Review
|
Concert
of Sacred Sounds I must confess to not being an unbiased reviewer. I love this sort of thing, more or less on principle. But even allowing for my foibles, this was a particularly excellent event. As we entered, we saw that the Holywell Music Room was festooned with candles, providing a suitably hushed and reverent feel. The proceedings, however, were not sacred in the " sit up straight, don't fidget and be sure to look miserable" way that I associate with religion. Rather, the evening served to reinforce the idea that sacredness is very much an aspect of mind, available to ordinary people at any time. Michael Ormiston, who did pretty much all the talking and explanation between numbers, was relaxed, amusing and informative, clearly a man in love with his subject, which is the music of Mongolia and Tibet. Said music is played on a variety of extraordinary instruments, or in the case of the remarkable throat singing, without any at all. There was a horse head violin, a lute-y sort of thing, two or three wind instruments, a tiny thing called a mouth harp, and odd bits of percussion. All the pieces were moving, haunting even, played with great technical virtuosity, which never veered into mere showing off. However, like Christopher Robin at the zoo, I'm going to go straight to the bit I like best and stay there. This was the Tibetan singing bowls. They sit on a table and are played by running a pestle-like thing around their exterior. The sound that results is unearthly, and has an extremely physical component. Throughout the twenty minutes they were played, the period of deliberate silence afterwards and most of the subsequent interval, I sat transfixed, unable to move, experiencing extremely pleasant sensations of internal vibration. And all without any prescription medication or special preparation. They came back, and played more and it was all very splendid and evocative and over much too quickly. I was still in a bit of a trance, to be honest, so details elude me. No more bowls, but you can't have everything. They will return, apparently, later in the year. I suggest you keep your ears peeled and eyes pricked. In the meantime, you can email [email protected] for details of workshops and the like. Or contact the Jupiter Trust, who organised it all, on 407490 to find out about their future talks and events.
|