Our Hamburg experience
a day that we will all cherish for a very long time to come
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From his home setting in Amman, Jonathan Sells reflects on the stressful days ahead of our trip to Hamburg and getting back together for two socially-distanced performances of our Purcell Pageant at the Laeiszhalle as part of the early music series 'Das Alte Werk'.
Henry Purcell (1659 –1695)
Listen his report while getting an impression of the memorable experience, or read his account of the trip to Hamburg below. |
Purcell's Masterpieces
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German efficiency
On Thursday evening 22nd October at about 9pm Jordan time (7pm GMT), I thought ‘this is never going to happen, we’re not going’. I was due to fly the following morning at 8am. We’ve tried every avenue in the UK. At the beginning of that day we read the news that Germany had put the whole of the UK on its risk list, meaning that everyone in the group would need testing on or before arriving in Germany. Since we were due to arrive and go straight into rehearsal, we needed test results within 24 hours of being tested and that just didn’t seem to be possible in the UK. We could find no one in London able to guarantee test results for all our performers within 24 hours. At the eleventh hour, literally fünf vor zwölf (five to midnight) the news came through from Hamburg, from our wonderful promoter – Laeiszhalle/Elbphilharmonie and the series Das Alte Werk – that they had found a solution for us to be tested on arrival in Hamburg and receive the results in a couple of hours. Good old German efficiency! Our only concert this year
This meant we would lose our Saturday afternoon rehearsal. The concerts were on Monday 26th. Luckily, we had a bit of padding in the rehearsal schedule, especially since we had had to shorten the programme to just over an hour so that we could do two sittings on the Monday evening. In fact, we were not going to be complete until the Sunday anyway because our oboists travelling from Switzerland and the Netherlands could only come on Sunday. So, having given up on the entire project and welcoming the depression we’ve been suffering so far for the entire year and now continue to suffer, it finally looked like the concert could happen. Our only concert of this year, but at least one concert. Even though I knew I could then fly, and we could go ahead with the group flight on Saturday and rehearsals in London on the Friday, which I wasn’t able to take part in because of quarantine rules in the UK, I was unsure. It reminded me of our experience from back in March with Les Passions the l’Ame, when the concert happened as lockdowns began everywhere. It was at the first concert of that project which we had fully rehearsed – Telemann’s Donnerode – that concert was cancelled at 12pm on the day of the performance, which was also due to be on the radio. From that experience I knew we couldn’t celebrate, or even breathe a sigh relief until we were standing on that concert stage with an audience in front of us, the the concert starting and no turning back.
So, there was going to be a lot of nerves and crossed fingers until we reached that point. At least I knew, alright, we can fly, and this has a chance of happening. Somehow, through the following next four days we managed to get through every step. People tested negatively, in some cases multiple times. We had more mishaps, some minor, some more major. In the end we finally got together as a group on the day of the performance. With a team that had mostly performed this programme before last year, I was fairly confident that most things would slot into place. We just had to get used to a new order, new cuts, some new joins and new personnel. Countertenor Hugh Cutting joined us for the first time – some baptism of fire. And we had a new percussionist, Elsa Bradley who did a great job. And Kinga Ujszaszi leading us for the first time, which she did excellently.
Precision work And of course, we had the extra challenge of distance. Three metres in every direction for all singers, for which we ended up having three rows of singers. 3-3-2 going back from the front. And another three metres clearance behind the back row. There was a total of nine or ten metres between the front row of singers, where all the soloists stood (we swapped round so the solos would always be at the front of the stage) and the continuo group. And even further to bassoonist Inga, and trumpets and timpani even further back. So, we were using the full extent of a full 2500-seat concert hall stage designed for a symphony orchestra with our group of 20 spread as widely and deeply as possible. This was a serious challenge in terms of ensemble communication, bearing in mind that all singers were facing away from the band and of course, we have no conductor. The space where we rehearsed in Hamburg all day on Sunday was excellent in terms of size to try out all these distances properly and be safe doing so. Acoustically, it was a big challenge though, similarly to our London rehearsal space, it was very reverberant. Some of the faster passages were impossible to keep together. That was quite disheartening, and we felt it stretched our mode of performance to the limit. Once we got in the Laeiszhalle and started playing, we all breathed a sigh relief. The acoustic was excellent, not only sounding very good in the hall with very little balance adjustment necessary, but also what we heard on the stage was very similar to what one heard in the hall, which is quite unusual. It made the communication between us, from front to back much easier. It was worlds away from how we rehearsed on Sunday. This is why I prefer to rehearse in a more difficult acoustic and be pleasantly surprised on the concert day. There was the added factor that our concert was being recorded for the radio. We had to set up a system of playing together across such distances that it sounded right for the audience. The difference between that and and being recorded simultaneously by close microphones means we just have to be happy with whatever came out on the radio, because we weren’t 'playing to the mics' as it were, which is any case is never a good idea. We were making sure that the paying audience were getting the right sound picture. So, it is a big question mark for us what on earth it will sound like on the radio, when it is broadcast on NDR on 17 December.
