Trio Medieval were great. And in general I was very taken with Snape Maltings. It is rather feeble of me to have never been to a concert there before, but it is a long drive, and I don't think they generally put on the Systems Administrator's sort of music. The SA would turn out for a full orchestra doing a Romantic work, a fine sweep by one of the Russians, or Sibelius, or Smetana, but I think Snape generally offers works on a smaller canvas. And one friend I've been to classical concerts with in the past lives half way to Sudbury, so Snape was even more inconvenient for her than it is from here, while my music loving former colleague lives in London, making LSO St Lukes a better prospect than Snape Maltings.
It is a nice concert hall, though, all exposed brickwork and solid timbers, with a high ceiling and beautiful acoustics. It was a shame that I, along with probably ninety-nine per cent of the audience, didn't speak Norwegian or Swedish, since I think Trio Medieval's diction was superb. I could hear lots of consonants quite distinctly, it's just that I didn't know what any of the words meant. Although from the sleeve notes of the CD I've got so far, I'd say that if you assume that happy sounding songs are about meeting someone attractive, and sad ones about armed raiders stealing all your cattle and burning down your village, you'd be on the right lines most of the time.
One of the three played the Hardanger fiddle. Just a few traditional tunes, which was probably a few more than most of the audience expected, and maybe as many as some of them wanted. Certainly Trio Medieval's USP as featured on Radio 3 is their vocal sound. However, it was interesting to see an actual Hardanger fiddle in action. It has a second set of sympathetic strings which are not bowed, but vibrate in sympathy when the first set are played, giving an ethereal, echoing quality to the music.
None of the tunes were especially close to Irish or Scottish jigs, reels or hornpipes, and I suddenly wondered how much influence Scandinavian folk tunes had in the development of American folk music. After all, there were a lot of Scandinavian settlers, and listening to American fiddle tunes and dance music it has always struck me how there are tunes which are recognisably Irish or Scottish in origin, although by now sounding distinctively American, but others which sound even more American but otherwise unfamiliar. I've often wondered where that strand of the American tradition came from, and listening to the Hardanger fiddler began to think that Sweden might have had something to do with it. It's a theory. The members of Trio Medieval could probably have told me, since they are all qualified in music to the umpteenth degree, teach at assorted institutes and universities, collaborate internationally with other musicians from every genre, and are as boffiny as you can get while still sounding like a choir of angels.
Besides the splendid hall, Snape has a small but well stocked bookshop (defining well stocked as having books by several of my own favourite authors: Robert Macfarlane, Sebald, Roger Deakin. There's nothing like having your prejudices confirmed). The restaurant is an upmarket cafeteria, so you queue to collect your food on a tray, but my butternut squash lasagne was good, and we ate sitting by a window with fabulous views out over the reed beds. I must try and work out which church tower it was I could see in the middle distance, standing in splendid isolation. The staff were solicitous to an elderly lady who walked with a stick and didn't look as though she could carry a tray as well, while the ladies loo was generously endowed with cubicles, per head of audience the best ratio I have ever seen. Parking is slightly haphazard, and I was glad I'd taken heed of my friend's tip that there would be a rush leaving, and reversed into a space while it was still light and there were no other cars on the move, instead of having to reverse out into the scrum in the dark.
So I hope to be going back, though probably not in the depths of winter, unless for a really must-see act. It is quite a long drive.
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