by Rod Parke - SGN A&E Writer

Sequentia
at Early Music Guild
January 23rd
Town Hall

The Early Music Guild spent $2,000 to install supra-titles at its latest concert at Town Hall. Not too many of us in the audience would have made much sense out of an evening of early Icelandic without them. How I wish all recitals and vocal concerts would do the same!

This performance by Sequentia, The Rheingold Curse: A Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda, was more theatrical than a mere concert. Out of complete darkness, first came the piercing cries of a tiny flute made from a swan's bone. Revolving modal melodies cut the darkness and were soon joined by a powerful soprano, who appeared as the stage lights gradually rose, dressed in a fashion that suggested ancient but elaborate garb. Eventually, a second female voice stepped out from behind the first and joined her with deep-voiced harmonies (often in parallel fifths). Clearly, we were in for an evening quite unlike any other ever seen at Town Hall!

Sitting in the dark, the audience had no trouble seeing the excellent supra-titles, thus finding its way via modern technological magic to the sense of the ancient story being sung.

Sequentia, performing for more than 30 years, was led by co-founder Benjamin Bagby, who soon appeared in dark modern dress, playing a six-stringed lyre and singing with such force that one was hard-pressed to distinguish between song and speech. All three voices were of Wagnerian strength, such as to brook no inattention to this version of the same story as Wagner's RING. The names were slightly different; the manner was entirely different; and different weight was given to certain elements of the story. But among the sources were those used by Wagner, lending a familiarity and highlighting the even greater brutality of this more ancient version.

The instruments included the aforementioned tiny flute as well as larger wooden ones, two lyres, a fiddle (modeled after one of the earliest depictions of a fiddle in Europe), and a large caribou-skin frame drum of traditional NW Kwakiutl culture (British Columbia). With these meager resources, the three singers and two instrumentalists kept the audience spellbound for an uninterrupted 90 minutes.

Elaborate and very readable program notes described the meticulous scholarship that went into trying to piece together, from widely ranging sources, how these ballads might have been sung in ancient Icelandic culture. The early materials are so sketchy for this verbal tradition that no one can say just how close Sequentia might have come, but there was no denying the power and appeal of this modern presentation. Response from the audience could not have been more enthusiastic.

Long live supra-titles!

Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at rmp62@columbia.edu.

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