Arts and Literature, or Sports and Leisure?

Pie me! Anybody who played Trivial Pursuit most likely remembers the different pieces, and if we were playing a real-life version, as a family we've collected quite a few of both the Arts and Lit, and Sports (even a bit of Leisure) pieces recently.

Last week we had a nice dinner together with Stephanie Martin, a conductor, musician and composer friend from Canada. Stephanie is on sabbatical from York U., and one day last week we walked around Brussels together, exploring a variety of places new and old in the city. When visiting the Church of St. Nicholas near the Grand Place, I learned something new about the saint's effigy; there was a small sculpture of three children in a barrel at his feet that I'd never recognized before, but whom Stephanie immediately recognized as the "pickled boys".


Yeek! Apparently part of the St. Nicholas legend includes the story of a wicked innkeeper who murdered three boys, and salted their bodies to serve to his guests, to save on the butcher's bill. Nicholas visited the inn and confronted the innkeeper, who confessed his crime, whereupon Nicholas prayed over the brine-tub and the three boys leaped out unharmed. Talk about a Trivial-Pursuit winning question, on the lives of Saints, no less! What is particularly interesting to me about the three children, and St. Nicholas's effigy, is that over top of it floats the Eye of Providence, which most of us would recognize from the back of the U.S.A. banknotes, but which is also a Masonic symbol. Of course we just got back from Vienna, and Zauberflöte at the Staatsoper, and my mind is buzzing with Masonic imagery, but it is intriguing that there are three boys in the barrel, like the three boys in Zauberflöte, and above all floats the Eye!


Later on Stephanie came over to our place for moules frites. Both boys got excited about having a Canadian guest, and as usual, the board games came out. A post-prandial chess death match ensued, but no pickling occurred, unless you count the modest consumption of Trappist beer that went with the moules frites.


That's about it for leisure: Thursday was the Remembrance Day concert in St. Andrews, which was a big success. It was the first time that Eleanor Daley's Flanders Fields setting had been performed in Brussels, certainly as a version for solo voice, and it may very well have been the first time that the Ned Rorem War Scenes were heard here. These deeply disturbing pieces on text from Walt Whitman's Civil War diaries are difficult both emotionally and technically to sing, but very affecting. Other pieces included the gorgeous Vier ernste Gesänge of Brahms, the Schlummert ein from Bach's Ich habe genug, Barber's Dover Beach, and the Libera me from the Fauré Requiem.

Then on Saturday there was a reprise of the all César Franck concert with Vocaal Collectief, in a 13th-century church in Tervuren, just south-east of Brussels. It was also very successful, perhaps because we all had performed the same material on October 3rd, and the programme had a chance to mijoter (simmer) since then. The sense of ensemble in this church was much greater than for the first concert, partly because we could all hear each other much more clearly, and it was extremely well received.

Last night I had the first strings rehearsal with Philippe Gérard, who will be conducting this Sunday's Bach concert at L'eglise des Minimes. These two cantatas have some extremely dramatic and vocally challenging singing for the baritone/bass, on the themes of the day of apocalypse and judgment, contrasted with the peacefulness and contentment of God's love. In between the ongoing preparation of these pieces, I'm also getting ready for the Purcell Ode on St. Cecilia's day, which is all about the beauty of music, and takes place on November 26th in Kingston, Ontario.

Now for the sports and weather... D. experienced both this past weekend, during his trip to the Maidstone Rugby Club in Kent, just south of London. He had a great time but came home quite wet; apparently the heavens opened mid-game. Here in Brussels yesterday was the first dry day out of the previous 17, and it appears that England has its share of rain this time of year as well.