There has been much to celebrate in Barcelona this week for musicians of a certain bent. The Medieval and Renaissance Music Society held its annual international conference there, which gave the delegates the opportunity to celebrate the musicologist Bruno Turner’s 80th birthday, as well as the 20th anniversary of the foundation of Musica Reservata Barcelona and the 400th anniversary of the death of the Spanish composer, Victoria. The city may be more associated with architects (Gaudí) and painters (Dalí and Miró) than with musicians, but it knows how to stage a pachanga when the pressure is on. The only disappointment was that Rafael Nadal, who was born in Majorca and so is a Catalan speaker, did not win Wimbledon.
‘Over 200 musicologists from 20 countries have registered for this year’s Conference, which offers over 130 papers; it is the largest musicological conference ever organised in Barcelona.’ Perhaps it is a long shot to claim that these scholars, whose speciality is the arcana of musicological research in the period 0–1600, might brighten the scene in a city famous for cloudless skies and all-night tourist drinking (if you hear Catalan being spoken on the Ramblas at this time of year you are doing well), but they brought with them both poise and humour, not to mention concerts. The 130 papers were delivered with military precision — 20 minutes of material, followed by ten minutes of questions from the floor, and on to the next speaker, four of these sessions happening concurrently. The amount of specialist information being delivered at any one moment was quite mind-boggling.
I was there to direct a concert designed to mark the three anniversaries listed above. Musica Reservata was founded by Jordi Abelló in 1991, in which time they have reliably confounded the popular belief that the Spanish can only sing opera. They sing polyphony very well, and if there is a fault it is only that they are so impressed with the British way of doing things that they mimic it too completely. I would be interested to hear a generically Spanish way of interpreting Victoria, but maybe that will come in the future. It is still early days for the kind of industrial-strength renaissance singing we are pioneering.
Bruno Turner anyway asked whether there is such a thing as a specifically Spanish sound or idiom because he can’t hear it, even in Victoria. He should know. For 50 years he has been the doyen of Spanish polyphony, both in editing it and performing it with Pro Cantione Antiqua. His work formed the opinions of many people who are now active in this field, including mine. His edition of Victoria’s Responsories for Tenebrae, published in 1960 and never in need of revision, is still the version of choice; and must have made a fortune for Chester Music over the years, for all that they originally turned it away saying no one would buy this kind of thing.
Bruno also helped many young musicians starting out — always quietly behind the scenes. In my case he became infuriated at the way Radio Three, and the dreary clique of minor characters led by Hugh Keyte who ran it in those days, had been treating the Tallis Scholars and wrote in to complain. He was told that he had done the worse possible thing, since the BBC could not be seen to bow to pressure from the general public. At which he ‘blew his top’ and, reliving the scene 25 years later in a street in Barcelona, went puce in the face and blew it again. I feared for his health. Mercifully, it would not now be necessary for anyone to have to explain to the Corporation that we, the public, pay for them; but it was then, and much lasting damage was done as a result of that patrician attitude.
But academics are such odd people. They can be so engrossed in their subjects of research that they forget where they are or what they are doing. It’s a wonder some of them appear in public wearing passable clothing. At dinner after the concert a vast amount of food disappeared very suddenly and without anyone seeming to pause for breath, so intent were they on regaling each other with their latest exploits in this or that library. While I was interested in establishing whether the dainty confection being passed round was breaded oysters or sweetbreads, my attention was commanded by a young man who had found three hitherto undiscovered sets of Lamentations by Morales in the Vatican, which news he carried into the street and all the way back to my hotel. There was no misunderstanding when we got there. He really was only interested in telling me about sets of Lamentations by Morales in the Vatican.
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