Tag: Trio Mediæval

A Quantum Of Lunchtime Solace With Trio Mediæval At the Wigmore Hall, 4 July 2022

Picture by Tore Sætre, CC BY-SA 4.0

Blooming heck this was a great lunchtime concert. It is well described on the Wigmore Hall site – click here.

The above picture is somewhat deceptive, as only two members of the Trio are permanent members, the singer in the centre of the picture, wonderful though she might be, is Torunn Østrem Ossum, not Jorunn Lovise Husan.

We have seen the former perform with the Trio – click here for my article on that concert.

The latter is, it seems, a singer who lunches, in that she was also the third singer when we last saw Trio Mediæval do a lunchtime concert at Wigmore Hall, some four years ago:

Trio Mediaeval, Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, 17 September 2018

They are supremely talented singers who fill that hall with a wonderful sound and a charming vibe. They sing with smiles on their faces. They make supremely difficult singing look almost effortless. It really was a joy to see them again.

This concert was based on their latest album, Solacium, which is centred around traditional Norwegian and Estonian-Swedish lullabies and hymns. It includes some modern works by Anders Jormin, Andrew Smith and Marianne Reidarsdatter Eriksen, all of which felt very much in keeping with the early music nature of the programme.

It was a BBC Radio 3 lunchtime concert, so if you are reading this article reasonably fresh (i.e. during July 2022) you can hear the whole concert on BBC Sounds – click here.

Beyond that date, I believe you can watch (and hear) the concert from the Wigmore Hall live library. I’m not sure if you need to be a registrant, a member or if it is just available to all-comers. (We are members). Here is the link to the Wigmore Hall vid, where you can spot the back of my head (and Janie’s) in the front row without too much difficulty.

It’s just a shame there were not more people in the hall to enjoy this wonderful music live.

Trio Mediaeval, Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, 17 September 2018

I’m a big fan of this troupe. This is, I think, the third time we’ve seen them perform live, by which I mean we’ve seen them at least twice before…

…most recently at one of those late night concerts about three years ago…

Aquilonis, Trio Mediæval, Wigmore Hall Lates, 24 July 2015

…and before that a wonderful concert at the end of the last decade, at which I bought one of their CDs, Words Of The Angel, which we listen to quite often and which I thoroughly recommend:

Fragments – A Worcester Ladymass, Trio Mediæval, Wigmore Hall, 13 December 2009

But back to the here and now – this 2018 lunchtime concert. This is one of those BBC lunchtime jobbies, so we were in the extremely capable hands of Sara Mohr-Pietsch. Sara stewards these lunchtime concerts with such gentle, kind authority and efficiency, it makes one wonder whether she should be running the country. I suppose the country is a slightly tougher gig, but it could sure use some of the positive characteristics I have just described.

I have previously introduced Trio Mediæval as the Bananarama of mediaeval girl groups. Much like that 1980s pop trio, Trio Mediæval (a product of the 1990s as it happens) seems to have two stable members plus one newbie each time we see them.

The consistent pair are Anna Maria Friman (from Sweden) and Linn Andrea Fuglseth (from Norway), whereas the newbie this time was Jorunn Lovise Husan.

If Anna Maria and Linn Andrea were to pair up with a couple of Swedish blokes, I could start describing them as the Abba of mediaeval vocal music, which might be an even more marketing-friendly epithet. A thought for the girls to ponder, no doubt.

And thoughtful they are. They sing with smiles on their faces. They sing like people who absolutely know and love what they are doing. You sense that there is deep scholarship about mediaeval music in their work, yet also the willingness to adapt, experiment and make the music accessible to modern audiences.

This concert was a mixture of early English chants and motets, plus traditional folk songs from Norway and Sweden. It reads like an odd mix but actually worked very well. It has, each previous time, been a joy to attend their concerts and this one was certainly no exception.

Lulled into a blissful sense of security, Janie lulled me into a gentleman’s outfitters afterwards, helping me to spend far too much money upgrading my rather tired wardrobe. Anyone fancy some second hand jackets and trousers from the Bananarama and/or Abba era?

But I digress.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource for this concert.

If you want to listen to the whole concert and are hitting this page within 30 days of the broadcast, you are in luck. Here is a link to the BBC iPlayer recording.

If you have missed it or only want to here a snippet or two, here is some of the Worcester Ladymass material we heard:

…and here is a link to a Scandinavian folk song, although not one they sang at this concert:

Aquilonis, Trio Mediæval, Wigmore Hall Lates, 24 July 2015

Trio Mediæval are the Norwegian early music answer to Bananarama. Need I say more?

We’d seen them at the Wigmore Hall before, bought one of their albums and everything.

Now they were back for one of those midsummer Wigmore Lates, to perform Aquilonis: a musical journey from Iceland to the Mediterranean via the coasts of Scandinavia and England.

Click here for the Wigmore Hall Stub for the concert.

They were also to be followed in the bar by live music (unspecified on the site). I have a funny feeling none emerged that evening, although there might have been a combo who played without handing out any notes.

We arranged to go and see the Sonia Delaunay at the Tate Modern earlier – click here for that piece – then eat at the Tate Modern, then leg it back across town.

What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. That’s the simple answer. The logistics and timings worked perfectly.

The Trio Mediæval concert was delightful. Not as jaw-droppingly wonderful as the “Words of the Angel” concert we saw some years ago; that album – click here – we still listen to a lot. But still delightful.

 

Fragments – A Worcester Ladymass, Trio Mediæval, Wigmore Hall, 13 December 2009

Trio Mediæval by Tore Sætre, CC BY-SA 4.0

Trio Mediæval, the Bananarama of high quality mediaeval singing, bowled us over with this concert in late 2009. Three Scandanavian sopranos who sing beautifully and look like they are having fun doing so.

This is what we saw:

I have managed to find, on YouTube, a fragment of Trio Mediæval singing some of these fragments, albeit singing them somewhere other than the Wigmore Hall.

It should give you an idea of what we heard:

After the concert I bought their album, Words Of The Angels – we listen to it quite often it is so lovely.

Janie and I were not yet daunted by the dread of going up west that close to Christmas (to be fair, Sunday evening is probably as tolerable as it gets), so we booked this concert for mid December and I’m so glad we did.

A very memorable and enjoyable evening; we also enjoyed a Monday off  work the next day.