What a spectacular musician and performer Lucy Shelton is. She has been performing (“living” seems more appropriate) Schoenberg’s song cycle Pierrot Lunaire for more than 20 years, and with 8bb she performed a staged version of the work several times last season. I feel incredibly lucky to be performing this justifiably canonic masterpiece this season, just once in an unstaged version at Colgate University in Hamilton NY on 11 February.
Together, 8bb and LS’s musical interpretation is unified, precise and mature: it exploits, explores and sometimes exaggerates the passion, drama, cabaret, melancholy and nostalgia of the piece. Lucy, who will be seated for the performance, enters the character of Pierrot fully: she sways, heaves, rants, cajoles, defies and seduces the audience.
As the newbie, fitting into this experienced team last week, and rehearsing the work mostly from memory, was nerve-jangling to say the least (I was a bit of a sweating wreck at the end of each rehearsal), but it was a fascinating and tremendously satisfying, if short, period.
I was however reminded of the usual modus operandi when working with singers: play as bloody soft as you can. All of the time. This was especially necessary in the Roberto Sierra folk song arrangements we are also performing with Lucy (second time for the group, first time for her). Why does an experienced composer like Sierra seem totally unaware of the balance problems encountered when pitting six instruments playing a marked forte against a singer in an awkward register? Despite this, the pieces are fascinating, allowing us to explore quarter tones as a way to give the music more of an authentic folky roughness (in other words, as a tool for good instead of evil).
Hanging out socially with this contemporary music legend was also fascinating: hearing stories of Carter, Knussen, Wuorinen; learning about new exciting projects; realizing that it is possible to lead an uncompromising musical life singing the music of our time. Then seeing her with a beer moustache. Beer is a great leveller.
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