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 Laeiszhalle: 'Hier spielt wieder Musik'
It was a real pleasure to play in such a wonderful hall, both visually with its amazing glass roof, and acoustically. And with a very useful stage: with steps up both sides we could emerge from the audience, which we often like to do, trying to break down the feeling of ‘us’ and ‘them’ between the stage and the auditorium, as if the performance arouse out of the community and dissolved back into it again. We couldn’t really move around on stage because we weren’t allowed to get too close to each other, but we did aim for a festive atmosphere. We opted for a kind of wedding party as the shape and content of our programme dictated.
And finally, we got to that point where the concert started, the audience were there and there was a palpable sense of concentration, of rapt attention in the concert hall. We really felt that the audiences – which were about 400 to 500 people for each of our performances which is a quarter of the concert hall’s capacity – we really got the impression they were hanging on our every word, our every note, and the very strong response that we got after both performances were uncharacteristically vocal and active. Hamburg audiences had told us what the concerts had meant to them. Notably, there was a great rush to buy a copy of our CD afterwards. The stars aligned
After the event, we all felt very much elated and extremely grateful. We also felt a bit like planets in a constellation as we stood in our isolated positions dotted around the stage. Some of the music referred to the sun and the planets revolving around each other, which seemed to resonate with our set up on the stage. We truly felt that the stars had aligned, allowing us to do this performance. Even more so when only a few days later the corona figures got so bad across Europe that Germany, like many other countries, decided there would be no more live performances for the entire month of November. The Laeiszhalle is now dark, there are no performances for at least a month. Nobody knows exactly when music will be played there again. It really felt we did everything we could to make our concert on 26 October happen. We calculated every single contingency. Peter, Kirsten, myself and the team in Hamburg and all of the performers who made helpful suggestions in our buzzing project group on WhatsApp, which was extremely helpful. Everyone scrambled to find the right solutions, and it shows what good teamwork is when things really matter and need to be resolved urgently. I am SO happy that the concerts we could then give, were a reward for all of that. It could easily have gone the other way and we would all be sitting at home crying in our cups of tea. The 26th of October 2020 is a day that we will all cherish for a very long time to come. Our only performance of this entire year, 2020, which has been an real annus horribilis. We made it! And we’re extremely grateful for what we were able to do, performing in front of a live audience. Whilst we are aware that many other performers haven’t been able to do anything, we were lucky, we went the extra mile, and we are extremely grateful. We will do everything we can for each project we have planned in the coming months to look at it from every angle, to see what the possibilities are and to do everything we can to fight for each performance. Thinking outside the box as we did in this case and not giving up. Where things are neither possible, nor safe, we just need to hang in there and keep going. We want to be there for our audiences for decades to come with lots and lots of music we want to make and experiences we would like to share with people around the world. As soon as we can do that, we will. We want to thank all of you who support us, believe in us and who keep us going through this highly unusual and difficult time.
Thank you. Yours, Jonny |
Testimonials
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Clare Lloyd-Griffiths - soprano
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In this bleakest of years, I am SO very grateful we had the opportunity to come together in Hamburg to make music for a live audience. Singing with Solomon’s Knot is always special but our concerts in Hamburg were doubly so. Throughout the rehearsals and the concerts, I felt around me a determination to make the most of every moment of this precious experience of collective music-making. Thank you to our wonderful management team for making the seemingly impossible possible. This was an unforgettable experience which will sustain me during the months to come. |
Reflecting on the highs and lows, the anxiety and the elation of the trip to Hamburg, the experience which stands out most to me was the opportunity to briefly feel a sense of normality. On the evening we arrived, after we all received our negative test results, we shared a meal and beers in a restaurant. It was so great to be able to catch up with my great friends and colleagues who I hadn’t seen in so long. These people, with whom I would normally make music several times a year have become like a family and the opportunity to rekindle our project, however briefly, was a privilege I feel so lucky to have had. |
Guy Button - violin
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Thomas Herford - tenor
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Last-minute Covid dramas notwithstanding, the Hamburg Purcell Pageant - SK’s only performance of 2020 - was exquisite, ecstatic and celebratory. It was an oasis in the musical desert and a reminder of just how much we all love working together. Bittersweet yes, but with the emphasis strongly on the ‘sweet’ side, and a source of hope and happiness that will sustain me for a long time to come. |
Whilst our concerts are always very intense and moving occasions, Purcell in Hamburg was especially much so under pandemic circumstances, with up to literally-the-last-minute uncertainty whether we would all be able to get there safely, significantly reduced tutti rehearsal time, distance rules, a tightly packed schedule on the day with rehearsal, radio sound check and a repeat performance within about 90 minutes — but all so worth it for the wonderful repertoire, the joy of seeing everyone and being on stage together again for the only time this year, in a wonderful acoustic and in front of two enthusiastic audiences who we could sense were just as bowled over as we were by the beauty and immediate moving powers of live music. Magical. All the more in the light of latest lockdown requirements banning all public cultural events in Germany for at least a month just one week later — incredibly grateful we have been able to get this concert out there in the nick of time! |
Inga Maria Klaucke - bassoon
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Impressions of our concert trip to Hamburg
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