[Gocamino] Santiago Concert in New York

[blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all.

 

I wasn’t going to go to the Santiago concert.  I’d been at my office since 8:00 a.m., had a particularly hard day and was still there at 6:30 p.m……. dead tired and resigned to not go since the only thing I thought I could do was to have something to eat and go to bed.  But, somehow, at 7:00 p.m. I jumped into a taxi, went uptown and got into the church as the concert was beginning.

By the middle of the first number I was surprised that the tiredness and hunger had disappeared, and by the second number I was enjoying it immensely.  And so it went.

The choir was not the famed one of the Santiago Cathedral, but a choir from the Academy of Ancient Music in Santiago (which I’d never heard of before) accompanied by music teachers from the same Academy playing ancient instruments.

You will remember the musicians carved on one of the arches of the Portico de Gloria playing a variety of tiny, chubby, cello-like instruments.  Those were the ones played last night; they look like small cellos, of a size closer to a violin, and they are played like cellos, standing with the bottom resting between the legs of the seated players.  Strangely, the players hold the bows from the bottom.  There was also a longish oboe like instrument, a cello size stringed one and a hard with a different shape which had more delicate tones than the ones we are accustomed to.  There was also something that looked like a large tambourine which made a “thump” “thump” sound.  I learned later that such instrument was used on the Camino to keep the pace of the pilgrims.

All the Santiago medieval choral music that I’ve heard has been sung by monks.  It is undeniably beautiful and moving, but it tends to be deep, profound and solemn like the undercurrents of the ocean.  Well, the choral and instrumental music last night was like a playful river in the spring.  Perhaps it was the combination of female and male voices, or the tilting airs one associates with sunny Spain.  It was downright lovely.  Closing one’s eyes one could imagine the medieval pilgrims…. not as painfully dragging themselves in their hooded raggedly robes, but as joyful people on their way to a happy encounter …. Like those little girls that take flowers to the Virgin in the month of May.

It was sure a revelation to me.  The only disconcerting tone was one of the male singers with an odd voice.  He did not sound like a counter-tenor, but rather like the “castrati” of times past must have sounded… I’d never before heard such a voice.

Most of the canticles were about, or for, the Virgin and Baby Jesus… and there was a happily bouncing and resounding one.

They sang/played the entire twelve numbers without a break. When it was finished it surprised me that one hour and a half had gone by.

While I’ve visited St. Bartholomew before I’d never really done so with leisure.  It is really a beautiful church.  Bizantinish…. In the style of Venice’s San Marco, with high domes, one of which is covered with golden tiles depicting a scene of he life of Jesus.  The other dome, strangely enough, looks like the top of those Arab baths that one sees in Granada’s  Alhambra or Seville’s Alcazar (?) .The pink marble pulpit has many shells and some beautiful medieval-type sculptures.

I learned that St. Bartholomew dedicates much of its activities to music, and offers many concerts, including lunch-time free ones Monday to Friday from Labor Day to Memorial Day.

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