“A wonderful performance, easing us gently into the new season and reminding us to live in the present a little more.”
Presenting their gentle ode to the seasons to the audience of the Royal Albert Hall’s Classical Coffee Mornings, the Chantefable Duo are soprano vocalist Mariana Rodrigues and keyboardist Andrew Cowie. ‘Chantefable’ is a French literary tradition in which a story is told through a blend of sung verse and recited prose. Rodrigues and Cowie give us their interpretation of this through a thoughtful selection of poetry and classical song, each piece conveying a sense of the seasons passing. Performed in the lovely Elgar Room of the Royal Albert Hall (with a coffee and pastry included in the ticket!), this Classical Coffee Morning is a delightful way to spend a Sunday.
Both students of the Royal College of Music, the two musicians are bursting with talent and passion for their art, an energy that comes through as they perform. Rodrigues’ voice is beautiful, swelling with emotion when the song calls for it, and drawing out the humour in the poetry she performs with ease. The most distinctive aspect of this performance is that the spoken word is accompanied by Cowie’s entirely improvised music, making the concert completely unique and never to be seen again. This gave an immediacy to the performance that brought me into the present moment; this to me felt symbolic of the changing seasons and the feeling of time passing.
Cowie’s performance is wonderful, but his skill really does shine when he improvises. He manages to perfectly match the tone of each spoken word, slow and thoughtful in the more pensive, jaunty and comical in those more humorous. However, it wasn’t always possible to understand the words Rodrigues was singing; I realise this is to an extent because of the vowel modification necessary to sound as beautiful as she did (and she really did!), but it did sometimes hinder any comprehension of a narrative being told with the music, which is somewhat the point of a chantefable.
The music includes classical repertoire mostly taken from the 19th and early 20th century, with composers from Britten and Elgar to Quilter and Lehmann. The songs complement the poems which include Dickinson, Hardy and Betjeman to name just a few. You can feel that every piece has been chosen with a great deal of thought and consideration, each in keeping with the running theme of nature and seasonal change. A stand-out song was ‘There are fairies at the bottom of our garden’, composed by Lehmann. Rodrigues performed this spectacularly; the whole room listened with rapture as she proclaimed herself the fairy queen (and I can say I honestly believed her!). I also loved how McCaig’s poems on frogs framed the chantefable: both Cowie and Rodrigues conveyed the humour and joy in these poems perfectly. However, I would have liked a greater variation in the music played as the songs at moments felt a bit monotonous, possibly a result of much of the music being taken from the same time period.
The Chantefable Duo gave a wonderful performance, easing us gently into the new season and reminding us to live in the present a little more. I would certainly see them again given the chance, and would recommend it to anyone else with a love of words and music, and a couple of hours to spare on a Sunday morning.