to have an "afternoon snack", as he called it, before heading back home for the weekend. It turned out to be one of the biggest arrangements and assortments of small cakes, chocolates, pastries I have ever seen. And by a long way one of the most filling and tasty too!
The next day would be the 2-month day. This definitely made it feel like a lot of time was being spent eating and listening to music. But so far this job has been worth it every minute!
The concert was very varied and entertaining; it started off with the choir processing in, singing a slightly unnerving Gregorian chant, while the columns of the church were dimply lit up with a dull green light.
After that, they sung a less sombre, but nevertheless equally mystifying, Salve d'ecos, by Joan Cererols, who had been director of the Escolania a very long time ago. "D'ecos", as you might be able to guess, means "of echoes", inspired by the height at which the choir school is built, and its rocky and steep surroundings. The echoes come from the surrounding mountain; when you shout, it produces a very strong echo which comes straight back.
Then came a more familiar sound, as the choir intoned a Magnificat by Joseph Haydn. The style of Montserrat music is quite different from the sometimes regal sounds of English motets; there are no "For Lo, I Raise Up"'s or "Hail, Gladenning Lights", but a set of motets which very often comes from people closely linked to the Montserrat choir over its longer-than-800 years of history.
The "Cant dels Ocells" (Birdsong) was maybe a clue for the sounds I was about to hear in this next piece. However, even though I now understand a lot of Catalan, there are still words I don't recognise, and "ocells" (birds) was once of them. So when the church seemed to suddenly have been filled with a few birds all chirping at the same time I did in fact think that somebody had been careless enough to leave a door open. I did eventually realise (once the entire song was over) that the boys had been whistling from two balconies over the audience. Maybe I should have picked up on this when I realised that the "birds" only made noise at the beginning and at the end of their motet!
The next piece was by Pau Casals, the famous Catalan cellist and composer. Because Montserrat is the patroness of Catalonia, Pau Casals composed and dedicated his "Oracio a la Mare de Deu de Montserrat" (Prayer to the Mother of God of Montserrat) to her. The director did something very interesting with this piece. Seeing as this was a concert where each piece was being explained carefully to the students, and where each instrument being played was showed to them too, Bernard (the director) decided to show how sound travels. He did this by telling each Escolan (chorister) to stand at an equidistant point from the centre of the church at regular intervals. This would send the sound into the audience as if through home cinema speakers, because the sound is being sent accross the area from all sides, instead of from the front. The feeling is a bit like listening to your iPod through one ear piece, and suddenly listening to the same song but through two headphones; the sound changes completely.
The second last motet to be sung was by a Russian called A. Gretchaninov, called "the stream". This was accompanied by a piano, and the effect of the finger rushing over the keys at 200 miles per hour really did bring across the sound made by a stream.
As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the Escolania regularly sing theVirolai at midday during the week as a prayer along with the daily Salve Regina. The Virolai is probably best known in Catalonia nowadays for being the Barcelona football anthem. It is basically all the same words apart from the last one; instead of singing "guie-nos cap al cel" ("lead us to the sky"), football fans sing "guie-nos cap al gol" (which is pretty self-explanatory). Very original. Well, this piece was also sung that day for the audience to join in.
The concert had been organised by an eminent chef school master from Manresa. He had some sort of link with Montserrat which he explained to the boys later that day, but which I never understood (not because it was Catalan, but because of a very odd accent and slurring noise he would make. He also got very emotional at a few points during his speech later on in the refectory, which didn't help us understand anything else). This man decided to invite the choir to have an "afternoon snack", as he called it, before heading back home for the weekend. It turned out to be one of the biggest arrangements and assortments of small cakes, chocolates, pastries I have ever seen. And by a long way one of the most filling and tasty too!
The next day would be the 2-month day. This definitely made it feel like a lot of time was being spent eating and listening to music. But so far this job has been worth it every minute!
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