Sirens and Sarah Dunant at Latitude 2011

We were there as the backing band (according to the compère, we were “Sarah Dunant and the Sacred Hearts”) to a semi-staged reading of Sacred Hearts by Sarah herself, Niamh Cusack, Deborah Findlay and a lovely young actress from Cork, Molly Lynch. The stress leading up to the event was, at times, unspeakable – but, rather like childbirth, although I can remember the fact of the pain, the pain itself has already mercifully been blocked out. Days of communication failure, email/text badgering and panic invested in trying to sort out the sound requirements were ultimately wasted, as the sound guy had never been given the microphone plot, had an incomplete equipment list and arrived over half an hour late. Mobile phones – or at least my wretched O2 iPhone – were useless on site; performers had to battle uncomprehending minions who had not been warned of their need for early check-in; and it is a tribute to the resilience of the singers and the ever-serene Claire Williams that the performance went on at all. There was competition from the first sunshine in 24 hours, rap, techno, township jazz and, bizarrely, another female-voice chorus (albeit one that sings U2 covers), but in the end the performance was greeted with whistles and cheers of approval from a packed-out tent.

Nano-nun yarnbombing at Latitude 2011

It’s still hard to tell whether our appearance will have rewards beyond being able to say we did it – CDs sold like a hotcake (miserable festival organization left our merchandise selling-point well hidden, while the Comedy merchandise and signings took place outside the Literature Tent… go figure). But it was a nice day out, and we made a few people smile. And it could have been the first performance of Palestrina by an all-female ensemble in jilbabs, rosaries and wellies.

da Danilo: restaurant of dreams

I must admit, the coming months are still a little terrifying. In fact, I had a nasty moment as the plane was taking off on my way to Bologna, when I woke from dozing in a panic because I didn’t have the chittara. Which I didn’t need until the next trip…

In five days I’ll be flying out again, this time to do a shortened version of Sacred Hearts: The Musical at the East Cork Early Music Festival. Then back to Cork at the beginning of the last week of September to perform my external examiner duties (and briefly getting to enjoy the company of not one, but two, inestimable fellow hip and groovy female musicologists, Melanie Marshall and Bonnie Gordon). Later that week I officially begin my new role as director of postgraduate studies, or head of the graduate school, or some other title, which when confirmed will certainly be capitalized.

October begins with another Sacred Hearts in Warwick, and the following fortnight in Chester. Hoping that the new Simple Wimple will make at least the dressing up a little easier. Thank goodness for DIY hijab websites.

The next week (oh, how the diary is cruel, sometimes) Musica Secreta presents their new programme, Four Weddings and a Funeral, at the Brighton Early Music Festival. Oops, just realised I need to make a page for that on the website. Oh, no, something else to do! But what a programme it will be: we’re joined by Don Grieg and Mark Dobell for lots of wedding music for multiple Gonzagas and Medicis. Highlights will be “Giunto alla tomba” sung by Don as a solo aria, and Monteverdi’s sestina. The final wedding is, of course, celestial, so a cameo role for the wimples here, too. But – and who knows how this will turn out – we plan to end the programme with the blokes singing “Si ch’io vorrei morire” and the ladies singing the latin contrafactum “Oh Jesu mia vita.” May sound like a dog’s dinner, but life and death are often like that.

The next week is half term (are you keeping up?) which is always a barrel of laughs in terms of childcare, and then I’m off to AMS at Indianapolis to give a paper. Two weeks respite, then the whole famn damily for Thanksgiving (which will be lovely, don’t know WHY I even mention it). Somewhere in there, I may have to begin my Christmas shopping.

And finish my book.

Nice to be home?

…or so Sarah’s book is called in Italian. Over the last two days, every so often we’ve looked at each other and said, “I can’t believe this is happening,” or something similar. So many mind-bending instances that took both our experiences of Ferrara, as researchers/tourists/women, to a different level. The generosity of the Ferrarese is immense, and I have felt this when I’ve been there before, but this time I was an invited guest rather than a welcome outsider.

