Q & A with baroque violinist Rachel Podger
Rachel Podger played in the first Live from London - Christmas concert with VOCES8
Violinist Rachel Podger performed with VOCES8 in the first of the month-long Live from London - Christmas season available now online.
Rachel's concert appearance is available now until 6 January 2021. Visit the Live from London website to buy your ticket and discover more information about the rest of the season.
We spent a little time with Rachel to find out about her studies, her recollections of the baroque music world when she was first starting out, and find out more about the VOCES8 concert programme.
Tell us about what the music world was like when you were studying baroque violin at the Guildhall School of Music?
It was the new new thing. It was so exciting. And it really felt like it kind of, in a way it felt like an exciting underground movement that you couldn't really talk about. Slightly secretive. And I remember, you know, having my baroque violin in a separate case to my modern violin, and being embarrassed that I had my baroque violin with me because it wasn't really an accepted thing to do at the time.
But there were also you know, in the in the in modern instrument world, there was a little bit of a kind of disdain. Back then there was this sense from some that you only really picked up a baroque instrument if you hadn't really made it on the modern violin.
Things changed in my perception when I happened to take part in a competition at the Guildhall School of Muisc. It was a an internal student prize - it was called the Bach Prize. It sounds so huge, isn't it? LAUGHS I'd been interested in the style of performance practice for a very long time since I was teenager. And so I thought, well, I'm just going to this competition. I'm gonna make a point of doing this. I was very nervous. I was up against all these amazing kind of virtuosos. Anyway, I just went in. I had nothing to lose really. And went and won it! I was really shocked!
What were baroque musicians like at that moment in time - right at the beginning of that sudden new interest in baroque performance.
So there were definitely two camps. There were the ones who took it incredibly seriously, really pioneering people who really knew what they were talking about. And, and for them, playing baroque instruments was like a vacation. A bit like a kind of religion even. They had a very strong desire to uncover the truth.
I thought there was a kind of insecurity there and possibly also, from some parts of the early music movement, about 'authentic performance. Perhaps there was a kind of touch of arrogance: 'this is this is this is our music, and we know exactly how this works, and it might be completely out of tune, but it you know, it's it's authentic.'
And how did that shift and change over time?
It was something that shifted over the generations, I guess. When people started accepting it. I think the accepting of historically informed performance started when it was kind of okay for symphony orchestras, again, to play baroque repertoire again, which they now. Because for when baroque performance had got underway, there was an assumption by the symphony orchestras that 'we can't play that because the baroque musicians do that'. When symphony orchestras started playing baroque music again that's when the shift had occured.
Tell us about the concert you've appeared in at the beginning of Live from London - Christmas?
It's a lovely programme I think. The concert is based around the guardian angel.
There's a kind of beautiful juxtaposition between between pieces that VOCES8 sing and the solo violin music that I play. It was an idea to that came from Barney at VOCES8, a few years back, after he'd heard my album release back then called Guardian Angel. On it there's this beautiful piece by Bieber - I don't know whether you you're familiar with it, but it's a very beautiful solo violin piece called Passacaglia. It has the same same bass line going all the way through it - just four notes. It's very easy to improvise on. It's one of those pieces that is very meditative, because the bass line is a repeating pattern. But there's also great excitement. It's also quite picturesque, because it because it's got lots of facets that go up so you can kind of see the angel flying up or rescuing someone from the traffic.
I think it just really talks to lots of different kinds of people because because there's there's the storyline, but there's also the the kind of meditative aspect, and I think it's very accessible. And it's just very beautiful.
There's some beautiful Christmas carols by Pretorius. Lots of German ones as well. And but then it goes through the ages as well, so we also include some music by Mendelssohn too. And then we've got some new music from Gesualdo Six's Owain Park. It's called, Antiphon for the Angels. And it's really beautiful. For me it was a bit of a departure to suddenly be playing contemporary music. At least not for solo violin and a whole lot of singers, because as a musician you haven't got an anchor - normally I'll have a cello as a kind of a baseline to anchor your sound into. And it's very different when you're doing that with voices.
Playing the baroque violin is something which has been really important to you all of your life? If you had to thank your violin for what it has provided you with, what would you thank it for?
Oh, gosh. I that's very interesting question.
I think for showing me how deep a kind of that string sound can get you, and how expressive, and what kind of stories that a gut string sound can tell.
How to watch the VOCES8 'Live from London - Christmas' concerts
To find out more about Rachel Podger's concert appearance with VOCES8 visit the Live from London - Christmas website.