Divine Voices
Back from a wonderful - and unusual - evening of singing at the Union Chapel in Islington: the two divine female voices of Irish religious and folk singer Noirin Ni Riain and Indian fusion/ folk singer Sheila Chandra. Chandra used to be in pop group Monsoon, which way back in the early eighties was a favourite of mine, but as she said of herself when onstage, has shifted from layering sound that required a recording studio to more techniques which lend themselves to live performance, including use of reverb to accentuate the acoustics of whatever venue she performs in.
The two women sang separately until their encore, and their voices were indeed very different. Noirin Ni Riain's was a beautiful, light, silvery tone, and her lightness of gesture and on-stage smile complemented her vocal timbre. She gave us a mixture of medieval religious and Celtic folk songs, with an additional song from the Indian tradition - of a widowed woman who refuses to be immolated with her husband at his funeral, but instead pledges herself to sing in the temples and make love with the god Krishna for all the remaining days of her life. Climbing up to the imposing stone pulpit Ni Riain sang from there with that nice edge of subversion which was really present throughout the evening, as these talented women appropriated and enhanced tradition and convention for themselves.
Ni Riain walked about the stage when not up in the pulpit, accompanying herself on a very compact harmonium: marked with a cross and with shiny wooden sides it looked like a book whose pages she was fluttering, as though releasing the songs from its pages. It created the low constant 'drone' (something we more generally associate with bagpipe music these days) which is present too in Indian folk and spiritual song. I've bought Ni Riain's lastest CD, which looks predominantly Christian and liturgical in scope. But her performance tonight also included an extraordinary song of mourning which she claimed pre-dated Christianity altogether. A lament for a lost child with a shivery discord of keening: a musical keening which was still being sung privately, when Ni Riain discovered it this century.
Chandra's performance was equally beautiful though her voice richer, lower, and making more use of breath as well as the pure tones of melody and vocalisation. My favourite from her was an early piece in the evening, a fusion of eastern and Gregorian chant. And there is a remarkable affinity between these tones and scales, all refreshingly different, and 'other' to our modern western ears, used as we are to the rationalisation of major and minor modes, the lack of nuances such as quarter tones and other keys and scales than our generic majors and minors. She returned Ni Riain's compliment ( Ni Rian called it 'flying from the nest which nurtured you and learning from other countries') and took an Irish folk song into her own delivery.
Both women sang pieces from Hildegard of Bingen, the eleventh century Rhineland polymathic woman abbess, mystic, scientist, medic and composer. Difficult to say how Hildegard's pieces should ever have been performed so this always gives the contemporary interpreter a degree of liberty, and with this in mind they produced connected and authentic renditions. Even a brief duet at the end, which brought their differences into focus with a slight shock before blending and convincing me that they could discourse in song as well as in project.
My only regret in fact - apart from the lack of further encores perhaps - was the lack of pause at the end of each song. The audience was just too keen to applaud. All the time, it seemed. Songs that channel or acknowledge the sacred, or any depth of human emotion, deserve that special quality of silence which comes in their wake. But I guess that this silence is the most difficult thing of all for us to hear.
The two women sang separately until their encore, and their voices were indeed very different. Noirin Ni Riain's was a beautiful, light, silvery tone, and her lightness of gesture and on-stage smile complemented her vocal timbre. She gave us a mixture of medieval religious and Celtic folk songs, with an additional song from the Indian tradition - of a widowed woman who refuses to be immolated with her husband at his funeral, but instead pledges herself to sing in the temples and make love with the god Krishna for all the remaining days of her life. Climbing up to the imposing stone pulpit Ni Riain sang from there with that nice edge of subversion which was really present throughout the evening, as these talented women appropriated and enhanced tradition and convention for themselves.
Ni Riain walked about the stage when not up in the pulpit, accompanying herself on a very compact harmonium: marked with a cross and with shiny wooden sides it looked like a book whose pages she was fluttering, as though releasing the songs from its pages. It created the low constant 'drone' (something we more generally associate with bagpipe music these days) which is present too in Indian folk and spiritual song. I've bought Ni Riain's lastest CD, which looks predominantly Christian and liturgical in scope. But her performance tonight also included an extraordinary song of mourning which she claimed pre-dated Christianity altogether. A lament for a lost child with a shivery discord of keening: a musical keening which was still being sung privately, when Ni Riain discovered it this century.
Chandra's performance was equally beautiful though her voice richer, lower, and making more use of breath as well as the pure tones of melody and vocalisation. My favourite from her was an early piece in the evening, a fusion of eastern and Gregorian chant. And there is a remarkable affinity between these tones and scales, all refreshingly different, and 'other' to our modern western ears, used as we are to the rationalisation of major and minor modes, the lack of nuances such as quarter tones and other keys and scales than our generic majors and minors. She returned Ni Riain's compliment ( Ni Rian called it 'flying from the nest which nurtured you and learning from other countries') and took an Irish folk song into her own delivery.
Both women sang pieces from Hildegard of Bingen, the eleventh century Rhineland polymathic woman abbess, mystic, scientist, medic and composer. Difficult to say how Hildegard's pieces should ever have been performed so this always gives the contemporary interpreter a degree of liberty, and with this in mind they produced connected and authentic renditions. Even a brief duet at the end, which brought their differences into focus with a slight shock before blending and convincing me that they could discourse in song as well as in project.
My only regret in fact - apart from the lack of further encores perhaps - was the lack of pause at the end of each song. The audience was just too keen to applaud. All the time, it seemed. Songs that channel or acknowledge the sacred, or any depth of human emotion, deserve that special quality of silence which comes in their wake. But I guess that this silence is the most difficult thing of all for us to hear.
Comments
Post a Comment