It seems everywhere we turned there was someone who had something new to show or tell us. As we stood in the lobby of the Ariostea, Elisabetta – one of the lovely women who welcomed us – gestured to a man bending over the catalogues and said, “This is the gardener at San Antonio in Polesine.” While I was talking to the librarians trying to find an elusive manuscript, I kept overhearing the most jaw-dropping nuggets of history that could only have been recounted by someone on the inside. And he complimented Sarah on getting her details almost completely right (one small quibble regarding the architecture, feh, but it was offered as an example of how well she really did). The next day we were strolling down the street, and Elisabetta called a fellow over and said, “Here’s the guy that knows most about the interior of Corpus Domini,” and he introduced himself as a graphics teacher in the school housed in a former wing of the convent. He’d made a DVD-rom on the artworks there, and promptly dashed off to get us a couple. The extraordinary Giuliana Berengan – author, playwright, literary activist, singer, personality – showed us around the shady but still airy fourteenth-century house where she was born and which has been in her family for centuries. We took pictures in the cloisters of San Antonio – something that is not normally allowed; we were fed specialties from the tradition of Jewish cooking in Ferrara by a woman who has done a great deal to record and conserve them. Elisabetta promised to look something up for me that I didn’t have time to pursue, and emailed me this morning with the references. All so generous, it’s really rather overwhelming.

At the session in the morning, in the courtyard of San Antonio, in front tof he President of the Provincia (finally, Elisabetta said, we have a woman as a President), chic in grey jeans and a bolero jacket, the Sindaco, a rather more traditional man, and Professoressa Berengan made a presentation to Sarah. Sarah prepared her speech in Italian, but then suddenly turned to me, and I spluttered along in a desperate and foolish way until I finally gave up and allowed Lucia Bevilacqua, the official interpreter, graciously to find the words for me. But I didn’t need her help to catch the Sindaco lauding Sarah as the next in an illustrious line of writers who have captured the soul of the city – Ariosto, Bassani, Dunant. It’s a measure of how much the city esteems the book already.

The view from my hotel window.

We had time then to think about what we have achieved (I feel slightly abashed here, but Sarah is adamant that this is all a joint effort) and we came to the conclusion that as much as we have tried to get right, there seems always more to know. But on the other hand, our distance from the culture can allow us to ask questions of the narrative that might not occur to us were we native Ferrarese.

As always, I’m sorry to come home to the wet and the cold, and Network Rail hasn’t helped the situation, making me nearly two hours later home than I would be if they could be bothered to do their job properly. But I’ll get there eventually.

I started by checking some stuff from my last visit that I felt I hadn’t transcribed quite properly (and I hadn’t) then, wondering what to do next, started leafing through an older catalogue of the manuscripts. Well, not so much a catalogue as a hundred-year-old Roneographed list of all the manuscripts in a haphazard order. I came across what looked to be a copy of a play (veglia) presented at a sixteenth-century Florentine convent, noted it down, and then in a completely different place found another manuscript by the same author with the title “Recreazione di monache.” Intrigued now, I ordered both of them, and then checked back in the main catalogue to see how they had been indexed. Neither were there. Drat, I thought, they’ve probably been lost. But no, they just hadn’t been indexed.

So, I opened the one called “Recreazione,” and I’m very glad I was sitting down and that the book was flat on the desk, as I didn’t want everyone to see that my hands had started shaking. On the front page, in her own handwriting (I can recognize it now) was, “Questo libro si è a me Margherita Duchessa di Ferrara.” As I compared the two, it seems that Margherita had been lent a book of about ten little Carnevale plays written by a Florentine nun, and was in the process of having it copied, as her own book contains just over three of them. Whether the original owner then gave her the book, or died, or she just decided to keep it, we will never know. But they ended up in the Estense library, and they clearly haven’t been looked at for many, many years.

Some of the musical interludes are well documented, and the props and costumes are vividly described. My favourite is the costume for a nun representing the canonical hour of Terce: a not-quite-teenager (fanciulletta alquanto maggiore) dressed in red, with red wings, with a card in her hand that bears the number “III,” and a garland of red violets. The numbered card is somehow so poignant. But don’t get the impression that these are “let’s do it in the barn” type productions – there are carriages, suns, moons, kings, queens, processions and presentations. And the book looks like it was compiled so that another convent could use it. So perhaps one of these was used for the presentatione that Margherita and Leonora d’Este went to see at San Vito in 1594? Hmmm? But the weirdest thing is that I kind of feel like I’m watching fiction being written backwards – so much of what Sarah wrote into Sacred Hearts is creeping into my book, almost like she dreamed it up and so it came into being.

