Beowulf review
Feb. 16th, 2007 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleribI saw Benjamin Bagby's "Beowulf" at the Library of Congress last night!
Pre-Concert Lecture: The Scop's Song -- Denise Gallo, Music Division, Library of Congress, talks about the performance practice of the Anglo-Saxon poet-historian and his role as entertainer and keeper of tradition and culture.
This was somewhat disappointing. There wasn't much in the 30-minute lecture about scops that isn't covered in that one-sentence summary. It was a nice introduction to "Beowulf," Anglo-Saxon poetry, and a dab of history to help you appreciate the performance, but it was definitely at or below the "101" level. I'd been hoping for a more nuanced discussion of the scop and Bagby's performance.
Dinner: Burrito Brothers
There is very little to eat around Capitol Hill after 5pm, apparently. While burritos made with pot roast were tasty, they apparently encourage heartburn. :p
Beowulf
The main event! Definitely worth the time and trouble.
The physical presentation was simple enough. Bagby sits on a stool in front of a large screen, which will contain the Modern English transliterations of the Old English. (Before the concert, it read something like: "Please turn off all phones or face the wrath of Grendel's claw.") He was illuminated by some stage lights which occassionally cast his shadow onto the screen, projecting a faceless, timeless image of the scop. He does not perform in period dress, but in a classical musician's all-black garb.
The lighting did not (to my eyes) vary all that much. It dimmed after each "section" of the poem, and there was a pause while Bagby tuned (or retuned) his lyre. It changed from a brighter "white" light to a more claustrophobic yellow or reddish-yellow light during the night-time fight with Grendel, brightening again when the dawn came. Simple, but effective.
Bagby has clearly spent a lot of time learning how to be a storyteller as well as a musician. The exaggerated vocal delivery, gestures, and expressions are all things I've seen on the better storytellers I've had the priviledge to hear perform. His Unferth was clearly, obviously, drunk off his ass, and emerged as one of the most distinctive "voices" in the show.
As in "Rhinegold Curse" and "Edda," he switched freely between speaking, "heightened speaking," as he calls it, chanting and singing. In the post-concert Q&A, I managed to ask if he through-composed the music, or if he was improvising it (although I hestitate to call it that; it's not quite improv when you've done it for fifteen years). Indeed, there is no score for "Beowulf," no written music at all, just motifs and modes that he's developed over the years and which go "about this way." No two performances are meant to be identical.
As for the lyre, he's notorious for his tuning and technique - but he rocks it. He tunes pentatonically, which isn't documentable, while a hexachord tuning is. But the pentatonic tuning really does work for this kind of performance, and I imagine that Bagby has experimented with the other kind as well. On the one hand, just because it works and works more easily doesn't mean it was done that way. (Take guitar - the first people playing guitars and guitar-like instruments would be puzzled to see the chordal techniques most commonly taught today.) On the other hand, our documentation comes from a churchman, to a churchman, and it may well make more sense for a lyre used in a monastery, accompanying chants, to be tuned differently from a lyre in a more ancient mead-hall, accompanying verse.
Bagby almost exclusively strums his instrument, rather than use the "block and strum" technique that most Anglo-Saxon lyre researchers believe - from pictoral evidence - was used. His left hand holds the instrument upright, and his left thumb plays the upper two strings. The first three or four fingers on his right hand take care of the lower four strings. Melodic motifs seem to be associated with each section of the poem, as well as with various characters; he uses intervals or chords sparingly but to good effect.
I think it sounds awesome. My ear has never especially liked "block and strum," although I feel like I should give it the old college try... but a melodic approach makes sense to me as a harper.
Post-Concert Q&A
I wish this had been earlier and lasted longer, and that there had been more questions on how the performance was assembled, rather than who made his instrument or why it wasn't strung with gut. (He does use gut when he's in one place for a while, but while travelling and performing in halls of variable temperature and humidity, he prefers a modern synthe-gut. We covered this twice.)
I found it amusingly ironic that he does not strictly memorize his lyre accompaniment or his vocal stylings (although they are surely evolved to a stable, recognizable form), but he has strictly memorized the text. Of course, as he told us, he's not an Anglo-Saxon linguist and in fact gets coaching from experts on his pronunciation. I don't know if he speaks it, or if he's memorized the whole thing by rote.
