Having survived her first St Magnus Festival event in St Magnus Cathedral, Fran Flett Hollinrake (Assistant Custodian), continues her account of the 2011 festival, from the perspective of the South Chapel (or Custodian's Office/Vestry)Read more from Fran at her Dragon History blog; she is featured as Writer of the Month the June 2011 Living Orkney magazine.
(Pictures by Sweyn Hunter).
It was my hope and my intention to write a blog post about most of the concerts that took place inside the cathedral during the St Magnus Festival. But alas, whilst being thoroughly swept away by the whole thing, I was also working flat out from morn ‘til night and barely had time to jot down a few notes about all the wonderful performers that I heard and met. Here’s a hastily thrown together mash…..we’ll see how far I get.
As covered in my previous blog, my first experience of the festival was a concert by the London Sinfonietta, performing works by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Messiaen (and featuring the mesmerising cello playing of Oliver Coates). It transpired after the concert that someone’s mobile phone had rung during the performance (in fact I think it was 3 phones in all); and the next day, The Telegraph website published a well-aimed rant by Sir Peter about mobiles and their selfish owners. His ideas for fining the culprits and so on were not particularly practical, but I whole-heartedly agree with his view that a ringing phone destroys the spell and connection that have been so painstakingly created between performer and audience. I could come up with a comparison of my own, but it would seem trite; suffice to say I too have wanted to lynch someone for ruining the moment. [Sir Peter's full views, and the very varied readers' reactions on the Telegraph website, are well worth reading! Ed.]After the Friday night delights, I spent the Saturday working not at the cathedral, but at Kirbuster Museum, where I spent a lovely day in the sunshine with the North Ronaldsay sheep and a funding application, with the occasional spell of gazing off into the distance and falling into a heat-induced-and-sleep-deprived reverie. Sunday saw me in the other farm museum at Corrigall, where I sat and battered out the first blog. I then zoomed off to Kirkwall to take up my custodian duties for the rehearsal and concert of Pure Brass. This young and feisty bunch had braved the Pentland Firth the previous Friday, and boarded Northlink's MV Hamnavoe for a performance at sea. Luckily they had a good passage; as one unable to cross the Firth unless heavily sedated to the point of unconsciousness, I am very impressed that they managed (so I am told) to stay upright, eat dinner, perform well, and pose for photos on the deck of the ship with instruments glinting in the sun and the Old Man of Hoy sticking out of the tops of their heads. Five Go Mad in Orkney, indeed!
They played 9 pieces in the cathedral, including a world premiere by the festival Artistic Director, Alasdair Nicholson (The Vanishing), and also the terrific Music for Pieces of Wood by Steve Reich. Pure Brass have great stage presence and the audience gave an enthusiastic response. At one point they split up and performed from different areas of the cathedral: the trombone player stood right outside the custodians’ office, which meant I was treated to a close up view/hearing, but it prevented me from boiling the kettle lest it put him off and create a PMD-style controversy! As the audience drifted off, leaving the musicians in earnest post-performance discussion (‘you do this at EVERY performance…’), I cleared up their Twix wrappers and soft drinks cans. The big wooden west door was locked, and as I opened the side door for one of the musicians, he asked me to ‘tell the small trumpet player that this is the way out. He gets easily confused’. Indeed, a few minutes later a small figure, heavily laden with instrument cases, was desperately rattling in the dark at the big door ……Monday promised to be eventful. As well as a morning rehearsal and lunchtime concert by the London Sinfonietta, we were bracing ourselves for a huge influx of visitors: a massive cruise ship (the Crown Princess) had called into Kirkwall for the day and brought with her 3,500 passengers. I arrived good and early, to find Colin the stonemason and the stage crew already wheeling and trundling, so I started laying out leaflets at the front desk: French, Italian, Spanish, German – the big ships tend to have lots of different nationalities on board. I opened the door at 9.00am and in they came ... I don’t think I paused for breath for 3 hours, except perhaps to say hello to my colleague Ross when he arrive, and I hope that I managed to speak with, say hello to, or at the very least smile at, everyone who came through the door.
The tasks were made all the more challenging as there was a rehearsal going on at the same time (featuring a visit from composer Sally Beamish), and it was with something like relief that we ushered out the visitors and locked the door, ready for the concert at 1.00pm. Somehow that morning I had also managed to make good my promise to London Sinfonietta flautist Helen Keen, and taken her on a whistle-stop tour of the cathedral upper levels!The concert presented seven pieces by contemporary British composers, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The first piece was Court Studies from The Tempest by Thomas Adès; fitting, as the festival was loosely themed around the play. The Tempest was the first Shakespeare play I ever studied (and I was lucky enough to see Derek Jacobi as Prospero at the Barbican), thus it has a special place in my heart; but despite my best efforts I did not manage to get #theaisleisfullofnoises trending on Twitter. The two pieces I especially enjoyed were the overtly percussive ones: PUNCH! by Alasdair Nicholson, and the fabulously named Arcade Pinball Junkie by Alasdair Spratt, which sounded exactly as you would imagine with bangs and bells and anarchic swirling things. I was sitting right behind the percussionist throughout, and witnessed a very active performance featuring the metal rattly thing, a heel-operated bass drum and a bewildering array of glockenspiels.
We opened the cathedral doors again at just after 2.00pm, and more people swarmed in. The afternoon passed in a blur (more rehearsals too, this time from Fretwork and the tenor Robin Tritschler [picture here]).
By 5pm the crowds had dispersed, and I shut the door at 6pm. I stood for a few moments listening to a cathedral silent but for the eerie sound of a solo viol as one of the Fretwork musicians practiced her part. A look at our door counter revealed that we had welcomed over 2,000 people to St Magnus that day, and I slept the sleep of the just that night (albeit sleep filled with dreams of cello players…)!Next instalment….
Badke Quartet, Richard Morrison, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Strings, and the London Sinfonietta with the new conductors and composers!
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