I’ll be able to finish examining the book and describing its contents (can’t transcribe it all – well over 300 pages!) over the next few evenings as the library is open a few more hours than the archive. But the high doesn’t make it very easy to eat. Or wouldn’t normally – luckily I’m in Modena, so gastro-exuberance is a given. Tonight it was a risotto al radicchio Trevisiano with verdure alla griglia. I took pictures but they didn’t come out well. Cooked radicchio actually doesn’t look that appetising, but it was delicious, both in the risotto and straight off the grill, drizzled with aceto (balsamic vinegar). Here, they have vinegar on everything – on pasta, on meat, even on ice cream. Yes, you heard. Well, maybe I’ll have the courage to try it by the end of the week. Right now, there are so many butterflies in my stomach I dare not challenge it with something quite so radical. Oh, and, of course – instead of Padre Pio, there was Luciano again, beaming down on my dinner wishing me buon appetito! Viva Modena!

Archive tomorrow, and we’ll see if the angel still has gifts to bestow.

But the reason I know that the AA is still with me is that when chasing a little more information on the gruesome murder of yesterday, I came across something I really, no REALLY, didn’t expect. While there were no letters from or to the dead girl’s immediate family, apart from a very entertaining narration of how her dad came to get married in Rome after being beaten to a pulp by his rival suitor, there was a document about yet another daughter of the family, who was a novice at San Vito in 1572. Quite a sad tale, really, as it is a record of questioning regarding her illicit lover, one Biagio Muradore, who got her up the duff. She begged not to be sent to prison, and really you do feel quite sorry for her, but I couldn’t suppress a snort when I got to the punch line. “And the Inquistor asked, ‘Where does Biagio live?’ ‘I think he’s from San Giovanni Battista, next to the suore convertite [the reformed prostitutes’ convent].’” I could hear somewhere faintly, “Grazie. Sto quì per la settimana.”

The exciting musicological thing about this document, though, is that it names another nun at the convent, who just happens to be cited as an excellent organist in another source, well known to those who have an interest in Ferrarese nuns. But she has been assumed (by some) to be a he, as her name is extremely close to that of male Ferrarese musician. Now I know she’s a she, and she’s real, so all those that assumed that the nuns at San Vito were taught by an imported bloke, think again.

So not even an uncharacteristically bobbins commute back to Parma, waiting on the platform for nearly an hour as the delays got longer and longer, could put paid to my good mood. And I had a good novel, too – my Christmas present from my brother-in-law, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, by Giorgio Bassani. As it’s set in Ferrara, I suppose I should be reading it there, but whatever. It’s a beautiful book, noble and sad.

Clearly, the Italians have the right attitude to writers, though. As I turned to get off the train I saw this sign:

Give us your poetry!!

Can you imagine a British press doing this kind of thing? Advertising for poetry manuscripts on the train? Or an academic press, soliciting on the Underground? Shaking my head in wonderment, I strolled back down the Via Garibaldi, stopping to buy a huge hunk of cheese to take back to Son No 2. I’ve failed utterly to find him a Parma jersey, but hopefully will be able to pick one up when I come back next month. After all, what are these trips for?

downstairs at the Biblioteca Estense

I found out more about the murder, which was distressing in the detail, but (if I’m honest) had a touch of A Fish Called Wanda about it, in that they tried three or four times to do the poor girl in before they were successful. They being a Ferrarese nobleman and his servant, apparently acting under the influence of the nobleman’s “femina” (I suppose, mistress?) who is reported to have been Very Old, i.e. 45 years. It also has a touch of Bones in there, too, as it looks like the Princess Lucrezia ordered a clandestine post mortem and had the body exhumed in the dead of night from its tomb in the cathedral to establish cause of death. How cool is that?

