Questions set byParis Konstantinidis, musicologist
EMG: What did really push you to get involved with early music? Have you been influenced by your family or by your environment?
Angus Smith: There was no conscious decision on my part to become involved with early music. As a youngster my main musical activity was playing the trumpet and I found this a thoroughly rewarding experience. I played in a very good youth orchestra and by the age of 18 had already played symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Brahms, Sibelius, Shostakovich and others. That is an amazingly formative experience which has stood me well for all the music that I have been involved with.
It was around the age of 17 that I started to take singing seriously. I was awarded a choral scholarship at St. John's College, Cambridge; in singing with the choir there I joined a centuries old choral tradition and the discipline of singing services every day was a fantastic training for what I do now. I was also highly influenced by the inspirational leadership of the choir's director, Dr George Guest. The repertoire of the Oxford and Cambridge collegiate choirs, and indeed of the British cathedrals, is surprisingly wide, but the chances were that each week we would perform a lot of music by English renaissance composers (Byrd, Tallis, Gobbons, etc) as well as their European counterparts (Palestrina, Victoria, et al).
When I came to leave Cambridge and considered becoming a professional singer, it seemed as though the most dynamic and innovative area of performance was predominantly in the field of early music. This was at a time when the likes of Gardiner, Norrington, Parrott, Pinnock, Hogwood and others were coming into their prime, with a 'second wave' of Philips and Christophers coming through, to be followed by a new generation of McCreesh and King.
EMG: Apart from early music, do you listen to other genres of music? In which way are you affected by other genres that you listen to? Why do you believe that a contemporary listener could be emotive towards early music compositions?
Angus Smith: Very much so. As much as I love early music, I don't often find it relaxing to listen to music so closely connected to my professional life. I tend to like fairly safe pop music (Bj?rk, Coldplay, Kate Bush, etc) plus some contemporary and world music, but I don't generally get to choose my own sounds - my family take control of the CD controls if we are at home or in the car! We therefore get subjected to quite a lot of girl bands and Tchaikovsky ballet music!
EMG: What kind of studies have you undertaken in music? Where did you study? Who do you regard that played decisive role in developing your technique, your performance perspective and your greater musical perceptions?
Angus Smith: Perhaps strangely I have never done a lot of academic music study; at university I read history and this definitely has had a major impact on how I devise programmes for the Orlandos. However, while I was in higher education I did take regular lessons on vocal technique and after Cambridge I spent a year on the post-graduate singing course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. There were some fabulous coaches there for all manner of song styles - German lieder, French song, English song and so on. But there was also an extremely good early music department. Technically speaking I wasn't supposed to be part of that scene as the vocal department and early music department were entirely separate, but I used to wander along under my own initiative and had great coaching from Phil Pickett, Nigel North and David Roblou.
With regard to my own singing I would say that the most exciting lessons I ever had were with the wonderful Anthony Rolfe Johnson. It was always a thrill simply to sing in the same room as him and he is such a kind and thoughtful teacher. He is not always associated with early music, but hearing him sing Orfeo or the Evangelist in the Matthew Passion is an incredible experience. His approach reinforces my belief that one should not attempt to learn to sing with an 'early music technique'. I believe it is far better to learn to sing with a good technique and then use that technique to achieve the interpretation that you want.
EMG: Do you think that is preferable to use authentic (period) musical instruments or is it preferable to use modern relatives?
Angus Smith: Thankfully, as a singer, I don't have to address these precise questions very often! I have been struck though by the impact of period instrument orchestras on modern orchestras. If you hear baroque or classical repertoire played by 'modern' orchestras in the UK they almost always these days appear to be using stylistic methods employed by baroque bands even if they don't have the instruments. I feel this is a very healthy situation.
EMG: Do you believe that it is better to preserve the authenticity of compositions (Historically Informed Performance) or it's upon the artist to perform the way he/she feels better? What makes you believe that?
Angus Smith: With the repertoire that the Orlandos perform I feel that we have no option but to adopt an approach that embraces both these considerations. The music is generally so old (with our core repertoire we don't get much beyond around 1520) that there is only so much that we can employ form contemporary accounts - we work on such matters as tuning and pronunciation of the language, but beyond that we are obliged to use our instinct to guide us. While we regret that there is not more information available (some medieval CDs or a time-machine would help!) I must admit that it is fun that we have the freedom to make our own decisions.
EMG: Do you prefer to perform into historical venues than modern concert halls? How do you think the venue affects the audience, the musicians and finally the performance?
Angus Smith: Generally yes, but there are exceptions. There are some wonderful modern concert halls that suit our voices fantastically well and allow us to communicate very directly with our audience. Plus it is good to know that, when you are traveling around a lot, that at least sometimes there will be some purpose-built changing rooms and toilets!
But of course we are amazingly privileged to be able to work in magnificent historic venues around the world and it is bound to help our attempts to convey a convincing interpretation of a piece if the audience are listening to it in a building where the music and the architecture are contemporary with each other.
EMG: Which are your criteria on choosing a musical piece that you are going to perform? How do you manage to get the desirable result, in order to decrypt its musical sensitiveness?
Angus Smith: I feel that we are very lucky with the repertoire of the Orlando Consort; we span some 600 years of wonderful music with our core repertoire and yet so little of it has been performed in recent times. We don't have to feel constrained in any way by what other groups might be doing at the same time.
