Music in 2020 — Music at Brel

Our summer season at Brel had started to be planned when lockdown arrived. We had four or 5 groups pencilled in but once we were locked down we didn’t try to find anyone else as we had no idea what would happen. We speculated about how easy travel into France would be, about groups having other paying commitments which they wanted to take up, about having an audience. Time went by and everyone waited to see what would happen..... and waited.

In the end we’ve had two groups - the other groups couldn’t make it.

But what an excitement for us. Live music at Brel. We checked regulations and because we are a private house and not charging money for concert tickets, regulations are relaxed - we set the rules. However, in order to ensure that we had a happy audience, Peter emailed our mailing list to find out what people thought about masks and social distancing. While some people admitted that they weren’t going out at all for the time being, others got excited about the possibllity of a concert but suggested that people should wear masks. We socially distanced the chairs and thought that we could accommodate around 60 - half our normal maximum.

We are lucky to have endless space at Brel so our musicians had plenty of room and the weather was good - even a little too hot at times - so we could all be outside for most of the time.

We welcomed pianist Keval Shah, clarinetist Joe Shiner, soprano Bethan Langford and bass baritone Pieran. They were so happy to be working together that at the first evening’s rehearsal they reduced themselves to tears - just hearing the music they were making together.

The week rushed by with a full on programme of rehearsals for their concert as well as other programmes they were working on. There was some time for enjoying the pool as well,

Peter and I managed to produce some dished using the best from the garden (tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, courgettes, onions, beets) with local breads and cheeses, melons and peaches. Some old favourites featured on the menus: tomato summer pudding with quails’ eggs, beet jellies with goats cheese and of course a pizza evening with diner participation! Bethan was chief runner between kitchen and pizza oven.

We sat around the table on the terrace in the evening watching the sun go down and hearing about their plans for the future and what they had been doing during lockdown. Bethan had started up a giant cookie business and was selling them with great success in Shropshire farmers’ markets. Rather a healthy eater herself, she had mastered the art of making the perfect moist mixture for huge biscuits deliciously gooey with chocolate, marshmallows and all things naughty. She said that she simply couldn’t just sit doing nothing with no upcoming concerts in the diary. Every singer should have a second string to their bow.

We persuaded them to give two concerts at the end of their week which was perfect as we had an audience of just under 40 for the first and just over 40 for the second. This gave people plenty of room. The audiences who were so happy to hear a live performance were especially appreciative and emotional.

But it’s Artemis who gets in ….. through the Artistes Entrance!

Their programme included works which were grouped around phases of love: First Encounters, Unrequited Love and Heartbreak and Remembrance and included a wide range of composers from Mozart to Britten.

For us it was great to have more people around after months of just the two of us. They headed back to the UK before quarantine was imposed. Keval was off to Helsinki at the end of August to take up a position as Lecturer of Lieder at the Sibelius Academy - the youngest person ever to have this position.

We had a break after they went off - and Peter presented me with a hanging chair to encourage more moments of rest and relaxation It’s a lovely comfy thing and I’m slowly remembering to take a few minutes just to sit, and hang and think!

We were all ready to welcome the Brel Song School with Joe Middleton and Amanda Roocroft when the UK government imposed 2 weeks quarantine on return to the UK from France. Work commitments meant that they just could not do that so they had to stay in the UK. The rooms were all ready but the menus weren’t properly planned and the shopping hadn’t been done so we looked forward to a few free days. Well, they were free in the diary but somehow disappeared - our garden needed some cossetting and we managed a few jolly outings to eat with friends. And before we knew it we were awaiting the arrival of more musicians.

Juliette Sabbah had visited us four years ago with the French Song School when she was at the Royal Academy in London. Now based in Paris she wrote and asked if we had space for her to come with young tenor Fabien Hyon because they had been given a grant to put together a show of songs about Paris - Paris Vagabonde - with many poems by Prevert and Apollinaire set to music by Kosma, Poulenc and others. With no travelling problems from Paris, we jumped at the possibility of an all-French programme - something different.

We had an amazing week with these two talented young musicians - not just partners in their Paris Vagabonde programme but partners in life too. They worked extremely hard and practised their songs - amending and improving their performance all the time. They were making a disk of the programme just about a week after they left us - so needed to be absolutely ready.

The weather wasn’t so boiling hot and we even had to eat indoors some evenings as the air was chilly after the sun came down.

They gave two concerts. The audience was delighted with the programme and everyone wanted to speak to them after the concert. For the first concert 25% of our audience was French.

The songs were very “French” and Juliette and Fabien worked to make them ‘performances’ with lots of emotion and colour. There was also a special frisson when they worked together noticed by quite a few in the audience!

The two of them had been locked down in Paris with Juliette’s cat who she missed a lot. However, she did have our three to amuse her and especially music loving Artemis.

We hope that we might catch up with one of their performances in the spring.

Last night we had a final concert. It was the return of pianist Joanna Goodale who gave a concert last year. She is not part of the Brel music programme but an interesting and accomplished pianist who actually doesn’t live far away. Many of her concerts have been cancelled in the last months and she was very pleased to be able to give a live performance in our concert barn.

Peter intoduces Joanna to our masked and socially distanced audience

Just before the concert, our departement Tarn et Garonne became a Red Covid Zone which means that measures can be taken locally if necessary. However, after checking, there were no restrictions for us so long as people wore masks in the concert hall and used the hand gel provided. It seems almost impossible for a sparsely populated area like ours to have more than 50 cases per 100,000 but the story has it that it started among the fruit pickers who come in at this time of the year to harvest the apples and the Chasselas grapes.

Our audience was not put off and we had 60 socially distanced and masked concert goers who really enjoyed Joanna’s performance.

Debussy’s Claire de Lune was one of the pieces Joanna played

The Tibetan bells add gentle sounds to Joanna’s piano improvisations

Joanna has been working on a new programme. She played some Debussy and some Satie - around the themes of water, snow and moonlight. She also played some of her own improvisations using gongs and Tibetan bowls and got the piano to make some very interesting noises.

We all had a glass of wine together on the terrace and enjoyed nibbles - many of which people had donated. The general consensus was that live music is very soothing. The virus has restricted all our lives and even though we are in wonderful countryside here with plenty of open space and good air - music adds a special plus to proceedings!

The sun sets over the lavender labyrinth

So our hectic 2019 with eight groups of musicians was followed by just two resident groups and an extra concert in a 2020 Covid world. We are so lucky to have had these performances and the concerts have given so much pleasure to music lovers in the area. And Brel has once again been full of song and music if only for a short time.