Plus I found a list of the ducal support for Corpus Domini, and blimey, they got through a lot of food. 200 eggs at a time, pounds and pounds of fish and veal (although not during lent), figs, eels, pears, you name it – or not, there is stuff I’ve never heard of. They were seriously, seriously rich for a mendicant order. And I now know that everyone hated the Bishop Fontana of Ferrara. But I’m a bit bored of endless chronicles, so I might get started at the Archivio di Stato tomorrow, which will stand me in good stead for when I come back next month. That way I know I will hit the ground running in the second stint.

I am really looking forward to staying in Modena, for once. The train is easy and relatively cheap, but it would be nice just to roll out of bed and into the sala di consultazione. It seems like such a cool town. When I was in San Severo, much further down south, a couple of years ago for a conference on nuns, everywhere – and I mean everywhere – had pictures of Padre Pio, on the wall, in windows, on banners, posters, whatever. In Modena, however, they have different priorities. OK, Padre Pio does look a lot like the legendary bass, Feodor Chaliapin, but Luciano is the real deal. The poster says, “Grazie, maestro.” Aw.

But here I am, back in Parma for another meal, this time at the Trattoria Corrieri. Time for tris di tortelli, which is a triple combination of spinach, mushroom and pumpkin pasta parcels. The pumpkin tortelli have more citrus to them here than those in Ferrara and Mantua, which is great, but I miss the sage on top, ubiquitous in those cities further east. The insalata mista was right on the money, though, with only winter leaves – lambs lettuce, baby radicchio, rocket. Their sharpness was perfect to cut through the pint of butter on the pasta.

One more whole day, then an extra half day before I start the long trek back. I almost feel like I’m on information overload, but at least I know that I have now have my own story to tell about these wonderful ladies.

Yesterday I went to the Biblioteca Palatina, which is housed in the imposing and bleak Palazzo della Pilotta.

The Pilotta in winter

So, annoyed and very, very cold, I slunk back to my hotel room and hid under the covers, fully clothed, until I could get something to eat at a favorite bar down the road. Risotto con zucca e gorgonzola (pumpkin and blue cheese), which was gorgeously sticky and hot, and a glass of Parma’s best Lambrusco – it’s not cheap and nasty here, kids, it is softly fizzy, almost with a Guinness-like head, delicately blackcurranty and wonderful.

This morning I got up bright and early, and fuelled with one of Parma’s best croissant marmellata, I took the train to Modena and got to the Biblioteca Estense as it opened at 8.30. And with every book I ordered and then opened, I found new treasures, not to mention the value added by the fact that they let me photograph two whole books of polyphony which would have cost me 200 euros if I’d ordered digital reproductions from the UK. I found books dedicated to nuns; I found what appears to be another murdered singer, this time from the group assembled by Lucrezia d’Este; a man executed, executed for interfering with the good sisters, and to cap it all, a suggestion that the ladies of the concerto delle dame hung out in convents at the whim of the Duchess of Ferrara.

Quinto, Cara la vita mia

So I guess I owe another big thank you to Sarah, without whom I might never have really got off the ground with my Ferrarese nuns. Ta, love, I’m having the time of my life again!

I’m hoping against hope that the weather will abate by Friday, as Deb and I had finally got it together to ask for administrative help from the choir, and we were due to have our first meeting on Friday. Said help is now critical, as the Sacred Hearts bandwagon could turn into a juggernaut, if all goes well. The book has been chosen for Channel 4′s new book club, which is the successor to Richard and Judy’s book club. Apparently, R&J had a reputation for making their authors into millionaires. Who knows if this club will do the same, but as the purveyors of the “official soundtrack” (as some reviewers have called it), we had better be ready.

I have to say, I am prouder of Sacred Hearts, Secret Music than I am of anything I’ve yet done. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, particularly approving of our approach of mixing professional and non-professional voices. And all the anti-female-voices flak that I expected didn’t materialise, even given that most of the disc is devoted to Palestrina. Who knew? The Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice was the icing on the cake. I had to buy an issue in Gatwick Airport as I was on my way to Italy. I wanted to show it to everyone in the departure lounge, “See that? That’s me, that is!”

But there is still so much to do. We’re looking to tour a costumed show, something like we did at Sarah’s book launch at the South Bank, but expanded to a full evening. We have our first outing at the Brighton Fringe on May 3, and hopefully more will come in soon. Having Sarah as the reader will undoubtedly help; she is so charismatic, and audiences love her. Aren’t we lucky that she is so happy to have dozens of wannabe-nuns hanging on her extensive coattails!