Pre-Concert Lecture: The Scop's Song -- Denise Gallo, Music Division, Library of Congress, talks about the performance practice of the Anglo-Saxon poet-historian and his role as entertainer and keeper of tradition and culture.
This was somewhat disappointing. There wasn't much in the 30-minute lecture about scops that isn't covered in that one-sentence summary. It was a nice introduction to "Beowulf," Anglo-Saxon poetry, and a dab of history to help you appreciate the performance, but it was definitely at or below the "101" level. I'd been hoping for a more nuanced discussion of the scop and Bagby's performance.
Dinner: Burrito Brothers
There is very little to eat around Capitol Hill after 5pm, apparently. While burritos made with pot roast were tasty, they apparently encourage heartburn. :p
Beowulf
The main event! Definitely worth the time and trouble.
The physical presentation was simple enough. Bagby sits on a stool in front of a large screen, which will contain the Modern English transliterations of the Old English. (Before the concert, it read something like: "Please turn off all phones or face the wrath of Grendel's claw.") He was illuminated by some stage lights which occassionally cast his shadow onto the screen, projecting a faceless, timeless image of the scop. He does not perform in period dress, but in a classical musician's all-black garb.
The lighting did not (to my eyes) vary all that much. It dimmed after each "section" of the poem, and there was a pause while Bagby tuned (or retuned) his lyre. It changed from a brighter "white" light to a more claustrophobic yellow or reddish-yellow light during the night-time fight with Grendel, brightening again when the dawn came. Simple, but effective.
Bagby has clearly spent a lot of time learning how to be a storyteller as well as a musician. The exaggerated vocal delivery, gestures, and expressions are all things I've seen on the better storytellers I've had the priviledge to hear perform. His Unferth was clearly, obviously, drunk off his ass, and emerged as one of the most distinctive "voices" in the show.
As in "Rhinegold Curse" and "Edda," he switched freely between speaking, "heightened speaking," as he calls it, chanting and singing. In the post-concert Q&A, I managed to ask if he through-composed the music, or if he was improvising it (although I hestitate to call it that; it's not quite improv when you've done it for fifteen years). Indeed, there is no score for "Beowulf," no written music at all, just motifs and modes that he's developed over the years and which go "about this way." No two performances are meant to be identical.
As for the lyre, he's notorious for his tuning and technique - but he rocks it. He tunes pentatonically, which isn't documentable, while a hexachord tuning is. But the pentatonic tuning really does work for this kind of performance, and I imagine that Bagby has experimented with the other kind as well. On the one hand, just because it works and works more easily doesn't mean it was done that way. (Take guitar - the first people playing guitars and guitar-like instruments would be puzzled to see the chordal techniques most commonly taught today.) On the other hand, our documentation comes from a churchman, to a churchman, and it may well make more sense for a lyre used in a monastery, accompanying chants, to be tuned differently from a lyre in a more ancient mead-hall, accompanying verse.
Bagby almost exclusively strums his instrument, rather than use the "block and strum" technique that most Anglo-Saxon lyre researchers believe - from pictoral evidence - was used. His left hand holds the instrument upright, and his left thumb plays the upper two strings. The first three or four fingers on his right hand take care of the lower four strings. Melodic motifs seem to be associated with each section of the poem, as well as with various characters; he uses intervals or chords sparingly but to good effect.
I think it sounds awesome. My ear has never especially liked "block and strum," although I feel like I should give it the old college try... but a melodic approach makes sense to me as a harper.
Post-Concert Q&A
I wish this had been earlier and lasted longer, and that there had been more questions on how the performance was assembled, rather than who made his instrument or why it wasn't strung with gut. (He does use gut when he's in one place for a while, but while travelling and performing in halls of variable temperature and humidity, he prefers a modern synthe-gut. We covered this twice.)
I found it amusingly ironic that he does not strictly memorize his lyre accompaniment or his vocal stylings (although they are surely evolved to a stable, recognizable form), but he has strictly memorized the text. Of course, as he told us, he's not an Anglo-Saxon linguist and in fact gets coaching from experts on his pronunciation. I don't know if he speaks it, or if he's memorized the whole thing by rote.