Nevertheless, we do believe that it is important to make some effort to present our concerts in a context that is welcoming to the audience. Even today, medieval music is not so familiar for many people, so the style and sound can often be a surprise for audiences and might even appear to be a little bit forbidding. While we already know that the music is great and can be enjoyed by just about everyone, audiences can appreciate having some guideposts to lead them through the experience. This is why we often employ themes for our concerts - in recent times these have included food, gardens, ambassadors, and so on - and try to ensure that the process is not a purely musical one, but also an experience in a wider context.
How do we get the desirable result? Well, we only achieve the result we look for by experience and practice. I hope this is the same as the 'desirable result'!
EMG: Music is an art that blossoms in time and space. The emotional state of the artist, the resonance of the room, the interaction of the performer with the audience... All the above elements compose the magic moment of the experience of a concert. Do you remember a concert during your career that holds a special place in your heart? Was there any special reason?
Angus Smith: This is a very difficult question. Of course we always try to make every concert special, but you are right that circumstances can contribute to the performance. In particular, I think that we do feed off the response we get from audiences - I am not sure that audiences always recognise this factor. If we can sense that they are really engaged in what we are doing and are enjoying the concert then this does act as a real encouragement. Audiences in the UK are amongst the most passive in the world - we are (generally) sure that they are having a good time, but they don't show this. In other countries there is a more tangible response and it really helps!
But as you ask me today for a single memory I will give you one response - this is the first one that comes to mind and on another day it might be a different answer. A couple of years ago we did a concert in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in the northern US. The programme was music by Perotin and anonymous composers form the Notre Dame school; the venue was a modern and unremarkable church. The element that made it so memorable was that we performed alongside 130 young people, aged 8 - 17. They came from three schools and colleges that we had been working with and they all came together for this presentation event. We had taught them a few medieval numbers and they all sang some plainchant. The sound was great but the really special element was their reaction. They had a completely brilliant time and some claimed that in a musical sense it was a life-changing experience. This affirmation that what we do is a worthwhile experience was a terrific boost for all of us in a middle of a long and arduous tour!
EMG: Nowadays, apart from live concert(s), there is the feature of recording and expanding the moment to eternity. Which is your latest CD? From which musical pieces is it consisted of and why did you choose those ones?
Angus Smith: Our latest CD is simply entitled 'Medieval Christmas'. It had been many years since we had done a project relating to the Christmas period and in the intervening years my colleague Donald Greig, who has devised the programme, had identified a lot of interesting new music.
As so often with our concert and recording projects, this theme also gave us an opportunity of being able to present a huge variety of music from a wide period of time under a single heading. The earliest music, from the Winchester Troper, is hard to date precisely but probably comes from the last quarter of the 10th century, and then we go right through to the early 16th century.
Although it is primarily intended as a Christmas CD, we hope that people will find it interesting and valuable as an introduction to a range of medieval and early renaissance styles.
EMG: What do you intent to present us from now on?
Angus Smith: Our next recording project takes us into territory that we have explored in concert before but not on disc. We are thrilled to have an opportunity to record the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut - to my mind it is one of the most extraordinary pieces of music from the entire history of western music! We feel that it is a piece that is almost 'without time' - yes, it may have been written in the 14th century, but it still sounds as bizarre and downright weird today as all those hundreds of years ago.
We are constantly trying to break down the notion that there is 'early music' and there is 'music' - we really don't like the way that many people try to categorise old music as something that is somehow separate from everything else and therefore only for the enjoyment of a select few people. That is a rather long-winded way of presenting our idea to record some modern music alongside the Machaut rather than pairing it with other medieval items. We have new pieces by Tarik O'Regan and Gavin Bryars - for the former we are to be joined by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Paul Hillier - and our strong belief is that this programming will demonstrate how old music and new music can co-exist and complement each other perfectly.
EMG: What are your suggestions - advices to young musicians who wish to start a career in Early Music?
Angus Smith: Some people are naturally great communicators; other people have to learn this skill. I consider that this is one of the most important qualities to possess as a musician as we are, ultimately, only acting as the conduit for a composers thoughts and it is our job to present the music to an audience. Of course, a lot of this process happens on the stage or in the recording studio, but it extends to such issues as how groups are formed and programmes devised.
More generally I have some concerns for the future of live music. Certainly in the UK it is much harder now for young people starting out to build a professional career (I could go into long and elaborate theories about this, but they almost all come down to the question of money) but I think we are so lucky to have a life in music that I would urge people to believe in themselves and hang in there!
EMG: Is there anything that you would like to propose concerning the future of early music scene? Do you have in mind any institutions that could assist to the expansion of early music audience(s) or to the improvement of musical education?
Angus Smith: Again, this is very general, but I do believe that while 'early music' has been a very successful growth area for the last 30 or 40 years, we are now experiencing certain problems because of the way this came about. I can only speak with any semblance of authority about the UK, but it feels as if too many barriers have been erected. It is common to hear such sentiments as "I like music but I don't like early music", thus discounting hundreds of years of music in a single sentence. But that is because there was a willingness to present it as something like a secret club that had to be discovered and that it was not entertainment for a general audience.
Now there are some wonderful groups around who are managing to persuade audiences that if you like Brahms it is also OK to like Dufay, and vice versa. To my mind this is the way we need to go in future. It is in no sense devaluing the work that has been done by excellent practitioners in the past, nor is there any need to compromise standards and values in early music. But if the business in general continues to present old music as something that is 'exclusive' then I fear that there will be troubled times ahead.
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