I’m not, however, looking forward to making more habits and props. Or booking rehearsals. Or doing the accounts. Hence the need for help – and our lovely Sirens have rallied round. It would be amazing to see this choir able to launch itself with this opportunity as a springboard. We can’t lose sight of the fact that once the project is over, we will be back to Square One, looking for more programmes and more gigs.

And I will, of course, have to work out how to juggle more performances, work, research, family and the all-important sports-taxi job (although Son No 1 is now learning to drive, and I could trade use of the car for him taking responsibility for getting his brother to and from his myriad weekly training sessions and matches. Oh. Did I hear someone say, “In your dreams!”?).

Basta. Time to load the washing machine again and tend to the chapter, with another cup of tea.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ferrara’s city administration has decided to provide free wi-fi in its city centre – a group of piazzas surrounding the castle and cathedral – to anyone who signs up. Excellent! No matter if it’s slower than a slow thing on a slow day (I was about to say “than an Italian archivist’s response,” but that’s not fair as I have been granted the most helpful archivisti imaginable on this trip), it’s still a connection and it’s free. Thus, although I am writing this in the privacy of my hotel room, if it ever makes it to my blog, it will be because I have trolled my computer down into town before dinner. (Ed – and I have, so I’m uploading this from the steps of the cathedral).

But I will have to get my feet out of the bidet first. There seems to be no escaping sore feet, even this early in the trip. When I’m on a research trip I tend to walk everywhere, not just because I like taking in the city but also because it’s the only practical way to get around when you don’t understand the buses/trams and can’t/won’t afford taxis. In some ways, I’d rather be this cat, although I wonder if it is able to retain its relaxed demeanor when the car engine starts.

Nonetheless, the walking is a pleasure, especially when there’s nothing else to do because the archives have closed for the afternoon. Strolling (well, hobbling) down to the convent of Sant’Antonio in Polesine with Sacred Hearts, Secret Music in my ears – yes, I do listen to it, a lot – I started really to understand why nuns’ choirs would be such an asset to the city. I think it has something to do with the impression of altitude, something to lift the soul up and over the morass of dark alleyways and fetid sewers. Boys’ voices haven’t the strength to bear you; women’s have the power and depth to envelop you whole and transport you safely, even if your aching feet are most firmly pounding the cobblestones.

But our friend here seems to be wishing for what most of his mind-set call a “definitive version” of a work – that is, a recorded performance that cannot be bettered. And that “bettered” is normally pretty loaded with intimations of composer intention – the Holy Grail of a performance, after which the composer would have said, “That’s it!! You’ve understood everything I meant to say in this music, and you’ve communicated it as clearly and as eloquently as if it had been transmitted directly from my own consciousness into the listeners’ ears. No performance, before or since, will be quite as valid as this one.”

After one more drink, I might have said this was b…., um, but I’ve only had two, so it will have to be “claptrap.” Quite apart from the fact that his beef seems to be the fact that the bass line isn’t sung at pitch (ho hum, the harmony isn’t inverted, and the voice, albeit transposed, is still in the polyphony – Palestrina and all his chums wouldn’t have batted an eyelid – THE MUSIC IS NOT TO BE HEARD OR UNDERSTOOD VERTICALLY!!!), I cannot imagine any Renaissance composer, from Arcadelt to Zarlino, who would have any comprehension of such a notion.

In the 1500s, composition – at least, the written working out of musical ideas – was quite a different pursuit to performance. What went down on paper was just one, just one, amongst myriad possibilities for the performance of a work. The idea that you could condense the best qualities of all those versions into one monumental performance would have be preposterous.

I realise that a generous, open-minded and universal reception/acceptance of non-score-bound performances of Renaissance polyphony is kind of like full employment – a nice idea, but I won’t see it in my lifetime. But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish people would just go with the flow, and let their Ramellian prejudices float away on a crest of really beautiful, voice-led polyphony. I spent most of my teens and twenties in a love-affair with bass lines (and, truth be told, bass players). But then I grew older and realised that there is a false security in foundations, at least when it comes to polyphony. The vertical warp is there for organisation, but the beauty of the fabric comes from the weft.