Live Music Now Scotland: Emerging Artists Series: Cordes en Ciel
Usher Hall - 15/01/24
French soprano, Heloise Bernard and Estonian lutenist, Kristiina Watt, who play together as Cordes en Ciel, held the Usher Hall audience spellbound with their morning concert of Italian and French music from the seventeenth century. This is specialist repertoire, and unfamiliar, I suspect, to many people here, but the musicians’ verve and enjoyment in their performance compelled attention.
They have worked with Live Music Now Scotland since 2019 and also pursue their separate careers in early music, Heloise having recently sung Dido in Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ and Amor in Monteverdi’s ‘The Coronation of Poppea’, while Kristiina’s busy schedule in the UK and abroad, has included performances with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Their repertoire today is exclusively of secular songs, the first three in Italian, then a group of French songs, concluding with two songs in Spanish, written by French composers. These songs, although mainly written by men and reliant on the language and imagery of courtly love poetry, provide settings for female voice which allow the singer to express her own emotions and individuality. The first song ‘Amor dormiglioni’ (sleep no more, love) is written by a woman, Barbara Strozzi, and her repetition of the key words of the text, arrows, fire and passion, emphasise the female narrator’s desires. Heloise sings in the monodic style, the dramatic type of full-blooded singing which originated in sixteenth-century Italy. It’s a distinctive and appealing sound, and in Claudio Monteverdi’s tale of unrequited love, ‘Ohimi ch’io cado’ (Alas, I am falling) she makes clear her sorrow, but also relishes exploring the details of the language, rolling the ‘r’ and providing staccato repetitions of vowels, while indulging in the occasional whoop and glissando – a virtuosic performance.
Kristiina is also a singer and this informs her skills as an accompanist. For most of the concert she plays the theorbo and has two solos, the brief ’Prelude’ by Etienne Lemoyne, and Robert de Visee’s lovely, more elaborate ‘Chaconne’, with its delicate effects. And if you’ve ever wondered why a theorbo player spends so much time tuning, she has the answer: the” black notes” are down one side of her instrument , and she has to move one or more over whenever she has to change key.
Heloise sits down for the more contemplative song by Michel Lambert, ‘Le repos, l’ombre, le silence,’ (The rest, the shadow, the silence) but is on her feet again for the final songs in Spanish. Kristiina picks up her small baroque guitar to provide the authentic backing to Etienne Moulinie’s ‘Orilla de Claro tajo’ (On the shore of the Tajo), a tale of a woman who calls the boatman to take her down-river to check on her lover who she believes is unfaithful. The heroine is no shrinking violet as Heloise proves by cupping her hand round her mouth to shout more loudly to the boatman.
Cordes en Ciel are going to Skye in March through the partnership between Live Music Now Scotland and Skye Chamber Music and will play in communities, and primary schools, with a concert in St Columba’s Church, Portree, on 16th March.
There are two more Usher Hall Emerging Artists concerts this month. Don’t miss the soprano and violin team, the Lark Duo on 22nd January and The Fountaineers bluegrass trio on 29th January, both at 11 am.
