Franz Peter Schubert
George Frideric Handel
Joseph Haydn
This weekend will mark the last of my concerts this year: a performance in the Salle Henry Leboeuf of the BOZAR, of Handel's Dixit Dominus and Schubert's Mass no. 5 in A-flat major. I was asked by the Brussels Choral Society to say a few words about the programme, which they have shared on their facebook page:
Handel's music is closely intertwined with my own career: Messiah was the first work that I sang as a young soloist, and remains the concert work I have performed most frequently in Europe and Canada. Dixit Dominus is very significant for me, despite the relatively small amount of music for the bass soloist: it was my very first job in Belgium! So it is nostalgic for me to have another look at it now.
Schubert is the reason that I became a classical singer in the first place: I fell in love with his marvellous text settings of Müller, Goethe, Heine, Schiller and others, and am lucky enough to have performed his song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin many times. This mass is one of his later works, with distinctive melodic and harmonic writing developed through his earlier compositions. It's filled with beautiful harmonies, and has many call-and-response-type interactions between choir and soloists, so it will be a lot of fun to discover and perform together.
The performance seasons, current and past, have been on my mind a bit recently, as I have just finished my simplified passport renewal application: along with the normal information like addresses, date of birth, old passport numbers, etc. I also had to provide two references, as well as a list of my employers. As a freelancer, this meant attaching a list of every artistic organisation that I've gigged with over the last 24 months, along with a contact person and all of their contact information... it was a surprisingly long list.
The application process at the Brussels embassy requires an appointment, and I've had mine schedule for over a month. The security procedures at the embassy are rigorous; one's smartphone must be surrendered and locked up for the duration of the visit; there are the usual scans a la airport security to get past the foyer, and all interactions with the administrative personnel are done behind bulletproof glass, with little sliding trays for moving papers back and forth between clerk and client.
I opted for the ten year passport, and also paid extra to retain my current passport until the new one arrives; one never knows if one might have to travel back to Canada suddenly. Or I might be asked to fill in for something, or there will be a last-minute audition; I have leads on auditions in Ireland and the UK, so if a call came for something, I would hate to miss out on it because my new passport was still being created, and the old one had been surrendered.
One funny thing is that the embassy could not make change when I tried to pay in cash, even though their online rules suggested otherwise. Also they wouldn't accept a Belgian credit card, only Canadian ones! In the end I decided to make a bank transfer in Euros using my smartphone; it was the cheapest of all the available options.
After my 9:00 appointment was over by 9:25 or so, I took advantage of the nice weather and decided to walk the 5km back home. As it was still early most stores were still closed but I made it to the Troc consignment store near the boys' school just before it opened, and had a look through the furniture there. We are doing some reorganising of our furniture and shifting things a bit and I wanted to see what antiques were there... The shifting of things is partly triggered by a cold snap that has finally necessitated bringing non-hardy plants in from the terraces. This weekend I replanted the aloe vera plants that have resided on our street-side window sills for some years; they had become extremely heavy and quite leggy, so I had to thin them out by more than half. It seems a shame to throw them out but I can't keep them all.
aloe aloe
Aloe vera are a perfect windowsill plant, as they need almost no additional watering, and as a succulent never seem to be in danger of drying out, not in this climate. It's the same reason I plant geraniums in the balcony boxes at the front; if they are dead-headed diligently and watered only occasionally then they will still flower all summer. They are still bearing flowers now, but with our first freezing temperatures, Maggie pulled them inside, and now they have been transported to her school for over-wintering, in an enclosed area with many windows.
The framing of Maggie's embroidery pieces that I wrote about in the last blog is the other reason to be thinking about shifting things around... we have moved our large mirror over into the corner above the piano, which I think makes more sense than having it behind the chandelier and dining table, and we are experimenting with reorganising and rehanging the exist art as well as the new pieces.
new location for our mirror
kitchen embroidery in an appropriate corner
Mucha's Le soir
I didn't decide on any new antique pieces of furniture, but I did score a couple of fantastic copper jam pans... as I've written before Maggie likes to make jams: apricot, raspberry, currant, fig, etc. and the traditional french method is to use a large copper pan. I found two at the Troc for a song, and while they were pretty grotty looking, a quick scrub with half a lemon and some course salt soon buffed their interiors to a warm shine. The smaller of the two looks relatively new, but the larger one is beaten from extremely thick copper and seems quite old. I can't even imagine how expensive these would be new, but perhaps as it isn't apricot or raspberry season I'm hoping that might be some marmalade in our future, or ginger preserve? It's a good family activity I should think.
double copper
Speaking of family activities we have been playing some social games recently. While Malcolm was out babysitting Duncan and Maggie and I had a game of the Settlers of Catan, and Duncan managed to win it. Then he and I had a cribbage game a couple of nights ago after dinner... I lucked out by having a nine as the turned card in this hand...
"Welcome to skunksville, population: you."
Grand Place grand fir
This past week I was also doing some shopping at the Chinese market downtown to replenish supplies like soya sauce, coconut milk, curry spices etc, and as is my custom whenever passing close to the Grand'Place I made a little detour; I like to see how it looks at different times of day and in different weather and lighting conditions. The Christmas tree is already up: this year it travelled 1,400 km from Horne, a village not far from the Slovak capital Bratislava. The 35-year-old tree, of the species Abies grandis or "grand fir", has a trunk diameter of 55cm, and it looks magical in the square. I'll have to stop by another time to see what it looks like at night!
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